Aircraft recovery in Greenland has Ovid connection

A California team's plan to recover a P-38 fighter aircraft entombed under hundreds of feet of glacial snow and ice in Greenland is under way.

If all goes well, the team hopes to have a P-38 wreck located by next weekend, Ken McBride, the team leader, said in an e-mail. Recovery of the plane, he added, might be possible by the second or third week in September.

McBride cautioned, "many factors can alter the plan." He cited weather as an example, mechanical issues with airplanes and shipping companies sometimes falling behind schedule.

Team members will search for a wreck site using a Wilga 80, an aircraft acquired in Texas and equipped with a radar detection probe. That plane was due at the Ovid Airport Saturday or Sunday, June 25 or 26.

The Wilga's windshield had to be replaced and other repairs made. "Came out very nice," McBride said, "but took six full days!" The search began then for skis for the plane, with team members following up on a lead in Poland and another on the East Coast.

"We have a tentative lease deal on so, hopefully, between the two we'll come up with a set. They are harder to find than expected," McBride said.

Another plane that figures prominently in the recovery plan is a Russian built Antonov AN-2, housed at the Ovid Airport. The single-engine bi-plane, noted for its good field performance and use on short, unimproved runways, could begin its Greenland flight around July 9 or 10. It would be used to ferry men and equipment to the crash site from a base station.

John King, owner of the Ovid Airport, said McBride was here in February to test the AN-2's performance on skis. All went well, he said. And despite the cold weather, "she started right up."

The recovery team launched its Greenland plans last year with most of the summer season spent at the Ovid Airport readying for the trip. But delays forced McBride to call off the trip with Greenland's winter weather closing in.

Six P-38s and two B-17 bombers left Presque Isle Air Base in Maine en route to Great Britain on July 15, 1942. The pilots were to fly southeast over the ice cap and the mountains of Greenland, cross the Denmark Strait and proceed to Reykjavik, Iceland.

At 12,000 feet, the aircraft encountered a heavy blanket of fog. As conditions worsened, the pilots, with fuel running low, opted to land on the east coast of Greenland and had to abandon their planes there. The crewmen were all safely rescued. One of the six P-38s was recovered in 1992 and is in use today as Glacier Girl.

The Glacier Girl recovery team used a thermal meltdown generator to melt the ice and a thermal pump and hose system were used to keep the area free of water. The recovered P-38 was lying 268 feet below the surface of snow and ice. Men armed with steam hoses were lowered into the hole to create a cave surrounding the airplane and work continued for about a month.