Pieces of an SR-71 Blackbird I found in the Nevada desert

Some black painted skin, some pieces with the red fuel tank sealant, some gold foil, mostly aluminum but also a good amount of titanium. Nothing with serials, unfortunately.

I was given the site location by a fellow Blackbird enthusiast after I had posted about having seen every SR-71/A-12/YF-12 on display. He opened with "Here's one out there you haven't seen!"

The crew ejected safely, so its not a grave site. The crash was in 1967, caused by an inertial navigation system failure. The plane crashed nearly vertically, making a huge crater. The USAF used a bulldozer to make path out to the crash, but it is not clear how much debris they attempted to recover. It seems that they just pushed the bits into the crater and buried the wreckage. However...

.... the site has obviously been disturbed recently. Before my visit I looked the site up on Google Earth and it was a completely non-descript patch of desert with plants and erosion visible. But when I arrived, the entire site had been recently disturbed. No sign of plants, and tons of track marks. The site is fairly well known but truly in the middle of nowhere; most of the drive is navigating dry creekbeds until you get to the bulldozer path. Someone definitely dug the crash site up with a small excavator or backhoe. Makes me wonder who has the wreckage now... someone with 1/3 of an SR-71 crumpled up in their garage...