1950 Douglas C-54D disappearance

Flight

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. An earlier attempt to depart had been made, but due to trouble with one of its four engines, it was delayed several hours. 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.

Search

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 350000 mi2 of the Pacific Northwest. 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.

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.

Three planes crashed during the search mission; although all crew survived, the incidents reflected the dangers of the Yukon terrain:

• 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.
• 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.
• On 16 February, a Royal Canadian Air Force C-47, KJ-936, crashed near Snag. Again, its four crew members sustained only light injuries. Later its wreckage would be temporarily mistaken for the missing C-54.

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 mi south of the Yukon boundary-250 mi northeast of Vancouver and 200 mi west of the Alaska Highway air route.

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.)

Aftermath

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.

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.

In 2020, Andrew Gregg was named as the director of an upcoming documentary about the search for the aircraft, Skymaster Down. The documentary was aired in Canada on 16 January 2022, on the CBC's Documentary Channel.

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.

References

References

1. Ranter, Harro. (2008). "Douglas C-54D-1-DC 42-72469 Snag, YT".
2. Kennebec, Matt. (2010). "Douglas DC-4 C-54D".
3. "Whatever did happen to C-54 Skymaster 42-72469?". Ruudleeuw.com.
4. Chase, Sean. (February 4, 2010). "Operation Mike: The disappearance of a Skymaster over the Yukon". The Daily Observer.
5. (1950-03-30). "Exercise Sweetbriar". [[Empire Club of Canada]].
6. Leyland Cecco, [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/31/canada-plane-crash-mystery-documentary Can a new film help solve Canada's 70-year mystery of vanished US plane?], ''The Guardian'' (August 31, 2020).
7. [https://www.troymessenger.com/2012/04/06/a-search-for-answers/ 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 (Arctic) North". Ruudleeuw.com.
11. (February 2, 1950). "Weather blights big air search". [[Star-News.
12. [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/search-u-s-military-plane-disappeared-yukon-1950-skymaster-1.6403160 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.
14. "Kathryn's Report: Family of missing West Virginia pilot seeks to reopen search for Air Force plane that vanished in 1950".
15. (August 31, 2020). "Can a new film help solve Canada's 70-year mystery of vanished US plane?". The Guardian.
16. (2022-01-16). "Skymaster Down". [[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.