It is believed to be the body of a World War II airman, killed in a training flight that crashed in the area in 1942. The body has an unopened parachute strapped to its back, and the cover is stenciled with the word "Army". In 1947 in this area, a hiker found wreckage from an Army Air Forces AT-7 training aircraft and four other bodies. It was established that the plane crashed five years earlier and this body may represent another body associated with that crash.
The AT-7 was an aircraft seating five that was used to train navigators during the war.
The body was removed by helicopter in a 400 pound block of ice and taken to the Fresno County Coroner's Office for processing and identification. This effort will be supported by the Pentagon's POW/Missing Personnel Office. According to this office there were many such training crashes in California during WWII as there were many military airfields located in the Central Valley. It is rare to find bodies associated with them here these days, though some from WWII are still being found in such places as New Guinea, Greenland, and China.
After seeing this article, Steve's wife Libby, who grew up in California, wrote, "When I was a kid we went on long trips into the Sierras -- when small we had a mule packer take us in and we set up a basecamp -- one of the most memorable was in Colby Meadows in Evolution Valley which is near were this plane was located. I remember coming across plane wrecks several times, and one was most definitely a military one. They always creeped me out a bit, especially the one by which we found a snake which had half-swallowed a frog whose legs were still kicking. The things that stick in your mind from childhood!"
I checked a map, and Colby Meadows is 1.5-2 miles west of the glacier where the body was found. I had the map because my son Travis and I had gone on a back-packing trip in an area just east of the glacier in 1999. We didn't see any plane wrecks, but that is very wild and rugged country, and I can tell you it is not surprising that this could have stayed lost for 63 years.
"Aircraft archaeology" is a thriving activity, in the US, the UK, and in Europe, with lots of amateur enthusiasts. With the thousands of aircraft downed in Europe and the UK during WWII, there are still plenty of them to find in lesser traveled areas.
This week's find reminded me of the last most famous body preserved in a glacier, Otzi the Iceman, who died (was murdered, actually!) 5300 years ago in the Alps.
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