Incident | |
---|---|
Date | 26 January 1950 |
Summary | Disappearance |
Site | Yukon, Canada; in vicinity of Snag |
Aircraft | |
Aircraft type | Douglas C-54 Skymaster |
Operator | United States Air Force |
Registration | 42-72469 |
Flight origin | Elmendorf Air Force Base (EDF) (EDF/PAED), Anchorage, Alaska, USA |
Destination | Great Falls Air Force Base (GFA) (GFA/KGFA), Montana, USA |
Occupants | 44 |
Passengers | 36 |
Crew | 8 |
Fatalities | 44 |
Survivors | 0 |
On 26 January 1950, the Douglas C-54 Skymaster serial number 42-72469 disappeared en route from Alaska to Montana, with 44 people aboard. [1] [2] The aircraft made its last radio contact two hours into its eight-hour flight. Despite one of the largest rescue efforts carried out by a joint effort between Canadian and US military forces, no trace of the aircraft has ever been found. [2]
The aircraft was part of the First Strategic Support Squadron, Strategic Air Command, out of Biggs AFB, Texas. In addition to its eight-man crew, it was carrying 36 passengers, including two civilians: a woman and her infant son. [3] An earlier attempt to depart had been made, but due to trouble with one of its four engines, it was delayed several hours. [4] The flight was from Anchorage, Alaska, to Great Falls, Montana. Two hours after its eventual departure, the flight marked its first scheduled check-in over Snag, Yukon, where the pilot reported that the plane was on schedule with no issues to report except for ice on the wings. However, the flight never checked in with its second destination, Aishihik, Yukon, and was never heard from again.
After the plane failed to arrive in Montana, a search-and-rescue effort launched, combining as many as 85 American and Canadian planes, in addition to 7,000 personnel, searching 350,000 square miles (910,000 km2) of the Pacific Northwest. [3] The search was aided by the fact that soldiers and equipment had already been ferried north for the upcoming Exercise Sweetbriar, a joint Canada–U.S. war games scenario. [5]
The operation confounded searchers, giving many false positive reports of smoke signals and garbled radio communications. Search efforts were hindered by the lack of pilot training in search-and-rescue tactics; defined search patterns were not used, for example. [6]
Three planes crashed during the search mission; although all crew survived, the incidents reflected the dangers of the Yukon terrain: [6]
On 2 February it was reported that two planes and two radio stations in the Yukon area had heard unintelligible radio signals, including some near the plane's failed second check-in town of Aishihik, but attempts to acquire a source were fruitless. Likewise, an isolated settler had reported seeing a large plane over his cabin at Beaver Lake in the interior of British Columbia located 500 miles (800 km) south of the Yukon boundary-250 miles (400 km) northeast of Vancouver and 200 miles (320 km) west of the Alaska Highway air route. [11]
The operation was indefinitely suspended on 14 February, as the search planes were sent to the Gulf of Alaska to search for a missing B-36 bomber which had been carrying a Mark 4 nuclear bomb, though this bomb did not have a radioactive core. (The B-36 wreckage was subsequently located.) [3] [12]
On 20 February 1950, the search was officially cancelled and notifications were sent to next of kin informing them that the passengers were presumed dead. [13]
In 2012, the descendants of the missing servicemen started a petition to the Federal government, through the We the People petition system, seeking to resurrect the search for their families' remains. [14]
In 2020, Andrew Gregg was named as the director of an upcoming documentary about the search for the aircraft, Skymaster Down. [15] The documentary was aired in Canada on 16 January 2022, on the CBC's Documentary Channel. [16]
In 2022, after the documentary's release, a group in Whitehorse, consisting of a geologist, a historian and a glaciologist, among others, formed to conduct a renewed search for the missing aircraft, using drones to explore inaccessible locations. [12]
Air North Charter and Training Ltd., operating as Air North, Yukon's Airline, is a Canadian airline based in Whitehorse, Yukon. It operates scheduled passenger and cargo flights throughout Yukon, as well as between Yukon and the Northwest Territories, British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario. The airline also operates charter flights throughout Canada and Alaska. The airline also provides ground handling services and fuel services to other airlines throughout Yukon, and it also provides ground handling services at Vancouver International Airport and Edmonton International Airport. Its main base is Erik Nielsen Whitehorse International Airport.
The Douglas C-54 Skymaster is a four-engined transport aircraft used by the United States Army Air Forces in World War II and the Korean War. Like the Douglas C-47 Skytrain derived from the DC-3, the C-54 Skymaster was derived from a civilian airliner, the Douglas DC-4. Besides transport of cargo, the C-54 also carried presidents, prime ministers, and military staff. Dozens of variants of the C-54 were employed in a wide variety of non-combat roles such as air-sea rescue, scientific and military research, and missile tracking and recovery. During the Berlin Airlift it hauled coal and food supplies to West Berlin. After the Korean War it continued to be used for military and civilian uses by more than 30 countries. It was one of the first aircraft to carry the President of the United States, the first being President Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1950:
The de Havilland Canada DHC-3 Otter is a single-engined, high-wing, propeller-driven, short take-off and landing (STOL) aircraft developed by de Havilland Canada. It was conceived to be capable of performing the same roles as the earlier and highly successful Beaver, including as a bush plane, but is overall a larger aircraft.
Kenn Borek Air is an airline based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It operates regional passenger and cargo services, contract operations in the Arctic and Antarctic and aircraft leasing. Its main base is at Calgary International Airport. It charters aircraft for scientific expeditions, oil exploration, etc., and operates air ambulance services.
Sometime after midnight on 14 February 1950, a Convair B-36B, United States Air Force Serial Number 44-92075 assigned to the US 7th Bombardment Wing, Heavy at Carswell Air Force Base in Texas, crashed in northwestern British Columbia on Mount Kologet after jettisoning a Mark 4 nuclear bomb. This was the first such nuclear weapon loss in history. The B-36B had been en route from Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks, Alaska, to Carswell AFB, more than 3,000 miles southeast, on a mission that included a simulated nuclear attack on San Francisco.
Buffalo Airways is a family-run airline based in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada, established in 1970. Buffalo Airways was launched by Bob Gauchie and later sold to one of his pilots, Joe McBryan. It operates charter passenger, charter cargo, firefighting, and fuel services, and formerly operated scheduled passenger service. Its main base is at Yellowknife Airport. It has two other bases at Hay River/Merlyn Carter Airport and Red Deer Regional Airport. The Red Deer base is the main storage and maintenance facility. The airline is also the subject of the History television reality series Ice Pilots NWT.
Snag is a village located on a small, dry-weather sideroad off the Alaska Highway, 25 kilometres (16 mi) east of Beaver Creek, Yukon, Canada. The village of Snag is located in a bowl-shaped valley of the White River and its tributaries, including Snag Creek. It was first settled during the Klondike Gold Rush. An aboriginal village was also located approximately 8 kilometres (5 mi) away. It was the site of a military airfield, established as part of the Northwest Staging Route, which closed in 1968. In 1947, the village of Snag boasted a population of eight to ten First Nation people and fur traders. An additional staff of fifteen to twenty airport personnel — meteorologists, radio operators, aircraft maintenance men — lived at the airport barracks.
Alkan Air Ltd. is an airline headquartered in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. The company operates seven-day-a-week charter and air ambulance (medevac) services. The Whitehorse and Mayo (seasonal) bases generally focus on wheel and floatplane charter and medevac services in northern and western Canada and Alaska. The Nanaimo, BC base provides charter and medevac services, focused primarily in western Canada, the western United States and Mexico. From 2016 to 2018, Alkan also operated scheduled flights between Erik Nielsen Whitehorse International Airport and Watson Lake Airport.
The Kee Bird was a United States Army Air Forces Boeing B-29 Superfortress, serial 45-21768, of the 46th Reconnaissance Squadron, that became marooned after making an emergency landing in northwest Greenland during a secret Cold War spying mission on 21 February 1947. While the entire crew was safely evacuated after spending three days in the isolated Arctic tundra, the aircraft itself was left at the landing site. It lay there undisturbed until 1994, when a privately funded mission was launched to repair and return it. During the attempted recovery, a fire broke out, resulting in the destruction and loss of the airframe on the ground.
Adam Air Flight 574 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight operated by Adam Air between the Indonesian cities of Jakarta, Surabaya and Manado that crashed into the Makassar Strait near Polewali in Sulawesi on 1 January 2007 which was New Year’s Day. All 102 people on board were killed, making it the deadliest aviation accident involving a Boeing 737-400. After this, Adam Air faced a lot of scrutiny by the Indonesian government.
Fleet Logistics Support Squadron 30 (VRC-30) was an aviation unit of the United States Navy tasked with carrier onboard delivery. The squadron was nicknamed "Providers" and was based at Naval Air Station North Island, California (USA). In contrast to most other U.S. Navy squadrons, VRC-30 consisted of five separately named detachments, which were assigned to different carrier air wings.
Merpati Nusantara Airlines Flight 9760D was a domestic commercial passenger 50-minutes flight, flying from Sentani Airport in Papua's Province Jayapura to Oksibil Airport in Oksibil, Indonesia operated by a de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter 300. On Sunday, August 2, 2009, while carrying fifteen people over Papua, the aircraft went missing en route. Its wreckage was found a few miles from Oksibil two days later. All 12 passengers and 3 crew members were killed in the accident.
Elmendorf Air Force Base is a United States Air Force (USAF) facility in Anchorage, Alaska. Originally known as Elmendorf Field, it became Elmendorf Air Force Base after World War II.
The crash of Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 3505 occurred on 21 July 1951 when a Douglas DC-4 four-engined piston airliner registered CF-CPC of Canadian Pacific Air Lines disappeared on a scheduled flight for the United Nations from Vancouver, Canada, to Tokyo, Japan. Neither the aircraft nor the 31 passengers and six crew have been found. The incident marked the first aircraft loss during the Korean Airlift.
Tara Air Flight 197 was a scheduled domestic flight operated by Tara Air for parent company Yeti Airlines from Pokhara Airport to Jomsom Airport in Nepal. On 29 May 2022, the Twin Otter aircraft carrying 22 people departed at 09:55 NPT and lost contact with air traffic controllers about 12 minutes later at 10:07 (04:22). The wreckage was located 20 hours later on a mountainside. All 22 passengers and crew were killed, and all 22 bodies were recovered. This was Tara Air's second deadly accident on this route, after Flight 193 in 2016.