Whenever I fly in a small plane in Alaska, I think how easy it would be to disappear if the plane went down. It could crash into a mountain in deep snow in the winter and remain there until spring when perhaps someone would see it. A plane could fall into a deep canyon covered by thick brush in the summer, never to be seen again or maybe spotted a decade later by adventurous hikers. If the plane landed or slid into the ocean, it would sink, perhaps giving up remnants of fabric to float to shore. Even with all the modern tracking and location technology, mysterious plane disappearances continue to occur in Alaska. As I fly high above Kodiak Island’s mountains, I feel certain I would never survive a crash. History proves me wrong, though. People survive plane wrecks all the time in Alaska.
Over the years, many planes have gone missing in Alaska, but not all the outcomes were bad, especially in the early years of aviation. Often, days or even weeks would pass after a plane vanished in a remote region of Alaska, and the pilot was assumed dead. Then, he would wander out of the brush and into a village. Such was the case of Noel Wien in 1925 when he was flying to Fairbanks from the village of Wiseman. When strong winds blew his plane off course and it ran out of gas, Wien was forced to land on a sandbar. He had to walk 40 miles (64.4 km) 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 ended, the entry in his logbook read: “Forced down, gas and oil out, walked 40 miles back.” For Wien, his adventure was just another day at the office.
The most incredible story of a lost pilot returning from the dead is the ordeal of Lt. Leon Crane. On December 21, 1943, a five-man Army Air Corps crew, flying a B-24 Liberator, took off from Ladd Army Airfield in Fairbanks, Alaska. Their mission was to conduct high altitude propeller feathering tests on the Liberator, a heavy bomber used by the American and Allied forces during World War II. The pilot in command of the flight was 2nd Lt. Harold Hoskins. Leon Crane was the co-pilot.
While climbing through 23,000 ft., the Liberator’s number one engine failed, and the plane began to spin and rapidly descend. Hoskins and Crane fought to level the spiraling aircraft, but when Hoskins determined there was nothing they could do, he ordered his crew to bail out of the plane. The Liberator spun out of control while heavy winds battered it. The alarm to abandon ship blared and the crew of five men struggled to don parachutes and bail out of what was now a death trap.
Lt. Crane secured a parachute and jumped from the bomb bay doors. The disaster occurred so quickly that no one had a chance to send a radio distress call. Crane noted the open parachute of Chief Master Sgt. Richard Pompeo and watched him float over a mountain range approximately one mile away. The rest of the crew failed to abandon the aircraft before it crashed into a mountain. Crane later recalled the biting cold as he floated toward the ground and the “huge blob of red flame” when his plane struck the mountainside.
Crane landed in the snow above the bank of a frozen river where the temperature hovered below -40 degrees. He yelled to the other members of his flight crew, but no one answered. Crane wore his heavy flight suit and mukluks and could use his parachute for a sleeping bag, but he had pulled off his mittens on the plane so he could don his parachute, and he knew his unprotected fingers would freeze in minutes in this weather. He held his hands in his armpits to keep them warm. He had two packs of matches and a knife on him, but Leon Crane was not a wilderness man. He had been camping only once in his life, when he was a boy in Philadelphia, and he knew, any mistake in the frozen interior of Alaska could prove deadly. He quickly gathered twigs and wood to start a fire. He had only forty matches, and he began to panic when the kindling would not light. Then, he remembered the letter he’d stuffed in the pocket of his parka. He held the match to the paper, and it ignited. He carefully stoked the fire until it grew in size and warmth.
Crane had no idea where he was or where he would find human habitation. He decided he should stay near the plane’s wreckage, which had crashed on the mountain above him. He used branches to form a large SOS in the snow, thinking when the searchers flew over, they would surely see it.
Crane would later learn the plane crashed near the headwaters of the Charley River, a tributary of the Yukon. The next morning, Crane spotted the frozen river below him, and he hiked along it until he found a good camping spot. He found an area in the river where a small stream of water bubbled over the ice, and he greedily drank from it. Crane had no food with him, so he tried to kill one of the many red squirrels that chattered and scampered around him in the trees. He used a driftwood club, a spear, a bow and arrow made from branches, and a slingshot, but no matter what weapon he tried, he could not kill a squirrel.
Crane stayed at his camping spot for nine days, but without food, he grew weak, and he knew he would die if he didn’t find food and shelter. The following day at dawn, he began to walk downriver. He pushed through the deep snow, stumbling often. He was so exhausted, he wanted to stop and give up, but he forced himself to keep walking. As daylight ebbed, he saw a small cabin in the distance.
Crane was surprised and grateful when he found the cabin stocked with food. There were sacks of sugar and raisins. Cans of cocoa and dried milk sat on the table, and under a tarp, he found four 40-lb. bags filled with rice, flour, sugar, dried beef, and beans. He stuffed handfuls of raisins in his mouth and then lit the stove and made hot cocoa.
He found warm clothes and mittens in the cabin. He had a warm place to sleep and plenty of food to last a while. He found a calendar and determined the date was December 30. He knew he needed to rest at the cabin to regain his strength. He hoped the cabin was near a town or small settlement, but he saw no other signs of human habitation when he hiked along the river.
Crane thought he had enough food to last a month, and then, he would continue downriver in search of a town or someone to help him. He found a .22 rifle and ammunition in the cabin, and he shot squirrels and ptarmigan for meat. He was lonely, but he fought off depression and focused on surviving. He stayed in the cabin until February 12.
Crane made a crude sled and loaded it with supplies, but the sled proved to be too heavy for the river ice, which was beginning to thin in spots. When he fell through the ice, he nearly panicked, and he knew he needed to stop, build a fire, and dry his clothes. He decided the sled was too bulky and heavy to pull through the snow and ice, so he fashioned a shoulder pack and thinned his supplies to fifty pounds.
Crane continued to hike downstream, and after two weeks, on March 10, he came across an area that looked like a crude landing strip. He excitedly continued and found a dogsled trail. He followed the trail for two hours until he saw a cabin on the far side of the river. He heard dogs barking at the cabin, and he began to yell. A man peered out of the cabin door, and Crane called, “I’m Lieutenant Crane of the U.S. Army. I’ve been in a little trouble.”
The cabin belonged to trapper Albert Ames and his family, and it was located near where the Charley River flows into the Yukon. When Crane relayed his harrowing adventure to the Ames family, Albert calculated that Crane had walked nearly 120 miles from where he landed after bailing out of the plane to the Ames family’s cabin.
Crane stayed with the Ames family for three days, and then a bush pilot picked him up and returned him to Ladd Army Airfield. His fellow soldiers were shocked to hear he was still alive and hailed him as a hero. Leon Crane had no cold-weather survival training, but he used his wits to remain calm and survive in a frigid, hostile environment. Crane’s wilderness adventure lasted 84 days.
Eventually, searchers found the crash site and the remains of the three men who never made it out of the plane. No one has ever located any sign of Chief Master Sgt. Richard Pompeo, who also parachuted from the plane.
