1952 C-124 wreck located
06-27-2012, 07:53 PM
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1952 C-124 wreck located
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 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.
"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.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
06-28-2012, 06:21 AM
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An additional article:
Wreckage of Air Force plane that crashed in 1952 with 52 people aboard found on Alaska glacier - NY Daily News
USMCFLYR
Wreckage of Air Force plane that crashed in 1952 with 52 people aboard found on Alaska glacier - NY Daily News
USMCFLYR
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