Melting Ice Uncovers 1946 Wreckage of U.S. Plane in Swiss Glacier

LONDON — After an emergency landing on a Swiss glacier, the group of 12 Americans drank melted snow and survived on rations of one chocolate bar a person until daring pilots shuttled them to safety after five days marooned on the ice.

Relics of that harrowing adventure and the successful rescue of all those onboard, including an 11-year-old girl and the captain’s mother, resurfaced after 70 years this month when scorching summer temperatures in Europe caused the glacial ice to recede.

The melting uncovered a large part of the wreckage of the U.S. Air Force transport plane, including a wing and items from the cabin, like canned food and clothes hangers.

Parts of the C-53 aircraft, also known as a Dakota, had already been discovered over the past 20 years. But the heat waves washing over much of the Continent this year, which many have linked to climate change, have permitted the retrieval of many more artifacts that recount the death-defying story of the 1946 flight.

The plane had been heading to Marseille, in the south of France, from Munich, carrying American officers and family members. The pilot, Capt. Ralph H. Tate Jr., found himself navigating among snowy peaks in turbulent weather and was forced to make a risky landing on the glacier to avoid crashing.

“It was a case of hitting the rocky peaks or coming down on the snow,” the captain’s father, Brig. Gen. Ralph Tate, explained after the rescue.

One passenger, a sergeant, broke his knee in the crash, but the others had relatively minor injuries. Snow covered the plane and formed a kind of igloo that helped them survive, Swiss rescuers said, adding that the plane had “miraculously missed a crevice 250 feet wide and 50 feet deep.”

The passengers used wooden parts of the aircraft’s structure and mixed gasoline and oil to light a fire.

The rescue operation was extensive. About 150 U.S. troops stationed in Italy arrived in the village of Meiringen, at the foot of the glacier, to climb the mountain in search of survivors.

But it was two Swiss pilots who became the mission’s heroes, flying German-made reconnaissance planes fitted with skis to land on the ice and pick up the stranded Americans. The planes could carry only two of the stranded passengers at a time, however, so numerous gut-wrenching trips were needed to transport everyone to safety.

The 11-year-old onboard, Mary Alice McMahon, smiled as she got out of the rescue plane, chewing a piece of gum.

The operation — the first time the Swiss air force used planes to carry out a mountain rescue — became a milestone in Swiss aviation history.

“Past and present combined to write one of the happiest chapters in the history of aviation disaster,” The New York Times wrote in an editorial at the time, finding in the rescue proof that “painfully though steadily we are winning our age-old struggle with the elements.”

The survival of everyone onboard after the plane careened into a glacier at 170 mph continues to amaze experts. “It was the most improbable story in the history of international aviation, for a passenger aircraft cruising at a speed of 280 kilometers per hour, to hit the ground with everyone on board unhurt,” Peter Brotschi, a Swiss aviation expert, told the state broadcaster SRF after the recent discovery.

The glacier’s inexorable slide has moved the plane debris about 2 miles. Despite the new finds, Adriano Boschetti, an archaeologist for the Bern region, which includes the crash site, said most of the aircraft was still under the ice, at an elevation of 11,000 feet.

Boschetti said the Swiss air force would work to retrieve the fragments, “after which we will choose the ones we will show to the public.”

The heat waves in Europe have exposed more than just what lies beneath Swiss glaciers.

Ghostly echoes of the past emerged in the form of crop marks in Britain and Ireland, for example. With the help of drones, experts have discovered lines in yellowing fields revealing Neolithic settlements, a Roman villa, and long-gone stately homes, among other remnants.

The sweltering temperatures have also contributed to wildfires as far north as the Arctic Circle in Sweden.