Missing Airplanes in Alaska

The Early Days

Over the decades, many planes have gone missing in Alaska, but not all the outcomes were bad, especially in the early years of aviation in the state. Often, days or even weeks after a plane disappeared in a remote region of the state and the pilot was assumed dead, he would wander out of the brush and into a village. Such was the case with Noel Wien in 1925 when he was flying to Fairbanks from the village of Wiseman. When strong winds blew him off course and he ran out of gas, he was forced to land on a sandbar. He had to walk 40 miles back to civilization and ford two rivers, requiring him to build a raft each time. He shot rabbits for food and slogged through muskeg. After the ordeal was over, the entry in his logbook simply read: “Forced down, gas and oil out, walked 40 miles back.” For Wien, his adventure was just “another day at the office.”

Leon Crane

The most incredible story of a “lost pilot returning from the dead” is the ordeal of Lt. Leon Crane in 1944. On December 21st, 1943, Lt. Crane was the co-pilot on a B-24 Liberator, a popular bomber used during World War II. Harold Hoskins was the pilot of the flight, and the remaining crew consisted of three men. The purpose of the high-altitude flight over the Alaska Interior was to test a modified system on the plane’s four propellers. They were at 25,000 ft. when one of the four engines failed, sending them into a downward spiral.

When Hoskins and Crane could not get the aircraft under control, Hoskins gave the…