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Beyond the trails in the Sandia Mountains, scattered graveyards of twisted metal, glass shards and engine blocks lie hidden.

They testify in many cases to tragedies long forgotten: aircraft that crashed in the rocky canyons.

Some sites show little more than broken glass or small pieces of aluminum. Some still have engines, wings and wheels.

"The wreckage that is still sitting around, there's no way to get to it sometimes," said Don Alberts, a former historian at Kirtland Air Force Base. "Nobody wants to put out the effort to retrieve it."

About 20 aircraft have crashed into the Sandias since 1935, including helicopters and hang-gliders, local historians say.

The most recent crash happened June 16 when a 1980 Beech Baron 58 hit a cliff, killing 54-year-old pilot Richard Iacono of California. The cause of the crash is still under investigation.

Little information survives about many of the crashes, historians say. Each of those who takes an interest knows some sites better than others.

At one of the earliest crash sites, pieces of a World War II cargo plane lie in a canyon near Placitas. Alberts said it's a two-mile hike to get to the C-47. Though he has never seen the site, he has been told there are small amounts of debris.

"Apparently, engine parts are still there, no big parts," he said.

During the war, two planes crashed, he said.

"In those days, to have a 10,000-foot range of mountains blocking the end of your runway, it was a problem that had to be considered by pilots," he said. "You had to be very careful."

Two planes have crashed into the Sandias in the past 10 years, including the crash last week. In 1999, three Kansas men died when their plane's engine failed, slamming into the western side of the mountain. They were returning home from a golf tournament in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Jerry Sussman, who volunteers for Friends of the Sandias, said pieces of glass and aluminum are scattered around the area.

"The ghoulish awful thing about it is I've found pieces of bone up there, human bone," he said.

Some people have made a memorial.

"People have put some golf balls up there because they were golfers," he said.

The most well-known crash in the Sandias was never cleaned up because it was too difficult to get to. In 1955, a TWA airliner slammed into the mountain, killing all 16 passengers.

Most of the plane is spread through a canyon, some of it visible from the Sandia Peak Tramway.

"There are engine blocks up there, just all kinds of stuff," Sussman said. "There is just stuff all over. There's a lot there."

Sussman said he likes to hike to the site, but only a few people know how to get to it. He said it shouldn't be disturbed and should be left as a memorial.

"The fewer people that go over, the better," he said.

There are also crash sites where no information survives. Sussman said he once came across an airplane in the southern Sandias.

"I had never heard of it, and the plane is almost pretty much intact," Sussman said. "It's just nose down. It's in a brushy area."

It's uncertain what will happen to the plane that crashed June 16.

Harry Davidson, another Albuquerque historian, said most older crash sites got cleaned up or scavenged. But most of the time, the engine stayed.

"Between souvenir hunters and salvage people, aluminum was carried out with mules," he said. "Engines were too heavy."

In more recent crashes, insurance agencies hired companies to clear the area. If the wreckage couldn't be reached by vehicle, ground crews piled the debris into a net, and it was carried away by helicopter.

Officials said the June 16 crash site is difficult to get to, making a cleanup unlikely.

"If that's the case, I expect no-one is going to be very interested in retrieving the material," Alberts said.