Questions swirl around '42 crash on Sierra glacier

Published online on Wednesday, Sep. 17, 2008

Standing on wind-swept ice at 12,500 feet, the mystery of a 1942 military plane crash at Mendel Glacier seems a lot less mysterious.

The glacier -- in a brutal mountain wilderness -- is where four young airmen died. Five years passed before hikers stumbled across the wreckage. More than six decades later, two bodies emerged from the melting glacier, eerily mummified in ice.

Back in 1942, military authorities suggested that the twin-engine AT-7 had flown 200 miles off course during a training mission on the west side of the Sierra Nevada. It vanished in a storm.

Today, based on location of the crash site at Mendel in Kings Canyon National Park, it seems more likely that the plane came from the east on an entirely different course.

In the process, the aviators probably encountered one of the biggest storms of the century.

The flight on Nov. 18, 1942, is just one casualty among many in the Sierra. Hundreds of military and private planes have crashed in the 400-mile-long mountain range, trapped by some of the world's most dangerous winds, sudden storms, no-way-out canyons or their own mistakes.

Like many lost flights, the 1942 crash left more questions than answers.

Were these four airmen really lost? Did the military lose track of them, not realizing they were on a different training flight on the other side of the mountains?

Looking for answers, The Bee hiked last week with Seattle writer Peter Stekel to the glacier as he continued researching a book on the crash. Stekel, who last year found the second ice mummy at Mendel Glacier, said there is more to this story than military accident and search reports show.

During the four-day hike to Mendel, Stekel said letters from the airmen mention destinations east of the Sierra. He said he believes they may have been flying a route that the military did not report.

He also said the pilot, 2nd Lt. William Gamber, probably was an elite aviator-instructor, not just another young flier.

Weather appears to be the biggest factor in the crash. Fresno meteorologist Steve Johnson said the wind in this storm probably peaked at 150 miles per hour, creating an epic blizzard as Gamber's plane approached.

Said Stekel, "Bill Gamber was a good pilot who was caught in a very bad situation."

Salt Lake or Lancaster?

Cadets John Mortenson, Ernest "Glenn" Munn and Leo Mustonen flew with Gamber to work on their navigational skills. The three cadets were together because the military grouped them alphabetically for training.

Just a few days before their final flight, the temperature had been in the 80s, according to meteorologist Johnson. Weather forecasting was still in its infancy, so there was a good chance that no one predicted the immense storm that was forming.

Gamber's flight began at 8:30 a.m. from Mather Air Base near Sacramento. The sketchy military accident report from the 1940s said the AT-7's course would take it over Los Banos and then back to a Northern California destination called Corning in Tehama County.

The military accident report does not explain how the flight became lost and wound up on Mendel Glacier.

But Stekel said there may have been some kind of mix-up in the military accounting of Gamber's flight. Other than the accident and search reports, the military records of the era were destroyed, so the plane's actual course cannot be confirmed.

Stekel said he thinks Gamber flew east out of the Central Valley toward other training destinations on the east side of the Sierra, such as Salt Lake City and Lancaster in the upper Mojave Desert.