Maine Forest Service rangers will attempt this week to recover an ejection seat from a bomber that crashed north of Greenville nearly 50 year ago.

The ejection seat from the B-52 Stratofortress-C was found by a forest ranger who was hunting last fall. The ranger, Bruce Reed, said the seat was upside down in the middle of an old overgrown logging road on Elephant Mountain.

Seven airmen died in the crash on Jan. 24, 1963, when the unarmed bomber from Westover Air Force Base in Massachusetts was being used to practice low-level flight. The aircraft was flying at about 500 feet when it encountered turbulence.

The pilot, Lt. Col. Dante E. Buli, tried to climb higher to avoid the turbulence, but the jet made a loud noise and started to pitch to the right and turned nose down.

Buli told his crew to eject, but only three were able to do so. Buli and the flight’s navigator, Capt. Gerald J. Adler, survived, while the third crew member who was able to eject, co-pilot Maj. Robert J. Morrison, was killed when his parachute hit a tree.

Reed will lead a recovery team to try to bring the ejection seat off the mountain Thursday. Using serial numbers collected by Reed, officials have confirmed that the seat came from the B-52 that crashed and said it most likely was Buli’s or Adler’s.