Puy de Louchadière, Dormant volcano in Saint-Ours, France

The Puy de Louchadière is a dormant volcano featuring a horseshoe-shaped crater that opens toward the southwest and rises to about 1,200 meters. The entire peak remains covered in dense forest, making it the northernmost major volcano in the Chaîne des Puys chain.

The Puy de Louchadière is the northernmost of the Chaîne des Puys' large volcanoes; the peaks beyond it, apart from the puy de Ténuzet quarried for pouzzolane, stay below 1,000 metres. On 19 June 1967 a Beechcraft A23-24 Musketeer Super III registered F-BOSR, flown by Claude Klush, left Aulnat for Brive in overcast weather and struck the volcano's eastern flank a few dozen metres below the summit. Quarry workers at Ténuzet heard the impact; the pilot's body was found in the wreckage after the cloud lifted around midday.

The name Louchadière is not explained in the sources; what visitors can see is the horseshoe-shaped crater breached to the southwest, which gives the summit its outline. The volcano is the last major one north of the Chaîne des Puys, since the more northerly peaks stay below 1,000 m apart from the puy de Ténuzet, quarried for pouzzolane.

The summit is reached on foot from the surrounding slopes of Saint-Ours; the eastern flank, a few dozen metres below the top, holds the wreckage of the Beechcraft F-BOSR, so allow time to locate it. The forested slopes give no reliable water source, and cloud can hide the ridge even in summer, as it did on 19 June 1967.

A few dozen metres below the summit, on the eastern flank, lie the remains of a Beechcraft A23-24 Musketeer Super III registered F-BOSR. On 19 June 1967 the pilot Claude Klush, flying from Aulnat in overcast weather, struck the volcano; workers at the puy de Ténuzet pouzzolane quarry under a kilometre away heard the impact, and his body was found in the wreckage after the cloud lifted around midday.