10.
BRISTOL AT BEAVERLODGE LAKE Dietmar Eckell is a German photographer who
left his marketing job in 2014 to track down what he calls “miracles in aviation history,”
abandoned planes that were forced down with no deaths.
His search through old newspapers and other records led him all over the world, including
to the remote Canadian wilderness, where he photographed a Bristol Type 170 Freighter
cargo plane that crashed in 1956.
The aircraft had touched down on the frozen water at Beaverlodge Lake in Saskatchewan
when some of the landing gear broke through the ice, causing the left wing to hit the
ground and bend.
All three crew members were rescued, and the plane was left sitting on the lakeside after
they decided it was too damaged to repair.
After learning about the plane, Eckell persuaded a retired pilot to fly him over the site.
The pilot had spent his 30-year career flying in the region and had never heard about the
abandoned Bristol, leaving him skeptical that it would actually be there.
But it was, and it appeared to be in remarkable condition for having sat, neglected, for nearly
60 years.
9.
SS SAINT CHRISTOPHER Originally named the HMS Justice, the SS Saint
Christopher was a 165-foot-long (50 meters) rescue tug that was built for the U.S. Navy
in 1943, during World War II.
But the Americans never used the wooden vessel.
Instead, the British Royal Navy borrowed it under the Lend-Lease Act, which provided U.S.
allies with food, oil, and military equipment.
The Saint Christopher was used during the Allied invasion of Normandy, better known
as “D-Day,” on June 6, 1944.
It was returned to the U.S. Navy after the war ended and was then sold to a private buyer.
During the 1950s, the boat ran aground and encountered engine and rudder problems.
It was grounded at Beagle Channel in Ushuaia, at the southern tip of Argentina.
Nicknamed “the end of the world,” it’s famous as the world’s southernmost city.
Today, the Saint Christopher lies partially submerged in precisely the exact spot where
it was abandoned almost 65 years ago.
It has since become a tourist attraction and is lit up at night.
But nobody is allowed to board the heavily damaged vessel, which looks as if it might
finish sinking into the ocean at any moment.
8.
CURTISS C-46 COMMANDO World War II had just entered its final year
in 1945 when a C-45 transport plane vanished in the Himalayan mountains with 13 passengers
aboard.
It was en route from Kunming in southern China when it disappeared in a storm over the state
of Arunachal Pradesh in northeastern India.
The plane was never seen or heard from again until recently after one of the passenger’s
surviving sons reached out to American explorer Clayton Kuhles and asked him to search for
it.
Working with a team of indigenous guides from the local Lisu ethnic group, Kuhles embarked
on a months-long expedition to find the downed aircraft.
It was no easy feat.
The group crossed chest-deep rivers, climbed up to high altitudes, and camped in freezing
weather.
Even the experienced guides were uneasy about the trek, according to Kuhles, who told Al-Jazeera
that three Lisu hunters had died of hypothermia in the same area in 2018.
So it was probably a tremendous relief when the group finally found the aircraft on a
mountaintop and identified it based on its tail.
But unfortunately, there were no human remains at the wreck site, which represents just one
of the hundreds of military planes that went missing in India, China, and Myanmar during
World War II.
Most are believed to have crashed because of severe weather conditions like ice damage
and hurricane-force winds, according to Kuhles, who said that only some aircraft losses were
at the hands of the Japanese.
7.
BEL AMICA Members of the Italian coast guard were perplexed
in August 2006 when they spotted a schooner called the Bel Amica drifting aimlessly off
the Sardinian coast in the Mediterranean Sea.
The vessel was found near Punta Volpe and appeared to be abandoned.
Its discoverers boarded it and steered it away from some rocks and shallow waters that
it was headed toward.
Inside the Bel Amica, they found French maps of North African bodies of water, partially
eaten Egyptian meals, a pile of clothing, and the Luxembourg flag.
Investigators soon discovered that the boat was never registered in any country, including
Italy.
They also realized that the Bel Amica was not the antique vessel they had first suspected.
Instead, it was a modern boat owned by a man from Luxembourg named Franc Rouayrux.
He had anchored it in deep waters and deserted it, later claiming that he had left to deal
with a family emergency and planned to return to the yacht as soon as he had taken care
of things back home.
But the story didn’t quite add up for detectives or the Italian press, suggesting that Rouayrux
abandoned the Bel Amica to avoid paying taxes.
Unfortunately, nobody seems to know the actual story to this day, and if they do, they’re
staying quiet about it.
6.
LOCKHEED P-38 LIGHTNING On July 8, 1944, a P-38 fighter aircraft crashed
in the forest near Waldegg, Austria, while being flown by 2nd Lt. Henry Donald Mitchell.
The 23-year-old American pilot and his plane were never seen again, leaving his brother,
Bob Mitchell, wondering his entire life about precisely what happened that day.
The crash site was discovered in 2017 on privately owned land.
Unfortunately, authorities ran into complications with the landowner getting permission to excavate,
putting the investigation on hold.
American and Austrian diplomats worked together to resolve the issues.
Still, it wasn’t until the property owner passed away that they gained access to the
site through the man’s son, who was more open-minded to the idea.
Last year, the U.S. Department of POW/MIA Accounting Agency finally got a chance to
investigate the site.
They confirmed the plane’s identity and found human remains, which they believed belonged
to Donald Mitchell.
The agency sent Bob an email to inform him of the discovery while they waited for the
bones to be identified.
A forensic anthropologist confirmed the remains belong to Donald Mitchell, ending Bob’s
decades-long search, which began in 1997.
He didn’t believe that Donald went down with the plane for a long time, especially
since his fellow soldiers didn’t see the crash.
It left Bob wondering if Donald had somehow survived and had perhaps been taken as a prisoner
of war.
Now that his brother’s remains have been found, he no longer has to wonder and has
received long-awaited closure.
How long would you search if a member of your family vanished?
Let us know in the comments, and remember to subscribe to the channel if you haven’t
already.
5.
DIMITRIOS There’s a rusting cargo ship sitting along
a remote shoreline a few miles from the Greek town of Gythio.
Known as the Dimitrios, the 220-foot-long (67 meters) vessel was built in Denmark in
1950.
There are conflicting stories about how it ended up abandoned on the beach at Valtaki.
According to one rumor, the ship was used for smuggling cigarettes between Turkey and
Italy.
Authorities seized it at Gythio and supposedly released it from the port on purpose, treating
it as if it wasn’t their problem.
But then, someone set it on fire to hide evidence of its involvement in illicit trade.
A more vague story describes the Dimitrios as a ghost ship of unknown origin.
A book written by the former Honorary Chief of the Hellenic Coast Guard Vice Admiral Christos
Ntounis, claims the ship made an emergency docking in 1980 because the captain had a
severe illness that he needed treatment for.
Several things went wrong after that.
The ship started having engine problems, and the crew ran into financial and insurance
issues.
Then, they were all fired.
Over the next several months, the Dimitrios continued to deteriorate.
Water got into the hull, causing it to list.
The ship was declared dangerous, and port authorities asked the owners to move it.
They didn’t respond for several months, and lousy weather stranded the vessel at its
current site.
There were no attempts to salvage it.
4.
FOLSOM LAKE WRECK Nestled in the Sierra Nevada foothills outside
Sacramento, Folsom Lake is a man-made reservoir that was created in 1955 to control the waters
of the American River.
There are no homes around the lake or in the surrounding wilderness, which are designated
recreation areas managed by California’s Parks and Recreation department.
On New Year’s Day in 1965, a small plane crashed into Folsom Lake, killing all four
people aboard.
Last year, ABC News told the heartbreaking story of a man who lost his brother, 15-year-old
Glen Amick, in the accident.
Glen was out sightseeing in the plane when his life was unexpectedly cut short.
His brother, Frank Wilcox, was only three years old at the time.
But he spent much of his life longing for closure and searching for clues about Glen’s
fate.
Unfortunately, Wilcox passed away without ever finding the answers he was looking for.
Last year, a pair of researchers named Jeff Riley and Tyler Atkinson found what they believe
may be the wrecked plane while testing new underwater sonar technology in Folsom Lake.
The equipment detected something “artificial” in the deepest part of the lake, but the water
was too murky to tell what it was.
Riley and Atkinson returned to the site with a remotely operated vehicle and sent it 160
feet (49 meters) to the lakebed to investigate.
Unfortunately, the water was still too cloudy to see much.
On their third visit, the two men attached a sonar device to the ROV and finally got
images of what they were trying to see.
It was a fully intact, silt-covered plane.
Several of its parts were visible, but the explorers couldn’t see inside the cockpit
or make out its identification number.
They credited the lake’s shallow water levels with helping them discover the long-missing
aircraft.
Speaking with local station KGO-TV, Riley said that he found it rewarding to know that
he may be able to give a family some long-awaited closure.
3.
EDUARD BOHLEN There’s a 500-mile (805 km) stretch of remote
coastline in northern Namibia known for having some of the harshest and most unforgiving
conditions on the planet.
As a result, death is ever-present: it’s littered with animal remains and dozens of
decaying shipwrecks that lost their battles against the elements, which is why it’s
called the Skeleton Coast.
Over the last several hundred years, over 500 ships have wrecked in thick fog, rough
seas, unpredictable currents, and heavy winds.
Sailors who survived and reached land often died of thirst in the scorching desert heat.
One of the most famous shipwrecks along the Skeleton Coast is the Eduard Bohlen, a 310-foot-long
(95 meters) cargo ship that became trapped in fog and ran aground in 1909.
The desert encroached upon the shoreline over the following years, leaving the ship partially
buried in the sand.
Today, it sits over 1,000 feet (305 meters) away from the water near two other wrecks,
the Otavi and the MV Dunedin Star.
The MV Dunedin Star was a cargo ship that ran aground in 1942, and the Otavi foundered
and sank in 1945.
Some of the vessels along the Skeleton Coast are much older, dating as far back as the
16th century.
The scattered wrecks are a sobering reminder of how disaster and death define the region.
2.
PZL TS-11 ISKRA The small village of Wólka Nosowska in eastern
Poland is home to just 400 residents.
It drew the attention of thousands of internet users in 2019 when an overhead image of an
abandoned plane surrounded by trees began circulating online.
The photo first appeared on an Instagram page belonging to a photographer from North Wales
named Tom Dolman.
Journalist Krzysztof Basel tracked Dolman down to ask him about what drew him to a tiny
village in the “middle of nowhere” to take snapshots of an aircraft hidden in a
grove of trees.
Basel was skeptical of the picture’s authenticity, believing that perhaps Dolman had photographed
the grove and slammed the airplane into it.
Dolman confirmed the photo was, in fact, genuine.
He provided the map coordinates of its location to Basel to prove it.
A closer look revealed that the jet is situated next to a house, leading the writer to speculate
that perhaps it belongs to the homeowners.
The jet is a Polish jet trainer called the PZL TS-11 Iskra.
Designed during the early 1960s, it was the first domestically developed Polish jet aircraft.
Exactly 424 were built between 1963 and 1987.
The PZL TS-11 Iskra was used by the Polish and Indian air forces, serving as the principal
training aircraft for the Polish Air Force for over 50 years.
Dolman told Basel that he first spotted the plane while traveling the Polish countryside
with a group of friends.
He noticed its wing sticking out of the grove and made plans to return to the site when
the weather was more favorable.
After taking several aerial snapshots, the photographer returned to Britain and perfected
his favorite shot before posting it on his Instagram.
Although Dolman never expected the photo to go viral, he was worried that his friends
might even think it was boring.
But the intriguing image quickly racked up thousands of “likes” among friends and
strangers alike.
1.
VICKERS PLANE The first aircraft to visit Antarctica was
a single-propeller Vickers plane that Australian explorer Douglas Mawson used in his expedition
of the continent during the early 20th century.
He abandoned the aircraft on an ice shore at Cape Denison in 1911 after its engine seized
up during a demonstration flight.
Until relatively recently, the last time anyone spotted the aircraft was back in 1975 during
an unusually low tide.
Then, a team of Australian explorers rediscovered it on New Year’s Day in 2010 after a painstaking
three-year search.
While walking along the shore of Commonwealth Bay, team member Mark Farrell noticed metal
along the rocks in just a few inches of water.
It was the plane’s fuselage.
The team had an ultra-low tide, courtesy of a blue moon, as well as melting ice to thank
for the aircraft’s unexpected appearance.
Team leader David Jensen said that the conditions gave them the “one in a million” chance
that they needed to spot the plane.
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