1952 Mount Gannett C-124 crash

The 1952 Mount Gannett C-124 crash was an accident in which a Douglas C-124 Globemaster II military transport aircraft of the United States Air Force crashed into Mount Gannett, a peak in the Chugach Mountains in the American state of Alaska, on November 22, 1952. All of the 52 men on board were killed. Weather conditions at the time of the crash made search and recovery impossible. Six days after the crash, a survey of the site revealed eight feet of new snow and an avalanche had covered the crash site.

In 2012, the debris field was identified miles from the crash site. Since the discovery, recovery efforts had continued annually. By June 2025, 49 of the 52 persons had been identified. On January 7, 2026, the U.S. Air Force Mortuary Affairs Operations announced that remains of all 52 persons had been identified.

Accident

The C-124 departed McChord Air Base in Washington state en route to Elmendorf Air Force Base near Anchorage, Alaska, with a crew of 11 and 41 Army and Air Force men. The flight was recorded as passing Middleton Island in the Gulf of Alaska. Around 4pm, a distress call was received by the pilot of a Northwest Orient Airlines passenger aircraft. The reception was very poor, but the Northwest captain made out the sentence: "As long as we have to land, we might as well land here." Weather near Elmendorf at the time was severe with heavy clouds, dense fog, and swirling snow which obscured visibility. The C-124 was flying without visual references, using just altitude, a radio beacon, and a stopwatch. There was no further communication from the C-124 and it failed to arrive at Elmendorf as scheduled.

The severe weather continued for three days, so searching was only able to begin on November 25. Thirty-two military aircraft searched the surrounding mountains and four Coast Guard vessels searched Prince William Sound. The wreckage of the aircraft was found on November 28, 1952, on the south side of Mount Gannett by Terris Moore from the Fairbanks Civil Air Patrol and Lieutenant Thomas Sullivan from the 10th Air Rescue Squadron. The pair spotted the tail section of the C-124 sticking out of the snow at an elevation of about 8,100 ft, close to the summit of Mount Gannett. Sullivan and Moore recorded the location as being on the Surprise Glacier, which flows south and empties into Harriman Fjord. However, the 2012 rediscovery of the remains of the aircraft at the foot of Colony Glacier, where it enters Lake George, suggests that the actual crash location was a little further north on the Mount Gannett ice field, sufficient for the debris to be carried 12 miles down the north-flowing Colony Glacier over the subsequent 60 years.

Moore, who was a mountaineer and pilot as well as president of the University of Alaska, told journalists the C-124 "obviously was flying at full speed" and appeared to have slid down the cliffs of Mount Gannett and exploded. Wreckage was spread across several acres of the glacier. Moore surmised that the pilot had narrowly missed other Chugach Range peaks during his approach. "From this I conclude he was on instrument, flying blind, and probably crashed without any warning whatsoever to him directly into the southerly face of Mt. Gannett."

Moore reported finding blood on a blanket and noted the "sickly-sweet smell of death" at the site. It seemed clear that there were no survivors. Sullivan noted that recovery of remains would be very difficult as the glacier was already covered by fresh snow eight feet deep. Near the remains of the aircraft, drifted snow was piled up to hundreds of feet. Apparently, the crash had also triggered avalanches that had further buried the remains. Because of the difficult conditions, the recovery effort was terminated after a week and the victims' families were told they would have no remains to bury. The debris was then covered by snow and ice, and was lost for the next 60 years.

At the time, this was only the second fatal accident for the C-124, and was by far the worst. However, the following year saw even more deadly crashes at Moses Lake, Washington, and Tachikawa, Japan. Overall, this was the fourth-worst accident involving a Douglas C-124.