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1950 Douglas C-54D disappearance

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1950 Douglas C-54D-1-DC disappearance
42-72469, four years before it disappeared
Incident
Date26 January 1950
SummaryDisappearance
SiteYukon, Canada; in vicinity of Snag
Aircraft
Aircraft typeDouglas C-54 Skymaster
OperatorUnited States Air Force
Registration42-72469
Flight originElmendorf Air Force Base (EDF) (EDF/PAED), Anchorage, Alaska, USA
DestinationGreat Falls Air Force Base (GFA) (GFA/KGFA), Montana, USA
Occupants44
Passengers36
Crew8
Fatalities44
Survivors0

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]

Flight

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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. However, the flight never checked in with its second destination, Aishihik, Yukon, and was never heard from again.

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A map of the North Sea
Elmendorf Air Force Base
Elmendorf Air Force Base
Great Falls Air Force Base
Great Falls Air Force Base
Snag, Yukon
Snag, Yukon
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Location map

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 30 January, a C-47, Air Force serial number 45-1015 from the 57th Fighter Wing, that had been participating in the search, stalled and crashed in the McClintoc mountains near Whitehorse. Its crew members were injured, but there were no fatalities. The pilot walked 13 km to the Alaska Highway and flagged down a truck to call in support for his 5–8 crewmates.[4][7]
  • On 7 February, a C-47D, 45-1037, from Eielson Air Force Base employed on the search by the 5010th Wing, crashed on a mountain slope south of Aishihik Lake. There were ten crew members on board, but there were no fatalities.[8]
  • On 16 February, a Royal Canadian Air Force C-47, KJ-936, crashed near Snag. Again, its four crew members sustained only light injuries.[9] Later its wreckage would be temporarily mistaken for the missing C-54.[10]

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]

Aftermath

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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 January 16, 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]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Ranter, Harro; Lujan, Fabian I. (2008). "Douglas C-54D-1-DC 42-72469 Snag, YT". Retrieved 2011-06-19.
  2. ^ a b Kennebec, Matt (2010). "Douglas DC-4 C-54D". Archived from the original on 2011-09-26. Retrieved 2011-06-19.
  3. ^ a b c "What happened to C-54 Skymaster 42-72469?". Ruudleeuw.com. Retrieved 2017-06-20.
  4. ^ a b Chase, Sean (February 4, 2010). "Operation Mike: The disappearance of a Skymaster over the Yukon". The Daily Observer. Archived from the original on June 29, 2018. Retrieved October 30, 2016.
  5. ^ "Exercise Sweetbriar". Empire Club of Canada. 1950-03-30. Retrieved 2017-06-20.
  6. ^ a b Leyland Cecco, Can a new film help solve Canada's 70-year mystery of vanished US plane?, The Guardian (August 31, 2020).
  7. ^ A search for answers, The Troy Messenger (April 6, 2012).
  8. ^ USAF Accident Report 50-02-07-005
  9. ^ RCAF Investigation No.2618
  10. ^ "Abandoned Plane Wrecks of the North". Ruudleeuw.com. Retrieved 2017-06-20.
  11. ^ "Weather blights big air search". Wilmington Morning Star. February 2, 1950.
  12. ^ a b New group will search for U.S. military plane that disappeared over the Yukon in 1950, CBC News (March 31, 2022).
  13. ^ "Dagle, Donald W., 1928–1950". Ns2.iagenweb.org. Archived from the original on 2014-07-14. Retrieved 2017-06-20.
  14. ^ "Kathryn's Report: Family of missing West Virginia pilot seeks to reopen search for Air Force plane that vanished in 1950". Archived from the original on 2012-06-19. Retrieved 2012-05-23.
  15. ^ "Weather blights big air search". The Guardian. August 31, 2020.
  16. ^ "Skymaster Down". CBC. 2022-01-16. Retrieved 2022-03-11.
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