Flying Over Mount St. Helens: 1980 Volcanic Eruption Explained

Learn about the historic 1980 volcanic eruption of Mount St. Helens from a unique, new perspective as I fly a small airplane over this active volcano and discuss its history. A combination of both modern aerial footage and stunning archival footage, this video documents the history of the mountain leading up to the eruption and its immediate destructive aftermath. You will also see how the mountain looks today and how the area is still affected 42 years after the eruption.

[raysantiago]

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.

[kennethellison]

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.

[danidavis]

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!!

[paulmazzucca]

My wife and I camped above spirit lake in 2001 and we noticed how the vegetation and animal life was beginning to return. It’s amazing how we don’t realize how time shapes our landscape. The earth does not really care about us humans. We play a incredibly small role in its overall history.

[GeistView]

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"

[bricecanon]

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

[randomskr]

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.

[maperna]

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

[watchthis]

Well done! Nice blend of education and aviation.

[johndej]

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.

[Slughi]

I climbed St.Helens 10 years ago. They only let 100 people a day on the mountain. Got a permit for $25 and we started climbing. It was hiking around rocks, over rocks from one rock pile to another going post to post (there is no real trail, just posts used as guides). The last 1/8 of a mile was climbing in soft sand. For every 3 steps, you lost one. If it's sunny, you'll be baked alive. Got to the top and my first thought was "I don't think we should be here". Lots of ominous low frequency rumbling and car sized boulders rolling into the crater. We started at 5am and didn't get back to the car until after 8pm.

[midlifeppl]

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

[larrymcguire]

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.

[barrywallace]

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.

[Cake]

I was expecting you to have well over 500k subscribers with a video of such high quality and perfect delivery. Well done my friend.

[billfly]

Beautifully shot and edited. Enjoyed it!

[richard]

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.

[dropkickirish]

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 YouTube, 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.

[stephenmcgeown]

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.

[Jeff-jhrh]

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.