This is the case of a Douglas C-47D Skytrain transport aircraft built in 1945 and operated by the United States Air Force (USAF), which took off from Whitehorse Airport in the Yukon Territory of Canada on February 7, 1950. Its mission was to search for the surviving crew of another transport aircraft, a Douglas C-54 Skymaster of the US Marines (42-72469), which had disappeared on January 26 of that year near Snag, also in the Yukon Territory, with 44 people on board. The wreckage of this C-54 and its occupants was never found, despite one of the largest search operations in North America.
During this search operation, three C-47s crashed, two USAF (on 30 January and 7 February 1950) and one Royal Canadian Air Force (on 16 February 1950). All three accidents resulted in no fatalities. The second of these accidents involved a USAF C-47D, serial number 45-1037 (MSN 34306/17040), which encountered bad weather on 7 February and was eventually driven into a mountainside by a downdraft northwest of Pon Lake in a remote mountainous area of the Yukon Territory. Following the crash, the pilot of 45-1037 drove 18 kilometres to a highway in Alaska, where he was picked up by a truck driver, which led to the rescue of the other nine occupants of the plane.
Today, the wreckage of that C-47D remains at the site where it crashed in 1950. The plane’s fuselage is relatively intact but heavily polished due to wind and rain erosion, but its American cockades and serial number can still be identified in the driftwood. A few days ago, Foresty Forest posted a video of a tour of the wreckage of that plane:
