High above Maine’s Swedish Colony in Aroostook County late one evening in the summer of 1951, 1st Lt. Leonard Levin Jr. engaged in simulated air combat.
With a member of the 74th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron on his tail, Levin — in a F-86E Sabre that took off from Presque Isle Air Force Base — performed a maneuver known as a split S at 10,000 feet, rolling his jet upside down before diving vertically in a half-loop to evade pursuit.
The move worked, and soon he was the aggressor. But a maneuver from the opposing pilot forced Levin to again defend.
He attempted another split S maneuver, this time below 6,000 feet, but couldn’t recover. Levin’s jet slammed into a heavily wooded area in Stockholm and exploded, killing him.
While larger portions of the plane were recovered by the Air Force, much of it remains 74 years later, shredded metal scattered throughout a cedar swamp. A piece of an engine compressor here, the remnants of a wing there.
Since then, the crash site has remained a relatively unknown Cold War relic, hiding under dense tree cover. But a local Scout is attempting to change that, building an access way to the area with bog bridges and trail markings as his Eagle Scout project.
On a recent day in mid-August, Landin Spooner, a 17-year-old senior at Caribou High School and member of the Woodland-based Scouts BSA Troop 186, hauled 50 planks milled from cedar logs into the swamp with the help of family and friends to construct the walkways.
It was the biggest moment in a project two years in the making.
“[It’s great to be] able to access it and just being able to learn a cool part of history that no one knows about,” Spooner said during a Labor Day visit to the site. “I know people who have heard about the crash, but have never been able to find it.”
Now there are several painted “Plane Crash” signs, made by local resident Brent Johnson as a part of the project, on the miles of logging roads leading to the site, and a ramp leading from the road onto the trail.
The easiest way to get to the crash site is via Sullivan Road, an Irving Woodlands logging road roughly 2.5 miles north of Madawaska Lake on state Route 161. After several miles on Sullivan Road, take a right onto Deschene Road, which is not listed on most maps but is located around mile marker 40 on Sullivan Road. The site is a few miles down Deschene Road, near mile marker 4. There are two areas to pull off in the direct vicinity of the site so as to not block the road for passing logging trucks.
And in the woods, where deep mud and streams make the area difficult to traverse, walkways make the hike easy, turning what was previously a laborious effort into a roughly 10-minute trek.
“Before, you’d be sinking knee deep in mud. It’s not a fun time,” Spooner said. “We did our big work weekend during this big drought and we were still getting soaked. When it was done I had mud above my ankles.”
Among the wreckage in the swamp are sections of the plane’s fuselage skin, parts of landing gear tires and pieces of the cockpit floor.
One section of the wing contains a chunk of the Air Force National Star Insignia, represented by a white star within a blue circle. Nearly all of the pieces are in good condition from the shade of the trees above and because most are made of aluminum alloy, which does not rust.
Looking upward, Spooner pointed out trees with sections broken off, likely casualties of shrapnel from the crash.
“You look at some of the trees and you can see where they’re broken off and they’re dead,” he said. “That’s from the crash.”
Around 30 people in total helped with the effort, which is now in its final stages, as Spooner eyes reaching Scouts BSA’s top rank, the culmination of a program that has occupied much of his life and prepared him, he said, for the future.
“[It has given me] a better work ethic for sure,” Spooner said. “Scouts is really about teaching children about how to grow up to be functioning adults.”
As Spooner himself nears adulthood — and the completion of a project deep in the woods of Aroostook County — he’s aiming for a career in forestry.