Posted on 10/19/2005 11:30:05 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
FRESNO, Calif. - Park rangers were working with military officials Wednesday in a remote Sierra Nevada glacier to excavate a body believed to be that of an airman who crashed in 1942.
Two unidentified climbers spotted the frozen head, shoulder and arm of body that is 80 percent encased in ice while climbing the glacier on the 13,710-foot Mount Mendel in Kings Canyon National Park, said park spokeswoman Alex Picavet.
A crew of park rangers and specialists will camp on the mountain side, in below-freezing temperatures, for what promises to be long, difficult excavation, Picavet said. The crew includes an expert from the Joint Prisoner of War Accounting Command, which recovers and identifies military personnel who have been missing for decades.
"We're not going to go fast," Picavet said. "We want to preserve him as much as possible. He's pretty intact."
Park officials believe the serviceman, who is wearing a U.S. Army Corps parachute, may be part of the crew of an AT-7 navigational training plane that crashed on Nov. 18, 1942. The wreckage and four bodies were found in 1947 by a climber. This man may have been connected to that expedition, although it's hard to tell until the body's been recovered, Picavet said.
The body was found at the base of the glacier, in a remote, icy area that can be reached only after days of hiking, Picavet said.
Military officials said they've handled cases like this before, recovering bodies of U.S. airmen from extremely remote locations like a Tibetan glacier.
Once the body is identified, and confirmed to be that of a U.S. military serviceman, it would be flown to the family, who could then choose to bury the deceased with full military honors at the government's expense, said Larry Greer, spokesman for the Pentagon's POW-MIA office.
Hopefully they will find a family who has been waiting word on this lost and no doubt, loved one.
And prayers for the family, who will feel the loss anew.
Would this have even been possible without global warming caused by Bush? At least the family can now move onto closure.
Lousy time of the year to be camped out at 13,000+ feet elevation. Brrrrr........
In 1972 a Utah National Guard pilot named Richard McCoy hijacked a jet for ransom and parachuted into the Utah desert. He was caught by police and sentenced to forty years in prison, but escaped and was later killed in a shootout with the FBI. At the time it was thought he was a copycat. Now, many believe that McCoy and Cooper were one in the same, and that he was repeating his earlier, successful, hijacking.
Holy crap...hell of a find.
They did find DB's suitcase, along with some of the money in the Columbia river. DB is either buried under years of silt or was indeed killed in the shootout you just mentioned.
Interesting.
Somebody found a glacier in California?? Don't tell the environmentalists!! All they'll do is tell us it's melting.
Cooper, aka Richard McCoy, was killed by the FBI in 1974.
Intriguing!
DB Cooper was one of my first aliases.
Haha, I was waiting to see how long it would be until someone said that. Avengers Assemble!
DB Cooper was never found after jumping out of the plane
Never heard that before. Thanks for the information.
/john
Amen!
FYI..the mechanics of how/why this happens is interesting..The body lands originally on/near the top of the glacier...it gets covered with many feet of snow.becomes frozen..encased in ice..as the glacier moves downstream....to a lower level..more melting occurs, and objects that wewe encased in the ice emerge..it's similar to how frozen fields push up boulders...
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