In 1950, a U.S. troop airplane carrying 44 passengers vanished and not using a hint within the Yukon

2024-02-03 20:28:47

On January 26, 1950, a U.S. Airforce troop airplane left Anchorage for Montana with 44 individuals on board. It took off in frigid chilly with valuable few hours of daylight left.

The crew of the Douglas C-54 Skymaster #2469 was speculated to verify in each half-hour alongside the route. Because the plane crossed into Yukon, they radioed the tiny outpost of Snag to say that there was ice forming on the wings, however in any other case, all was properly.

After that, the Skymaster disappeared. And to this present day no signal of the plane or its passengers has ever been discovered.

Skymaster Down is a decades-old thriller that also defines the households of these 44 lacking individuals.

The U.S. Air Power staged a big search operation instantly after the airplane was misplaced. Daily, within the winter of 1950, newspapers all over the world carried tales in regards to the Skymaster, its passengers and the determined rescue operation. The Yukon was coated with heavy snow because the temperatures plunged. U.S. and Canadian plane flew grid patterns all alongside the flight path, with spotters peering by frosted home windows. It was chaotic — 4 of the search planes crashed.

A black and white newspaper clipping shows a family gathered around a radio. The headline reads 'Brooke Flier's Family Awaits News of Missing C-54 Plane.' — A newspaper clipping exhibits the mother and father, brothers and sisters of Mike Tisik, co-pilot of the lacking C-54 Skymaster, listening to radio reviews and hoping to listen to that Tisik was secure. (Skymaster Down)

A number of weeks later, all of the U.S. navy plane had been rerouted to the Gulf of Alaska to seek for a lacking bomber carrying a nuclear warhead. The households of the 44 individuals who lacking with the Skymaster acquired demise certificates. And the U.S. Air Power by no means returned to the Yukon to look once more.

The Douglas C-54 Skymaster had 4 engines, a 100′ wingspan and a 26′ excessive tail fin. Even within the huge expanse of the Yukon wilderness, it might be onerous to cover a airplane that massive. Is it in a lake? On the backside of a valley? Is there an opportunity that it flew off track and crashed into the mountains?

There is a database of over 500 recognized airplane wrecks within the territory. All have been situated, visited and accounted for. However the Skymaster stays stubbornly misplaced.

Skymaster Down tells the tales of the sufferer’s households and takes the viewers north, the place even immediately an intrepid group of Yukoners try to provide these households closure by going out and looking each summer season, ever hopeful that the Skymaster will lastly flip up.

A woman with short brown hair and glasses sits at a table in front of files of paperwork. She holds a piece of paper that reads "Missing Aircraft" and shows a photo of an airplane and a picture of a person. — Judy Jackson’s father was the radio operator on the lacking plane. (Skymaster Down )

Think about if a mysterious airplane crash closely weighed by yourself household story — that generations had been left to marvel will we ever discover out what occurred? Not understanding turns into an affliction.

Skymaster Down is a narrative that has virtually been misplaced to time; it is a story hardly anybody is aware of about anymore. It is one of many best unsolved mysteries in Canadian historical past, set towards one of many world’s most spectacular and lethal landscapes, with a forged of fascinating and heartbreaking characters.