Douglas C-124 Globemaster II Crashes on Mount Gannett, Alaska (1952)
On November 22, 1952, a U.S. Air Force Douglas C-124 Globemaster II slammed into Mount Gannett in Alaska's Chugach Mountains, killing all 52 servicemen aboard. At the time it was the worst aviation disaster in American history. The wreckage vanished into the mountain's glacier for six decades before nature itself brought the story back to light.
A Routine Flight Turns Deadly
The doomed aircraft was flying a routine Military Air Transport Service mission from McChord Air Force Base in Washington State to Elmendorf Air Force Base near Anchorage, Alaska, carrying 41 passengers and 11 crew members. As the C-124 approached Alaska on the afternoon of November 22, 1952, it flew into a severe snowstorm with poor visibility over the rugged Chugach Mountains east of Anchorage. Radio contact with the aircraft was lost, and the plane struck the face of Mount Gannett, a 9,470-foot peak, at roughly the 6,000-foot level, disintegrating on impact. Search crews scoured the mountainous terrain for days, but the crash site sat atop the remote and heavily crevassed Colony Glacier, making recovery of remains impossible with the technology and resources available at the time. All 52 men aboard were declared dead, and the disaster instantly became the deadliest aviation accident in U.S. history up to that point, a grim record it held for several years. The tragedy underscored the hazards facing military aircrews flying supply and personnel routes through Alaska's notoriously unpredictable mountain weather during the early Cold War buildup of American forces in the territory.
Did You Know?
The Colony Glacier carried the C-124's wreckage more than 12 miles from the original 1952 crash site before ice melt exposed it in 2012, meaning recovery teams found the debris field far from where investigators had originally searched six decades earlier.
The 'Old Shaky' Globemaster II
The Douglas C-124 Globemaster II, affectionately and derisively nicknamed 'Old Shaky' by the crews who flew it, was a heavy-lift, piston-engine cargo aircraft built by the Douglas Aircraft Company at its Long Beach, California plant. Developed from the earlier C-74 Globemaster I, the C-124 first flew in 1949 and entered Air Force service in 1950, becoming the backbone of American strategic airlift throughout the 1950s and into the Vietnam era. Powered by four massive Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major radial engines, the Globemaster II could haul oversized cargo, vehicles, and up to 200 troops through clamshell nose doors and a rear cargo elevator, making it indispensable for moving heavy equipment to remote or underdeveloped bases. Its nickname reflected the pronounced vibration passengers felt in flight, a byproduct of its powerful engines and unpressurized fuselage. Despite its ungainly appearance and reputation for rough rides, the C-124 proved a workhorse of Cold War logistics, supporting operations from the Korean War to the Berlin Airlift-era resupply missions and Arctic operations like the one that ended so tragically over Mount Gannett. More than 440 Globemaster IIs were built before production ended, and the type remained in active service until 1970.
Sixty Years Frozen, Then Revealed
For nearly 60 years, the wreckage and the remains of the 52 men aboard lay entombed within the ice of Colony Glacier, slowly grinding downhill along with the glacier's natural flow. The exact crash site remained essentially unreachable, and the case grew cold as a mystery of Cold War-era aviation. That changed in June 2012, when an Alaska Army National Guard helicopter crew on a routine training flight spotted debris and wreckage emerging from the melting ice roughly 12 miles from the original impact point, having traveled that distance over six decades of glacial movement. The discovery prompted a multi-year recovery effort led by the Department of Defense's Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (later the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency), which conducted annual summer expeditions to the glacier to recover human remains and personal effects before they could be lost to crevasses or meltwater. Using DNA analysis, forensic anthropologists worked to identify individual servicemen, allowing many families to finally receive their loved ones' remains for burial with military honors. The Mount Gannett recovery became one of the most significant and emotionally resonant identification efforts in modern U.S. military history, offering long-delayed closure to families who had waited generations for answers, and it stands as a powerful reminder of how Alaska's glaciers can both conceal and eventually reveal the past.