Flying Over Mount St. Helens: 1980 Volcanic Eruption Explained 

I was flying north toward Seattle Washington. I saw that small aircraft flying from West to East up against Mount St. Helens before the 🌋 erupted. I just thought that that was so crazy. As we passed by about 5 minutes later, our aircraft (Alaska Airlines) ✈️ felt the shockwave. I will never forget that day.

Don't forget about Gerry Martin. He was giving a play-by-play of the eruption as it happened. He was on the ridge line just past Johnston and witnessed (and described) the landslide at the mountain, the vertical blast, and the wall of mountain that went over Johnston Ridge (describes the "car and trailer" being swept away). Gerry like Johnston was never seen again. "see you later Gerry"

I lived on Spirit Lake Hwy in Castle Rock, WA. I was six when my dad woke me up to say, Mt. St. Helens blew her cookies. My parents were on the Castle Rock fair board so that evening we went to see how bad the damage was. We spent two years manually digging out the buildings that are still used today. I had friends and teachers who escaped but lost everything they owned. My dad took us for a drive later that day to see what damage we could see. Not far away we went to the Tower Bridge which I’d just gone over Friday morning on my school bus, the entire bridge was gone!! We have pictures of the mushroom ploom we took from our backyard. Not long after it blew my dad was laid off from his job at the now closed, Reynolds Aluminum Plant in Longview, WA. One of his side jobs was to work at the base of the mountain where they had pumps running 24/7 trying to keep the river running. That volcano still scares me and the few times I’ve been up there since, I couldn’t leave fast enough. The quietness scares me!! In 1995 I took a helicopter ride into the base. The sound of the blades echoeing, sounded like an eruption which was terrifying!! I have so many memories from that day in May and beyond that aren’t in any history books!! At only six years old, her eruption was one of my first memories!! As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come up with so many questions to ask my parents who’ve both passed. Fortunately I do have tons of pictures my dad took during the eruption, right afterwards, the cleanup of the fairgrounds, and from his time working on the pumps. I just wish I knew the stories behind them!!

I hiked St. Helens in 1982 and was in shock looking at the amount of devastation up close. Surprisingly, sprouts of plants and trees could be seen finding their way through the deep ash, promises of life trying to repopulate the mountain.

Always love your videos! My family was living in Montana when St Helen’s blew. We had ash 4 inches deep in our yard… My husband was with the Forest Service, and when the mountain was set to reopen a year later, forest service personnel were invited for a personal behind the scenes tour. I’ll never forget that trip, or the events on May 18.

Great video! I grew up in Longview, WA and spent many summers at the Longview Y camp as a camper, then on the staff. My wife and I spent our honeymoon in September of 1979 camping at the lake because I kept telling her that it was the most beautiful place in the world. Mt. St. Helens and Spirit Lake have always held a special place in my heart. I even had a few 'interesting' interactions with Harry Truman. While a camper, the Forest Service would often send a ranger over to talk about the mountain and potential eruptions. Back then, what they predicted was no more than some of the very small eruptions during the early dome building period as I recall. Boy, were they wrong! I've taken a couple of charter flights over the mountain, including one a year to two after the eruption. It was quite a shock to see what that area had become. Thanks for sharing your flight and information.

Very well done, especially the historical footage, some of which I had not seen before. As a degreed geologist and growing up in Oregon, I spent a lot of time tracing the volcanic history of the Cascades from Mt. Lassen to Mt Baker, crawling through lava tubes, and gathering pyroclastics. On that fateful day, a Sunday as I recall, I was working at the Hanford Project, directly downwind. By 5pm it was dark and it looked like we were in a snowstorm of grey powder falling from the sky. The fine glass shards plugged air filters, making cars inop. Buildup on power lines caused shorts and loss of power. It was a bad day for those of us 40 miles from Richland and working at a nuclear plant needing electricity to keep the cooling pumps running (think Fukushima in 1980). Our emergency generators needed large volumes of air but soon died when their filters plugged up. No one had ever anticipated a loss of offsite and onsite power from volcanic ash fall. Some heroic actions saved the day and no one was none the wiser.

At a time, and in a world, where it’s all been done before and originality has fallen sloppy dead, you’ve legitimately created a new angle to interesting education. Instead of just resting on your laurels of being a pilot with his own plane, you’ve gone above and beyond with filming, researching, animating, narrating, and editing videos to an incredibly effective and professional degree worthy of National Geographic, and created something magnificently beautiful. I’ve only subscribed to a few channels in the almost two decades I’ve been on RU-vid, but you’ve sincerely earned another subscriber, dude. Please keep up the great work with these videos. I’m from the Adirondacks, but have lived in Colorado for the last twelve years. So if you could cover either one, or both, of these mountain ranges, that’d be most excellent.

Well done! Nice blend of education and aviation.

I attended the Longview MCA camp on Spirit Lake in 1952 thru 1956. We climbed the mountain twice - once from Truman;s side and once from the ape caves side on the south. The remnants of the old forest service fire lookout were still there. In 1995, my wife and I got the opportunity to go into the crater by helicopter (bluebird), spend the day behind and on the dome and hike out at the end of the day. The dome was re-building and the rebuilding and there were steam vents and ice caves. This was before the "whale back" formed. Two great trips that we'll never forget We live in Dallas now. No volcanoes down here. Thanks for the fly-over. I knew Harry Truman.

That was fantastic. I remembered this also from when I was a kid and remember being taught about in high school later. The information and production in this video was top quality - I think your best work yet - and I hope you get the recognition you deserve.

Another quality video from you. As a 17 year old, I was in Spokane and remember the aftermath. Thanks for the nostalgia.

Beautifully done. Loved the history, background music, editing. Very professionally done and informative.

I remember when Mt. St. Helens erupted. I was a child living in Albany, OR, and we had ash falling for months that far away. Your videos are amazing, and love hearing about all of the history and details you provide. Thank you for what you do and share.

Your best flying video yet! Beautifully edited, fabulous camera work! Loved the story telling. Gonna watch several more times and take notes!

Just saw this video today and you did such an amazing job on telling the story and providing excellent views. Bryan, you have such a talent at telling these stories. I hope you are keeping well and we will see some more in the very near future.

Beautifully shot and edited. Enjoyed it!

Great video thank you. Drove out to Johnston Ridge lookout years ago. I’ll never forget the experience. The sky was clear and you could see for miles. Can’t believe the destruction and how much was removed from the mountain. Cheers 👍🦘🇦🇺

This is so fascinating to me, I've watched this several times. Mt St Helen's erupted the week I was graduating high school. Love the look from your plane also. Thank you

Once again, another great video! You have the best areal videography on RU-vid! Great music, great history, great job!

You picked a beautiful day for the flight, thanks for the video. I’ve made that flight a number of times over the years and it never gets old. Most recently in a C150 from Auburn. Boy, was that a long, slow trip!

Just awesome Wolfi. I was based out of KWHP several years ago and remember meeting you at the fuel pit. I was grateful at that time to thank you for making these. I grew up in Socal and love the desert. Your video on the Burro Schmidt tunnel was great. I have been there several times. I also flew over the San Andreas fault, inspired by your work, and also to the Victorville staging area after the 737 Max debacle, again inspired by your videos. Please keep up the great content. If you are ever in the Boise area, I have a hangar in Caldwell and you are welcome to park there if in the area. Thank you again for the great videos and info. P.S. I was 23 years old when Mt. St. Helens erupted. I had to wonder at the time if this was the beginning of the end. Seattle was pitch black for days due to the ash in the air. I have since visited by land. It was spectacular.

Excellent video. Thank you for all you do. I'm like you and am fascinated with Mt. St. Helen's. I graduated from high school just 1 week after the eruption, and it has stuck with me ever since.

So glad to see you back and with such a fine installment in (what I will call) your “Grand Geology” series. Thank you *very* much for posting. Another timely installment might be Lake Meade. I would also be interested in a Salton Sea episode and (as another poster suggested) a Monument Valley fly-through (with all the planning and self-announce details). I hope the puppy adapts to the Tiger and can go along soon...

Was driving to Church in Castle Rock when it blew. Didn't hear a thing. Once Church was over, we were not allowed to cross back over the Cowlitz river to go home. State Patrol had already blocked the Castle Rock Bridge due to the anticipated wall of mud. I worked the blowdown/blasted down timber recovery from 1982 to 1984. Pops was a private pilot for 40 years. I was very lucky to fly all over the devastated areas with him after the eruption. Dad owned a stunt plane at the time. In 1983 with his stunt plane(Bellanca Citabria) we made a pylon/knife edge turn INSIDE the crater and below the crater wall lip. We made a turn inside the crater, around the mini dome, and flew back out again. 40 feet below me,,looking out the side window, was the smoldering mini dome. I could smell sulfur and see rocks tumbling down. I still live in Castle Rock. I was 13 when it erupted.

Great video. Really enjoyed the beautiful views of today combined with the historic footage. Thank you!

As a european citizen I've always been fascinated by Mt St-Helen history. Thanks for this awesome video!

Bryan, I love it that my favorite RU-vid storyteller (seriously) is back telling stories!! And what a thunderous story this is. Thanks! Wayne (DA40 KSBA)

Probably your best video so far / enjoyed the extra history

Thanks for posting this as it brings back memories of that day. I was salmon fishing off Sooke that morning and never heard the blast over the noise of the boat although many others in the Victoria area did. Friends up in Cowichan Lake heard it as the sound traveled up the Cowichan Valley up to the lake and reverbrated off the hills surrounding the lake.

Thanks for your video. I remember watching the televised reports on the terrible destruction at Mt. St. Helens back in 1980.

What a fantastically produced video. Well done my friend, keep up the good work!

What a great video. I was 13 at the time and remember studying the eruption in science class. This video took me right back to the day it happened.

I was only 9 years old but remember when st Helen’s erupted… one of my late neighbors friends went to st Helen’s and brought me back ash that I have had since I was a child… I have a few other artifacts from st Helen’s…. I have been very fascinated with the 1980 explosion as well…. May God Bless those that lost their lives that day

Excellent video! Nice blending of the backstory and history with current views. I was 16 when it erupted and remember it well on the news.

This was an awesome video! Thanks for making it

In my neck of the woods! I’ve been waiting for some more videos from you. Thanks!

as usual enjoyed the video. so cool to be in your front seat as i could never afford to do that on my own! thanks for putting in your time and energy ... its appreciated and enjoyed!

Nice video content , I love the history and the background music

Nothing better than these aerial shots... gives the most incredible view ... would love to see your take on Monument Valley and Grand Canyon too. Then perhaps Sedona ... Zions NP ... On your way out of Oregon, hit Crater Lake for sure! After watching this, I definitely am going to fly up there and see the same. Also the San Juan Islands are incredible and so easy to reach with GA. You can camp right under your wing at Orcas Island. Thanks Wolfi !!!

Awesome background, awesome flying, love all your videos.

Great video! When St Helens came back to life in 2004 My friend and I flew around it a dozen times. I took over 1,000 pictures of the smaller eruptions. I was fortunate to have had access to a friend with a plane.

Incredibly well done. Thank you.

Outstanding video. Extremely professional and pleasant to watch.

Very cool. You've got an obvious talent for telling this kind of story and you personal interest in the subject matter shines through. I always look forward to watching you videos.

The subject, production value, and especially the Grumman Tiger.... I am so glad to discover this channel.

Superb video - very enjoyable and a very professional production - you deserve way more views and subscribers!

Great video. I remember the event well. I was in graduate school at the University of Wyoming at the time. The ash from the eruption created the most beautiful red sunsets for a long, long time. Ash also fell from the sky afterwards. In 1983, I went for a flight in a small plane and the only colors evident were brightly-colored algae in the streams. It was amazing to see any evidence of life among a moonscape full of tree-sized toothpicks.

Thank you..great video!! HOPE YOU DO one over mount Baldi San Bernardino.

Thanks for this great video !

Fantastic production. Bravo sir

Very cool.. I was just shy of my twelfth birthday when she went up. Amazing how much devastation that event caused. It makes you have a tremendous respect for nature... and shows how insignificant we all are on this planet. Well done.

This one was awesome man. Please do more of this type of videos.

I was there two weeks before the eruptiogn, on my honeymoon with my new wife. We made it to a road closure where there was a group of people hanging out, and there was a vendor there selling T-shirts. (Mount Saint Helen's Moving her Ash ) we bought one of those shirts ! Great job by the way on this video very well done. I can tell you love flying that plane.. safe and happy travels to you !!

Fantastic learning video, thank you.

Great video, I was there. I was in Tacoma when she blew. Mi friends and I jumped in my truck and headed that way. The state police made us turn around about 25 miles west of the mountain. I will never ever forget that day.

Awesome job! Thanks for sharing the rest of the story.

My cousin from Portland was visiting in Kansas during the eruption, she was so disappointed she missed the eruption. Will never forget this event.

thank you... this was well done and a great subject.

Excellent video and wonderful production.

So good. So good. I could watch these all day.

Great storytelling. Amazing photos and videos.

I came across from Vancouver Island where I worked was visiting my mom and my sister and her husband in Burnaby, just outside of Vancouver, I was still lying in bed when St.Helen erupted that Sunday morning and we heard it in Vancouver. A brother of mine was on a weekend camping trip in Blaine, Washington, and recall hearing the blast also. I will always remember that sound, that Sunday morning.

Just found your channel. Love it.

I remember watching the eruption on TV. I lived in Utah at the time. There wasn't any ash reported. We could go outside safely.. from what I remember. Thanks for the added information and images. Incredible!

Here we are, 43 years to the day... I remember that morning. I was on I-5 driving south, and my mom was on I-5 driving north. We both were delayed (for hours) just before the Toutle river, because of the mud and log flows being washed down. The Toutle flows into the Cowlitz, which flows into the Columbia, which eventually flows into the Pacific. A couple weeks later, I got a job helping to dredge out the river. I was on the fill crew of one of the pipeline dredges. The spoils were pumped up to maybe a mile away onto some hastily appropriated land. I worked in the area where the Cowlitz river passes through the town of Kelso Washington. One of several fills was at the Kelso Elks golf course. I don't know how much material we put into that fill. Tens of thousands of yards at least. Years later, the Three Rivers shopping mall was built on top of it. Do a maps search for 'three rivers mall Kelso' and you'll see it. I didn't work on the following site, but do a maps search for 'toutle river bridge I-5'. Then travel ~900 ft. north using street view. Off to the left, you will see a pile of sand, it's got to be 70 feet tall. That was dredged out of the river by dragline. It wasn't probably more than a couple years, and the Toutle and Cowlitz were dredged and posed little to no threat to the towns, and the Columbia was cleared for safe travel for shipping. The material we dredged was really coarse sand, with quite a few rocks in it, maybe up to 6 inches in diameter. I still have a few of the rocks. I think I did this for 8 months. It was a time to remember. Great movie BTW.

Thanks for this !

Very cool video, expertly presented. I was 17 when it erupted, and was absolutely fascinated y the unfolding story. The people flying over it that day had a once in a once in a lifetime experience that would be hard to match. Like they were fated to be there to capture the event on film.

Great educational and entertaining video about the volcano that the British explorer named Mt St Helens after his friend, as you described. I would have mentioned that the indigenous people called it “Lawetlat'la”.

Fantastic video! I am looking into buying a Grumman Tiger for my first plane and your videos are very inspiring! Keep up the great work!!🎩🇺🇸

This is an excellent video. I'll leave it at that. 😀 Aviation Trivia: Kelso, Washington is where the first commercially built "flying cars" were made. Molt Taylor was located at the old airport, where he built the "Taylor Aerocar." That was back in the late 50s.

I have watched this so many times... it's such a well-done video. Fascinating. .. I was wondering if I could come to the area again. Would you give a personal flight over the area?

So I wanted to put my own comment here, since I let my kid comment first. Please keep making videos. We homeschool, and my youngest kid has dyslexia so videos are the BEST. We somehow found out about videos made by a company called Awesome Science Media and there is one about Mt St Helens and the trees that compares them to the petrified forest in Yellowstone that was fascinating. And she read the book "I Survived the Eruption of Mt. St. Helens", so your video here was timely and well received! :) You could seriously have a huge homeschool fan base if you continue and keep the videos clean and educational. My daughter wants to know which airport you mainly fly out of? Is it Fullerton? We saw Torrance in the oil spill one.

I live in Cougar (13 mi from the volcano) and would love to see more flying footage from you over this gorgeous area, particularly the South and East flanks. You focused mainly on the North flank which makes sense for this episode. However, Lava Canyon and Swift Creek (my stomping grounds) would provide excellent footage as well as some more historical background, Several survivors were in that area on May 18 and their stories are fascinating. :-)

I congratulate you on the quality of your video and for your truly unique premise of FLYING over interesting sites like this. If you are asking for ideas for future flyover sites, I would suggest you explore the caldera in YELLOWSTONE because there is so much vague and contradictory evidence of what is really going on there that it is impossible for the general public to know what is really the risk of an imminent major eruption. Good work.

I got stuck in Seattle that day because the mountain blew and Snoqualmie Pass was closed to Eastern WA. Friends in Ellensburg, WA, reported being in church when the ash cloud approached. No one noticed because the windows had been covered for a film. When a member saw it out a window, he was puzzled, then began to warn people that ‘something’ was wrong. People raced for their homes, one friend having to ride back on a motorcycle in the falling ash. The sky turned dark as night and streetlights came on since it was so dark. Upon returning, I found ash everywhere & it continued to be on everything still while out hiking that summer. People saved jars of the ash, while others made pottery out of it. Cory Blanchard

Great video like you always do!

Great video. I camped there in the late 80s and the devastation was still very evident. How about a trip over Ca 395 with a look at the tremendous number of volcanic features there. Maybe a series of videos since there is so much to cover.

I will never forget this. I lived on the East Coast and was playing catch with my father on the side of our house when suddenly someone said it was snowing. Uh... no. It was ash from St. Helens. Incredible.

Cool video..awesome to watch...thank you.

Dude, that kicked ass. Loved every minute. Giant Rock in Landers CA has quite a history to it. A man blew himself up, living under it way back when. There's some stories on RU-vid, but I don't think I've seen anything from an ariel perspective.

A day I well never forget. May 18th a beautiful Sunday morning. I was 18 at the time living in St. Helens Oregon right across the Columbia river from Washington state and about 70 miles south of mount St. Helens. We were on the docks on the Columbia getting ready to go boating for the day. Then it happened. We never got one bit of ash from the eruption it all went north and east of us. Watched it until the sun went down. It is seared in my memory for ever.

i made plans with a friend in Sandy Oregon to fly around the mountain in his 185 that day. We'd already flown around it quite a bit. We were at Riches Airport preflighting his plane when it blew, so we were up pretty quick. I got good photos and made the cover of Newsweek. And later on Life Magazine as well. Ever since I've been interested in volcanoes. I hope I live long enough to see Mt Hood erupt. I swam across Crater Lake, which was a real experience. You can see down so far that it's terrifying! I'm going to watch the San Andreas Fault video next. Excellent job on this one!

Very good video. I remember the many events and stories as they were reported. Several months afterward some friends who lived in Washington sent me a small 35mm plastic film canister filled with ash from the eruption. It's a piece of history (as everything is).

Excellent video, I was living in Regina Sask., Canada then and the residual ash and smoke was present there. Thanks for the content too, awesome!👍🇨🇦

Nice video thanks for sharing 😮

Yellowstone park is a really neat place that i've always wanted to see aerial footage of. Especially old faithful geyser when it erupts, mammoth terraces, and all of the famous places. There's a nearby waterfall system called mesa falls in island park, Idaho, that are really impressive, I've been there before and that would be really cool to see aerial footage of. Especially the upper falls, which have a boardwalk going to them. that and Yellowstone would be so cool to see on your channel if you ever had the chance to do that! I really enjoyed this video for sure.

Hey great video! Hard to believe it's been over 40 years! I live on the east coast, in New Brunswick, Canada (beside the state of Maine). A few days after the eruption, we woke one morning to discover everything covered in ash. Fortunately, it was not extreme, but enough for people to take measures in hosing down their houses, driveways, washing vehicles etc.. I can't remember hearing if the ash cloud reached across the Atlantic to Europe, but it wouldn't surprise me. Thanks for sharing your video. Cheers from the east coast!

Wow! Great production!

Great job on this.

This was great, Mt St Helens has always intrigued me 😃

I watched it from my front yard in South King County when I was a little boy. I can still remember the mushroom cloud rising into the air. I didn’t realize I was supposed to be scared at the time…lol. Such an amazing sight!

I too was not yet alive when she erupted, but spent of a lot of time in my youth with family who lived about 30-40 miles south of the mountain. To this day, the view of the mountain there is unobstructed and impossible to miss. Thanks to that view, the mountain has held my fascination for as long as I can remember. If I could go back in time, I would make sure to watch the eruption from that place. It is far enough away to be safe but close enough to hear and feel the eruption. As for more places to check out, Washington and Oregon are loaded with beauty and wonder. I have to specifically mention Crater Lake in southwestern Oregon, which resides in the caldera of Mt Mazama. It's the deepest freshwater lake in the United States. The beauty of the area both inside the caldera and outside on the slopes and surrounding areas is staggering. Another one is the Columbia River Gorge where it runs between WA and OR as it heads out to the Pacific. Looking west along the Gorge as it runs through the Cascades while the sun sets is breathtakingly beautiful. We are endlessly spoiled here in the Pacific Northwest.

Hi Wolficorn, love the video mate! I was wondering if you could film a video flying up and the Colorado River? Although this might be a multi part vid!

My new favorite video of yours!!

Another outstanding documentary from you. I remember that day and the blanket of ash that it spred across the state clogging car air filters and everything else. Thanks.

Even if you didn't have your own great footage of flying over Mount St. Helens, you made a very nice mini-doc. Great job with the archival footage and editing! Of course, your own footage was pretty nice too, and narrating in the air from the plane is pretty cool. I'm curious what thought you've given to mounting a better camera on your plane for aerial shots? You know better than I how much we all would have been delighted to get GoPro 10 quality footage 10 or 15 years ago, but it's still... well it leaves room for improvement. This is definitely not a complaint! More curiosity about your thinking on potentially coming away from "shoots" like this with even better quality images?

Thanks for posting this informative video. Whilst the Mt. St. Helen's eruption was devastating over a large area, the death toll was very small compared to that caused by the mudslide that was triggered by an eruption on Nevado del Ruiz in Colombia.

Awesome video!

Great work