Free Republic

NEW YORK — On a glacier in Greenland , a crew has just recovered the remains of 12 U.S. Naval aviators. They hadn’t died recently. Their plane crashed during the Cold War (search) in 1962, killing all aboard. And now, after 42 years, the men of the LA-9 are finally getting the homecoming they deserve. The Navy is returning the men who died aboard the P-2V Neptune reconnaissance plane to their families, who worked for years to get the remains recovered and sent home. Cmdr. Norbert Kozak was executive officer of the squadron and led his men on the Cold...

Lost crew heading home after 42 years in icy grave By KATE WILTROUT, The Virginian-Pilot © August 19, 2004 Last updated: 12:23 AM Cmdr. Charles Huff, chief aviation mishap investigator for the Navy Safety Center, inspects the wreckage of the ill-fated Lima Alpha Nine , a Navy P-2V Neptune aircraft that crashed in Greenland in 1962. Petty Officer 2nd Class jeffrey lehrberg/U.S. Navy NORFOLK — It was the height of winter – and the height of the Cold War – when a U.S. anti-submarine patrol plane crashed into an icy expanse so desolate and distant that the wreckage lay undiscovered...

San Diego Union-Tribune August 4, 2004 Somber Search For Lost Sailors Team will attempt to remove remains from '62 crash site By James W. Crawley, Staff Writer The 10 men look relaxed in the glossy black-and-white photograph as they stood or knelt beneath the belly of their patrol plane. Yet it was Dec. 29, 1961, and the Cold War was hot. The Navy men were hunters. They flew aircraft equipped with radar, metal detectors and other secret equipment to ferret out Soviet submarines lurking in the North Atlantic. Two weeks later, all but one of them were dead. They were...