A friend of mine, a park walker, was using the Lower Meramec Park Trail yesterday with her dog.  She suddenly heard a whoosh and a call to brace.  Looking ahead from her position at the posted coordinates, she saw a small flying sleigh approaching from the East.  She was quite shocked at such an unusual sight. It entered the woods and then there was a thunk and a secondary impact sound farther into the woods to the west.  Running forward she looked into the woods and saw the sleigh had come to a sudden stop atop a small dead tree trunk.  To her surprise there was no one around.  Who had made the call to brace?  She called me and gave me some hurried information.  Since I am involved in aviation she thought that I might have information that might help.  I went right over there not at all processing this flying sleigh thing.  She clearly believed that she had seen something unusual.

She met me in the parking lot when I arrived.  We hurried to the low water bridge - the posted coordinates - where she had seen the sleigh enter the woods.  Noticeable there is a single black and yellow warning sign on the far end of the bridge.  I asked her to describe what she had seen.  She did so and said that she thinks it must still be in the tree.  She repeatedly asked how could such a sleigh have been flying?  There was no visible means of propulsion.

I saw that the first low water bridge from the parking lot has three warning posts.  From the single sign on the far side of the bridge (Posted Coordinates) we proceeded approximately 40 to 50 steps farther along the trail and she said this where the sleigh went in.  I proceeded into the woods another 20 to 30 steps to the impact site.  That was where the sleigh had been stopped by a broken off tree trunk.  I performed a quick search and saw that there had been a falling tongue, a post, for an animal team or some propulsion equipment.  That tongue was now missing.  The sleigh had what was obviously flight test equipment installed in he cargo space.  There was a space for a flight data recorder - a black box - and when I inspected the sleigh it was missing.  The space for the black box was cylindrical and quite large by comparison to size of the sleigh.  This sleigh is clearly a prototype for a future model.  I have seen black boxes many times.  Navy fighters eject the black box upon contact with salt water.  That does explain what happened here.  I think the mount failed and it was mistakenly separated.  I saw all this and we headed to the library to look into what we had found.  When we returned a few hours later I checked the sleigh again.  All the flight test equipment had been removed and the sleigh was abandoned in place.  Someone had visited the crash since my departure.  I guess that I should have stayed at the scene.  I performed a quick search for the still missing black box but it was getting dark and I had no practical way to search in the dark.  I figure if I could get a few folks together in the morning, we could perform a search for it.

I posted this request for help and I am glad you had agreed to help with the search for the crew and the black box.  It would help us to identify to the proper authorities what had happened.  It is likely the crew, if they survived the impact, could still be in the woods along with the black box.  I think the crew did survive and they concealed the black box as it was so large.  They must have returned to the sled and removed any identifiable equipment.  I suggest that we follow the flight path and find any clues that might lead to its discovery.  From the low level and flight path, I suggest that it must be from 20 to 60 yards farther along the same flight path. There is no chance it went farther than 60 yards from the impact site.  The fan out search pattern would be relatively narrow and should make the search a quick one.  I think we can rule out any reason to search over the creek to the right of the search area. Look for and report any efforts by the crew to recover and conceal the black box.  I marked the coordinates of the sleigh to be at the reference point.  It is pretty easily seen from the trail without GPS.  As the black box has not been located, I have no GPS coordinates to provide.  Thank you for volunteering to help us to find it.  Please record and report your findings in the electronic log below.  Please be sure to return any equipment exactly as found so that the accident investigators can see it as you had found it.

Lower Meramec Park is a Saint Louis County Park.  The posted park hours are 8 AM to 30 minutes past Sunset.