Search for missing Air Force plane to reopen after 75 years

January 16, 1950. Almost 76 years ago. A Douglas C-54 Skymaster departed Elmendorf AFB with 44 people aboard. 42 service members, and a pregnant dependent, Joyce Espes, and her infant son, catching a hop to go get medical treatment. The plane never arrived, and was never found. A new search is going to start – and it’s quite the story.

The last radio check-in from the plane to Snag, Yukon  said everything was okay, but mentioned they were getting icing on the wings. They never made their scheduled contact at Aishkin., 100 miles away.

Now, Michael Luers, Jim Thoreson of the Civil Air Search and Rescue Association, and remote sensing expert Nelson Mattie are partnering with Project Recover—a nonprofit that locates missing service members—to launch a high-tech search using technology that didn’t exist even a decade ago.

The crash occurred during peacetime, creating a bureaucratic oversight that has lasted 75 years. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency only searches for service members lost in combat, but no federal agency handles operational accidents or peacetime incidents.

The Air Force conducted a massive search in February 1950, only days after the crash, mobilizing thousands of American and Canadian troops and more than 25 aircraft in Operation Mike, named after one of the crew members. In the first three days, search planes covered 88,500 square kilometers in brutal winter conditions. Four search aircraft crashed during the operation, though all crew members survived.

Sounds like the Air Force put in a valiant effort.

The search coincided with Operation Sweetbriar, a massive U.S.-Canadian joint military exercise that brought more than 5,000 troops into Whitehorse. The overlapping operations created chaos.

“Locals couldn’t tell the difference between distress calls and military calls,” Gregg said. “People all over the Yukon thought they saw parachutes or heard the plane, but a lot of information was from military maneuvers.”

The worst was yet to come.

But on February 14, 1950, a B-36 bomber carrying a nuclear weapon went missing over the Gulf of Alaska—the first “Broken Arrow” incident in U.S. history. All search resources were redirected, and the military never returned to the Yukon after the snow melted.

In 2023, Luers reached out to former Rep. Chris Stewart of Utah, a retired Air Force B-1 bomber pilot, asking him to contact the Air Force on behalf of the families.

The Air Force’s official response stated it would not reopen the investigation without “physical evidence confirming any aircraft discovery or a high potential that remains could be found.”

War missing, they pull out all the stops. Peacetime missing? Not so much. Sad, but true.

Joyce Espe’s husband, Master Sergeant Robert Espe, was stationed at Elmendorf when he put his pregnant wife and 23-month-old son Victor on the flight. His last words to Joyce were “If you have to jump, give the baby to Sergeant Roy Jones,” his best friend who was also aboard the flight.

He never saw his wife, son or his best friend again.

Robert Espe joined the initial search immediately, catching a flight from Whitehorse.

He spent the rest of his life searching for his family, celebrating their birthdays, and speaking about them in the present tense. He wrote letters to other families who lost loved ones on the plane, telling them what wonderful men they were. He later remarried and had two daughters.

Luers was married to one of the daughters, Kathy.

Remember I mentioned the Air Force wasn’t pursuing it?

The Yukon has over 500 documented aircraft wrecks. Only a handful remain unaccounted for—and the Skymaster is the largest.

The Civil Air Search and Rescue Association and volunteers have searched for decades, using the case as a training exercise and conducting aerial searches over the rugged terrain between Snag and Aishihik—an area of approximately 4,500 square miles.

Problem is, the plane may have gone down into a heavily wooded area and the wreckage may be invisible from the air.

The team’s approach combines synthetic aperture radar, multispectral satellite imagery, and LiDAR, analyzed by artificial intelligence trained to recognize aircraft wreckage—a method far superior to ground searches across 4,500 square miles of wilderness.  Military.com

One good thing arising from this – people are starting to see that peacetime service losses should be followed up as diligently as war-related losses.

LOTS more information in the parent Military.com article. Check it out.

Category: Air Force, Artificial Intelligence, None