A missing World War II plane has been identified in India’s remote Himalayas nearly 80 years after it crashed with no survivors, following a treacherous search that led to the death of three guides. The C-46 transport aircraft was carrying 13 people from Kunming in southern China when it disappeared in stormy weather over a mountainous stretch of Arunachal Pradesh state in the first week of 1945.
“This aircraft simply disappeared,” said Clayton Kuhles, a US adventurer who led the mission after a request from the son of one of those on board the doomed flight. The expedition took months and saw Kuhles and a team of guides from the local Lisu ethnic group ford chest-deep rivers and camp in freezing temperatures at high altitudes.
Three guides died of hypothermia at an initial stage of the project while camped out during a September snowstorm. But the team finally stumbled upon the plane on a snow-clad mountain top last month, where they were able to identify the wreckage by the tail number. There were no human remains in what was left of the craft. Kuhles was tasked with conducting the search by Bill Scherer, whose officer father was on board when the plane crashed.
