| Accident summary | |
|---|---|
| Date | March 12, 1948 |
| Type | Controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) |
| Site | Mount Sanford, Alaska Territory |
| Passengers | 24 |
| Crew | 6 |
| Injuries | 0 |
| Fatalities | 30 (all) |
| Survivors | 0 |
| Aircraft type | Douglas C-54G-1-DO |
| Operator | Northwest Airlines |
| Tail number | NC95422 |
| Flight origin | Shanghai, China |
| Stopover | Anchorage, Alaska |
| Destination | New York City, New York |
On March 12, 1948, Northwest Airlines Flight 4422 (NC95422) crashed into Mount Sanford, Alaska, with a crew of six and 24 passengers.[1] The flight was a C-54 charter flying back to the United States from Shanghai. The aircraft refueled at Anchorage (Merrill Field) and took off at 8:12 p.m. to continue on to its destination, New York City (LaGuardia Airport). For reasons unknown, the aircraft deviated from the published airway and crashed into Mount Sanford.[2] After the initial impact the wreckage slid down for about 3000 feet before coming to rest.[1] There were no survivors. The passengers were American merchant mariners, crew members of the tanker SS Sunset, being ferried back home.[3]
Many witnesses in the nearby town of Gulkana saw the crash, but the wreckage was lost for over 50 years. Snowstorms quickly buried its exact location in a mountain glacier. Over the years, various individuals, lured by rumors of a secret gold cargo shipment from China, searched the mountain and came home empty-handed. Northwest pilot Marc Millican and Delta pilot Kevin McGregor had been searching the mountain together and on their own since 1995.[4]
In 1997 Millican and McGregor located a few pieces of wreckage but were unable to confirm it was from Northwest 4422. Only in 1999, after obtaining permission from the park service and victims' relatives, were they able to remove wreckage confirming it was from Flight 4422. No secret treasure was ever found. At the time of the crash it was determined the pilots were 23 miles off course and may not have seen the mountain at night. An NTSB investigation in 1999 shows the propellers were spinning at high velocity when they struck the mountain, which supports this theory.
In addition to wreckage discovered in 1999, a mummified left hand and arm was found in the Alaska glacier. After nearly a decade, identifiable fingerprints were recovered from the remains by Edward Robinson.[5] The remains were then positively identified by Michael Grimm on September 6th, 2007 using fingerprints,[6] making this the world's oldest known identification of post-mortem remains using fingerprint identification.[7] The limb was from Francis Joseph Van Zandt, a 36 year old merchant marine from Roanoke, Virginia, one of the passengers on Flight 4422. Subsequently, using DNA from a descendant of Van Zandt, Dr. Odile Loreille, an expert in DNA analysis, was also able to identify the remains using mitochondrial and Y-DNA identification.[8] Only the remains of Francis Joseph Van Zandt were ever recovered or identified. The bodies of the remaining 29 individuals still await possible recovery.[9]
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