You might think that an airplane would be a pretty difficult object to lose, but there are still large areas of wilderness on our planet where planes can be hidden for decades. On rare occasions they are found again, against all odds. Over the weekend, I saw an article headlined Remains of Early 1900s Plane Found in Antarctica. Wow, I thought, that’s a long time for a plane to be lost! In fact, it was the first plane ever taken to Antarctica, during an expedition in 1912. But the real story is not what I first thought. For one thing, the plane didn’t fly to Antarctica -it was hauled there. And it wasn’t lost all that time; it had last been seen in the 1970s. Still, it is a rediscovered plane, and so fits in with stories I had already collected about lost and found airplanes.
1. The Air Tractor
Australian explorer Douglas Mawson led a 1912 expedition to Antarctica and took along a 1911 Vickers single-engine plane. Their plans were not to fly the plane, which had wing damage, but to use it to tow equipment. It was used in this manner until the harsh conditions left it unusable and then the “air tractor” was abandoned. There the plane sat for decades, not worth the expense of moving it. In the 1970s, researchers took pictures of it nearly encased in ice, then it was not seen again -until New Years Day, 2010. A team from the Mawson’s Huts Foundation had been looking for the plane for three years, along with other artifacts of early Antarctic exploration. A season of low ice and a very low tide at Commonwealth Bay on Friday exposed the few parts of the plane that survive, right where it was abandoned. The parts were photographed and then taken for examination still submerged in sea water while the foundation decides the best way to preserve the air tractor in the name of history.
2. Lady B. Good
A US Army Air Corps B-24D named Lady Be Good was part of a bombing raid on Italy on April 4, 1943. It was the first mission for both the plane and the crew. Lady Be Good was the only plane of the mission that did not return to its base in Libya. Officials assumed at the time that the plane went down in the Mediterranean Sea. An extensive search was carried out, but no sign of the plane or crew was found. In 1958 an oil survey exploration crew was taking aerial photographs and spotted the plane in the Libyan desert. The plane had crashed, but was preserved well in the arid conditions. The radio and a machine gun still worked! But there was no sign of the nine-man crew. In 1959, a months-long search was conducted to find their remains. A trail was found, complete with signs left behind indicating what direction the men had gone, but the trail petered out and the search was abandoned. In 1960, the remains of eight of the nine crew members were found at various places in the desert. Among the items found with the bodies was a diary of co-pilot Robert Toner that revealed the tragic story. The nine men had bailed out before the crash; eight survived. The survivors walked 85 miles before five gave up and three continued to walk until they died. The remains of gunner Vernon L. Moore were never found.
3. The Volcano
On August 15, 1976, a Vickers 785D Viscount operated by the airline SAETA took off from Quito, Ecuador en route to Cuenca. Flight 232 never made it. Searchers could find no sign of the plane, its crew of four, or any of the 55 passengers. The two most likely scenarios were that the plane crashed on the Chimborazo volcano or that it was hijacked by Colombian guerrilla fighters. Twenty-six years later, wreckage of the plane was finally found scattered across hundreds of meters on the mountainside of Chimborazo. Some think that melting glaciers on the mountain caused the wreckage to become visible by 2002.
4. Helldiver
On May 28, 1945, a US Navy SB2C-4 Helldiver went down in Lower Otay Reservior near San Diego. Pilot E. D. Frazar and Army gunner Joseph Metz were on a training mission when the plane’s engine failed. They swam to shore while the bomber sank. The Helldiver was left buried in mud at the bottom of the lake. In 2009, Duane Johnson and Curtis Howard were fishing on the reservoir when Johnson’s fish finder found the plane. Reservoir officials enlisted a salvage company to bring up the plane, which was completely buried in sediment. The recovery will be slow, as drinking water and taxpayer money is involved.
5. Glacier Girl
On July 15, 1942 an entire squadron of planes, two B-17 bombers and six P-38s, flew out of Maine heading to England. Bitter cold and bad weather over Greenland caused the crews to lose their bearings and low fuel forced landings on the Greenland ice sheet, hours from the nearest refueling base. Supplies were dropped three days later, and eventually the crewmen were rescued. The planes left behind were buried in snow and ice over the years. Sub-surface radar found the planes in 1988, two miles from their original location and 268 feet deep in the glacier. In 1992, operations began to bring the planes out. A huge recovery effort brought a P-38 up by forcing hot water down through the ice. After four months of work the plane was taken, in pieces, to Middlesboro, Kentucky for restoration. Now known as the Glacier Girl, the P-38 flew again in 2001.
6. Yosemite
On July 19, 1962, a plane carrying four young men home from a Billy Graham crusade left from Fresno, California headed to Sacramento. The rented 1959 Piper Cherokee never made it. The wreckage was suspected to have gone down in Yosemite National Park, but the park covers over 761,000 acres and the plane was not found until 1994. A worker at the park happened upon the wreckage in an isolated area near Stubblefield Canyon. Personal effects linked the plane to the four missing men from the 1962 crash. The crash was so remote that mules were used to bring parts of the wreckage out.
7. Fairey Battle on Ice
On May 26, 1941, four RAF airmen took off in a Fairey Battle aircraft from Akureyri, Iceland headed to Reykjavik. They crashed into a mountain in bad weather and all four died. The wreckage was found two days later, and the airmen were memorialized on site a week later. Not long after, the Royal Air Force pulled out of Iceland and the plane was left behind to disappear under the snow. Hordur Geirsson of Akureyri, who was born years after the crash, spent two decades trying to find the site of the crash. In 1999, a friend relayed to him records detailing the exact location of the plane. Also, unprecedented warm temperatures melted the glacial ice to the extent that the wreckage of the Fairey Battle could be seen. In 2000, an expedition that included relatives of the deceased airmen reached the spot.
8. Steve Fossett
A single-engine Bellanca Super Decathlon airplane piloted by businessman and adventurer Steve Fossett went missing over the Nevada desert on September 3, 2007. Despite a massive manhunt involving many agencies, volunteers, and even Google Earth, the plane was not found for a year. In September of 2008, evidence found by a hiker near Mammoth Lake led to the discovery of the crash site in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
9. Hellcat
Lieutenant Walter Elcock crashed a Navy F6F-3 Hellcat fighter plane into Lake Michigan during a training exercise in 1945. Many planes suffered the same fate during World War II, but this one was brought back up in November of 2009. Andy Taylor, CEO of Enterprise Rent-A-Car arranged for his company to finance the recovery of the plane to honor his father, who was a Hellcat pilot in World War II. Elcock’s grandson Hunter Browley explained how his grandfather caught the fourth wire of the carrier as he attempted to land the Hellcat and the plane’s wing broke before plunging into the lake. Elcock was rescued by the Coast Guard, but the plane stayed at the bottom for 64 years. (Thanks, Steven!)
? Amelia Earhart
The most famous lost plane of all is the Lockheed L-10E Electra that pilot Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan flew out of Lae, New Guinea on July 3, 1937 and was never seen again. The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) believes that Earhart and Noonan made it to uninhabited Gardner Island (now named Nikumaroro Island). The group found some personal effects dating from the correct time period on the island in 2007, and plan an expedition to recover possible DNA evidence in 2010.
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Comments (30)
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In November, a World War II F6F3 Hellcat was recovered from Lake Michigan. (see link on my name)
posted by Steven on 1-5-2010 at 9:49 am
Steven, that was such a good story I had to add it! Thanks.
posted by Miss Cellania on 1-5-2010 at 10:31 am
The arrows in the first photo (air tractor) are pointing at what now? Looks like a bunch of rocks. I went to the website and the caption on the picture is:
Photo: Parts of the air tractor in the water.
Really, because it just looks like rocks. Some closer shots would probably have been helpful.
posted by St. James on 1-5-2010 at 11:23 am
I really think Star Dust should’ve been included in this!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Dust_(aircraft)
In 1947 the small plane with its 6 passengers disappeared somewhere in the Andes… the plane was presumably “eaten up” by a glacier. In 2000, a mountain guide came across part of the engine waaaay down the mountainside. It is hypothesized that the plane entered a jet stream that slowed the plane down. Navigation back then was done by calculation, so the pilot believed he had cleared the mountain when in fact he hadn’t even crossed the peak yet. He started his descent to land and ended up crashing straight into the glacier, killing all. The glacier swallowed the wreckage and over the years it moved through the ice, and deposited pieces at the bottom. Crazy stuff. I watched a NOVA special on it maybe 8 years ago.
posted by Elissa on 1-5-2010 at 11:47 am
Check out the story of the Kookaburra from Australia. Crashed in 1929 found in 1978.
posted by Gregg on 1-5-2010 at 11:50 am
There is a conspiracy theory about a B-25 bomber that was lost in the Monongahela River near Pittsburgh in 1956.
Since the plane was never recovered local legend has it that the Army secretly recovered the plane to hide it’s questionable cargo.
The official report is higly redacted – just adding to the mystery.
posted by Julie on 1-5-2010 at 11:53 am
I see I may have to write up a second post on this subject!
posted by Miss Cellania on 1-5-2010 at 12:02 pm
Came here expecting to see the Star Dust and thanks to commenter Elissa, it was at least mentioned…
Yeah, maybe another post is needed!
posted by MissCellFan on 1-5-2010 at 12:46 pm
#2 – there was no US Air Force at that time, it was the Army Air Corps.
posted by PartiallyDeflected on 1-5-2010 at 12:55 pm
You’re right, PartiallyDeflected, I’ll get that fixed.
posted by Miss Cellania on 1-5-2010 at 1:15 pm
Glad I was able to help.
posted by Steven on 1-5-2010 at 1:46 pm
I remember seeing shows on either DISCOVERY or HISTORY about both numbers #2 & #5 !
the one about #2 was called Ghost Plane Of the Desert and both were very informative as to what, how & why they happened
unfortunatley, i haven’t seen them on in a few years
posted by Scott T. on 1-5-2010 at 1:51 pm
I really enjoyed reading this article. I live near where they restored the Glacier Girl. But I didn’t know much about it. Hopefully 2010 will bring new light to the Amelia Earhart story.
posted by mattkendrick.com on 1-5-2010 at 2:25 pm
So, if I’m understanding this correctly, part of a glacier — those things that are rapidly disappearing due to climate change — was melted just to recover a plane? I know it was 1992, but still! Argh!
posted by Beth on 1-5-2010 at 3:49 pm
Look into a crashed P-51 located on iron Mtn in NE Tennessee.
posted by name on 1-5-2010 at 4:00 pm
I remember when the Helldiver made the news here – it was in the middle of last year. They’re still working on recovering it.
posted by Steve in San Diego on 1-5-2010 at 4:32 pm
You forgot about Lake Mead’s B-29!
http://www.indepthconsulting.com/B29/B29Lost.htm
It’s not often that a 120,000lb bomber is skipped across a lake like a thrown pebble!
posted by NalosLayor on 1-5-2010 at 6:24 pm
If anyone is interested in what that Antarctica plane looked like (the 1911 Vickers single engine): http://tinyurl.com/ycfsmgs
posted by Brother Bill on 1-5-2010 at 6:58 pm
The Eastern Airlines crash of Jan. 01, 1985, in La Paz, Bolivia might interest you.
posted by JDL on 1-5-2010 at 7:18 pm
Miss Cellania:
Here is another lost airplane for your second installment. On august 2, 1947, a British South American Airways Lancastrian (a converted Lancaster bomber) disappeared with its passengers and crew on a flight over the Andes. fifty years later, a guide found the remains of one of its engines at the foot of a glacier. More wreckage was discovered, including a still-inflated tire. The last transmission from the aircraft was a cryptic code message: STENDEC. Folks are still speculating about its meaning, and the cause of the crash. Wikipedia has a good article on this; there was also a PBS program (NOVA, I believe) on this as well.
posted by Michelle on 1-5-2010 at 7:41 pm
The Museum of Flight in Seattle has an exhibit right now that has the only known piece of the plane Amelia Earhart was flying when she was lost (she had crashed it before and the piece was from that crash). You can see it and other Amelia artifacts at http://www.wheresamelia.org.
posted by Mike on 1-5-2010 at 10:49 pm
About the Lady Be Good, and its missing crewman, Vernon L Moore. Its believed that his body WAS found, only it was discovered before the crash site was found. Some British Soldiers training in the desert found what they believed to be the body of a young Arab man on top of the sand 10 years after the crash, and buried him there. A few years later, the crash site was discovered by the Ariel photos. When the rest of the bodies were found, the connection was never made to the other body found some years before as only a few British soldiers knew about it. one of the young soldiers was watching a tv show on the plane, and its really only his word and an old photo of the body as proof. This site is devoted to the Lady be Good and has a section on Vernon. http://www.ladybegood.com/
posted by sarah on 1-6-2010 at 9:26 am
Michelle’s comment is about the Star Dust, fyi. (She didn’t name the plane…)
posted by Elissa on 1-6-2010 at 9:38 am
I remember as a kid watching a TV-movie called The Soul Survivors, I think, about the ghosts of the crew of a plane based on what happened to the Lady Be Good. As each body was discovered by a search crew, his ghost would cease to exist. The last scene of the show was one lone ghost airman standing on the wreckage of the plane, realizing that he will never be found and will be alone forever, as the searchers have all left. A good movie. I’ll have to see if it’s on IMDB.
posted by James on 1-6-2010 at 11:04 am
It seems you forgot my favorite recovery of all time: the Lockheed LC-130F (US Navy Buno: 148321) that was lost in Antarctica in 1971 and recovered, repaired, and FLOWN away 17 years later. The story from the beginning to end is hard to believe, yet true.
The little red and black bump on the left of this picture (http://www.vaq34.com/vxe6/jd321i.jpg) is her tail. The rest is under the ice.
posted by Sphynn on 1-6-2010 at 8:44 pm
I recently met the crew of Glacier Girl and got to watch her fly. An absolutely beautiful plane from a fantastic restoration. To hear the whole story and view the pictures of her recovery is fascinating. The cannon was still in working conditioned and was fired once it was brought to the surface.
posted by Steve S on 1-7-2010 at 1:41 pm
My friend Johan Schwarz’ plane went down in 1996 and was found in 1999. At the time, it was the longest missing airplane in the state.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_New_Hampshire_Learjet_crash
posted by Emily Jillette on 1-7-2010 at 8:05 pm
I hear the Kee Bird calling…
posted by Johnny Cat on 1-10-2010 at 12:40 am
Wow, this is awesome! I remember reading about that Hellcat in a magazine last year some time. Considering it was pulled out of Lake Michigan it’s not in too bad shape and you can impressively see the original paint work on the side. Good find too – these vintage planes hold some value, even the wrecks!!
posted by Tom on 1-29-2010 at 3:38 pm
We sure came a long way since back in the day those planes look cool tho.
posted by The Padrino on 8-4-2010 at 7:31 pm