Posted on 06/16/2012 3:09:30 PM PDT by Eye of Unk
Edited on 06/16/2012 3:27:15 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Suspected military plane wreck, bones found on Alaska glacier By Chris Klint, Channel 2/KTUU.com and msnbc.com news services ANCHORAGE, Alaska
(Excerpt) Read more at usnews.msnbc.msn.com ...
That’s a great website...thanks for sharing it.
Thanks for the info.
The Chugach Mountain range is east of Anchorage, most of it is to the Southeast, but a portion of it is Northeast of Anchorage.
http://www.greatlandofalaska.com/reference/ranges.html
For better clarity:
The Knik Glacier {site of the crash debris} is located on the northern edge of Alaska’s Chugach mountains.
Debris from old military plane on glacier sent to labs
http://www.adn.com/2012/06/26/2521241/debris-gathered-from-old-military.html
They have collected the debris and some remains, its definitely a 1950’s era military aircraft.
Thanks for the update!
Check post #37, I wonder if its the missing “Flying Boxcar” from 1952.
Probably not related but worth reading, especially since the air crashes from that era have just been declassified.
http://www.adn.com/2012/06/26/2521241/debris-gathered-from-old-military.html
From the brief description in the article, it doesn’t sound like there was much left identifiable.
After 60 years of being ground up by a moving glacier I’m surprised they found anything at all. Hopefully it can be closure for the families of the missing personnel.
http://www.adn.com/2012/06/27/2522442/plane-found-on-glacier.html
Aircraft debris on glacier identified as 1952 wreck
Investigators say pieces of a vintage military airplane discovered on a glacier in the mountains east of Anchorage came from an Air Force plane that crashed in 1952, killing everyone in it.
“The evidence does positively correlate to that wreckage,” Dobson said.
The Globemaster was the largest plane of its type at the time at 130 feet long and with a wingspan of 174 feet, according to the National Museum of the Air Force. It was capable of handling cargo as big as a tank or bulldozer and, if outfitted for transporting passengers, could carry as many as 200 soldiers, the museum says.
According to a report in the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin after the wreck, the plane had taken off on a 1,400-mile flight from McChord Air Force Base, near, Tacoma, Wash., to Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage. The plane lost communication while flying toward Elmendorf on the more than six-hour flight and was only about 45 minutes from landing, the Washington state newspaper reported. Some aviation historians have speculated that the plane was blown off course by heavy winds.
The Globemaster’s last-known position was a point in the Gulf of Alaska near Middleton Island, but searchers found it farther inland, close to Mount Gannett, as poor weather was closing in, according to the Union-Bulletin story. It appeared to have hit the mountain’s south face. There were no survivors.
The C-124 Globemaster carried 52 people, according to Capt. Jamie Dobson, spokeswoman for the Joint Prisoners of War, Missing in Action Accounting Command, whose investigators are looking at the debris from the plane. An Army National Guard helicopter crew on a training mission spotted the pieces last week on Colony Glacier, in the Chugach Mountains 45 miles east of Anchorage, and the JPAC investigators recovered parts of the plane, pieces of its life-support system and possible human remains a few days later, Dobson said.
On Wednesday, Dobson said the plane is believed to be a Douglas C-124A Globemaster, a heavy-lifting transport plane that crashed Nov. 22, 1952. The wreckage has apparently been slowly churning inside the glacier for 60 years, she said.
Dobson, the JPAC spokeswoman, said harsh winter weather prevented a recovery at the time.
“From what I’ve been told, this particular incident, when the initial search party got to it, only the tail was visible,” Dobson said. “Then due to weather they had to call off the search. Later, they just weren’t able to find where the wreckage was.”
“I can’t imagine what people were thinking back then. They must’ve been so frustrated, thinking they knew where it was but unable to find it.”
According to the Union-Bulletin story, the crash was the third disaster for U.S. military planes in Alaska in a 15-day period. The Globemaster was one of about a dozen military aircraft thought to have crashed within the same 20-mile-wide area, said Dobson, the JPAC spokeswoman. She would not comment on what specific piece or pieces of evidence linked the debris to the 1952 Globemaster crash.
The next step in the investigation is to start contacting family members of the plane’s occupants, Dobson said. The process will likely include asking for DNA samples in an attempt to return any human remains to the families, and could take up to six years to complete, she said.
http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19521122-0
Douglas C-124A-DL Globemaster II
They say at this link it was found?
“Crashed into Surprise Glacier, near Mount Gannett. The wreckage was found on November 28.”
I think the actual identity is in doubt on this crash site.
Check out previous posts.
Aircraft is one of three missing in a short time in the same area.
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