Alaska national guardsmen have been deployed to a glacier about 50 miles east of Anchorage with a team of investigators working for the Department of Defense. The investigators, charged with identifying unaccounted-for Americans from past military conflicts -- prisoners of war and troops missing in action -- hope to solve a mystery in Southcentral Alaska's Chugach Mountains: figure out what type of crashed military plane has been discovered on Knik Glacier, and determine who the service members were on board when the plane crashed.
The five-person investigative team working for Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) arrived in Anchorage Tuesday. According to Capt. Tania Bryan, director of public affairs at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, the Army National Guard would transport that team to the crash site to begin examining the wreck Thursday.
An Army National Guard helicopter spotted the old wreck while on a training mission June 10 and photos were taken from the air. Guardsmen aboard weren't able to determine much more, however.
JPAC, which coordinates recovery efforts for military remains and wreckage, pushed the Knik Glacier crash to the front of its priority list.
JPAC spokeswoman Elizabeth Feeney said there's still much to be determined about the wreck, and this investigation may be only the beginning.
"We're in the very infant stages," she said of the investigation. "Correlating" the crash with proper military records and determining exactly what plane -- and which crew members -- were involved is difficult. Alaska has had a large number of crashes over the years, she said.
"I've only done research for World War II, and we're already well over 40 (crashes)," she said. "There are a lot of aircraft in the state of Alaska, so we'll try to correlate it to a specific incident."
Investigators will look for any kind of evidence that could help determine the specific crash. This could include personal effects, identifiers on the remains, and the type of life support that the crew was wearing, in order to narrow the time frame of the crash and type of aircraft involved, according to Feeny
The team spent Wednesday training for maneuvers on the treacherous terrain of Knik Glacier. The Alaska Air National Guard's elite 212th Rescue Squadron -- which has experience on Knik Glacier -- will accompany the JPAC team to assist with glacial safety, JBER's Capt. Bryan said.
Based on a temporary flight restriction issued by the FAA "to provide a safe environment for accident investigation," the wreckage is somewhere in the vicinity of Inner Lake George.
A team from the Fort Wainwright-based Northern Warfare Training Center (NWTC) will relieve the 212th paratroopers if the investigation continues into Saturday.
Fort Wainwright, located just outside Fairbanks several hundred miles to the north, trains troops from across the country on safety and movement on glaciers, as well as other treacherous, cold-weather terrain, according to Capt. Dan Perpich, an operations officer with NWTC. Troops learn to snowshoe and ski in the training program. During summertime, they train for mountaineering.
Perpich said that the team often gets called out for missions, but this was the first time that he could recall being called up locally for an Alaska recovery mission.
JPAC also has domestic experience. According to Feeney, teams usually work overseas, but have performed operations within the U.S., including in Oregon and Hawaii, where JPAC is headquartered.
Depending on the team's success in coming days, an actual recovery mission could be launched to retrieve the wreckage. Anywhere from 10-50 people could be involved in recovering the plane and remains.
Details of the crash won't be released until JPAC knows much more, Feeney said, out of respect for those who have lost family members in Alaska-based crashes and to ensure that the crash is correlated correctly. Next of kin will have to be notified before any specifics emerge.
Contact Ben Anderson at ben(at)alaskadispatch.com
Correction: This article originally stated that the 212th Rescue Squadron was part of the Army National Guard. It is actually part of the Alaska Air National Guard.