Posted on 08/16/2008 8:40:51 AM PDT by AlaskaErik
It's said that dead men tell no tales. But a severed arm and hand that emerged from a Wrangell Mountain glacier nine years ago just might -- with the help of two pilots, several forensic and genetic scientists and a raft of state and federal officials.
Their combined efforts, detailed at an Anchorage press conference Friday, have determined that the human remains belong to one of the passengers on board a DC-4 airliner that slammed into the side of Mount Sanford 60 years ago last spring.
More specifically, they belong to Francis Joseph Van Zandt, a 36-year-old merchant marine from Roanoke, Va., who perished in the crash with 23 other sailors and all six crew members on a flight from China to New York via Anchorage on March 12, 1948.
Newspapers at the time called the loss of Northwest Airlines Flight 4422 one of the worst commercial airline crashes in Alaska history. But it quickly became one of the most mysterious as well.
(Excerpt) Read more at adn.com ...
What a nice hometown angle to this story.
Local lore has it, the plane had a LOT of gold on it, when it went down....
maybe the Chicoms helped them into the side of the mountain...
The mystery remains—what cause the crash given the good weather conditions? Too bad that a closer relative that someone twice-removed isn’t alive that remembers Van Zandt.
Presumably, he was flying a well-known shortcut between two peaks in southeast Alaska's Wrangell Mountains when, blinded by the brilliant Aurora, he flew into a glacier on 16,237-ft Mount Sanford. At that moment, in a hamlet forty-five miles away a schoolgirl watching the display of northern lights saw a sudden flaring of light that is believed to mark the end of Flight 4422.
Two hours after the crash, a bush pilot who managed to start his plane in the 35-below (F) weather flew near the wreckage but could not find it. The next morning, he and a huge search and rescue operation located the wreckage but realized that if -- miraculously -- anyone had survived the crash, he could not have survived the frigid night.
The scattered remnants slid down the glacier from the 11,000-foot point of impact to about 8,000 feet, where snow and ice quickly covered them. Alaska's winter made it impossible to get to the site on the ground, thwarting efforts and plans by bush pilots, helicopters, and dog sled teams. Airborne clergy dropped funeral wreaths at the location. There was one more sighting that night, and then the snow and the churning glacier buried all evidence of a crash.
The crash was the worst in Alaskan history. After the rumors began, it became one of the most notorious. Some said the flight carried secret documents from World War II, others said diamonds. But in Alaska, where speculation about gold never seems far from the surface, most of the rumors centered on gold. The rumors sparked at least 20 expeditions to find the crash site and ferret out the gold.
Found here
Just type in Mt. SXanford plane crash on a google search.
Sounds more exciting if something like “The Langoliers” occurred while flying through the Aurora Borealis.
Like the French have a word for everything, Americans got a trade for everything.
Might be of interest.
So much for the short cut saving time.
Did they have Chicoms in 1948?
Reminds me of the one about a similar flight that started showing up in pieces at the base of a glacier decades after the crash. I think it was an old Lancaster that was converted to commercial use after WWII.
Van Zandt's have always had bad luck with flying.
While the People's Republic of China was established only as of October 1, 1949, I think that it's safe to assume that Chinese Communists were already living even prior to the date on which the country was founded.
Otherwise, just who did conduct the "Long March" of October, 1934, if not Chicoms?
Regards,
ooh that smell
Gold?
Interesting report on this airplane crash.
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Gods |
Thanks BBell.the human remains belong to one of the passengers on board a DC-4 airliner that slammed into the side of Mount Sanford 60 years ago last spring... Francis Joseph Van Zandt, a 36-year-old merchant marine from Roanoke, Va., who perished in the crash with 23 other sailors and all six crew members on a flight from China to New York via Anchorage on March 12, 1948.To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. |
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:Cue the eerie music:
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