With their feet, the stranded passengers wrote the French word “fini” (meaning “finish”) in the snow to stop the dangerous air drops of supplies. — **The wreckage of the US Air Force *Dakota C-53*, 23 November 1946 on Gauli Glacier.** Keystone

The birth of aerial mountain rescue

When a Dakota C-53 made an emergency landing on the Gauli Glacier at over 3,000 meters in November 1946, it was not only a feat of piloting skill. The rescue of all twelve survivors also marked the beginning of modern aerial mountain rescue.

Katrin Brunner

Katrin Brunner is a self-employed journalist specialising in history and chronicler of Niederweningen.

The pilot Ralph Tate Jr. was 25 at the time and remembers it thus: “I saw dark lines come into view very quickly below us, and – I only realised this later, they were crevasses and became a glacier...”. He was flying eight passengers and four crew members from Vienna to Pisa via Marseille. However, once airborne the right motor quickly iced over causing massive problems and forcing the aircraft to divert to Munich. The passengers were not overly concerned by the delay. They were members of the American armed forces with family members and some civilians. One of them was 11-year-old Alice-Mary McMahon with her parents and Ralph Tate’s mother Marguerite Gaylord Tate. She had planned to take a break in Rome for a few days with her friend Alberta Snavely, the wife of the general in command of the American air force in Vienna.

I shouted, ‘We’re in the mountains,’ and tried to pull the aircraft up. My co-pilot assumed I was having a dizzy spell and stubbornly held his control steady to prevent me from climbing again. The situation was perilous; there was a risk of stalling. I pushed him aside, and at that very moment, we touched down on the ground…

Ralph Tate Jr., Pilot

Mountains, yes – but the wrong ones

The spectacular landing just a few metres in front of the next crevasse ended an extremely dangerous flight that had veered off course over several hours. Ralph Tate had thought they were in the French Alps, which is where they should have been. It remains unclear how the plane ended up in the Bernese Alps. At that time, foreign airplanes were forbidden from entering Swiss airspace. In any case, the DC-53’s course was extremely dangerous. Flying between mountain peaks in bad weather at almost zero visibility, it’s nothing short of amazing that the aircraft didn’t crash into a mountainside.

The plane careered over the glacier and into the snow at about 280 kilometres per hour. When it finally came to a standstill, you could have heard a pin drop. The passengers didn’t know what altitude they were at as visibility was so poor.

The wreck of the Dakota C-53 on the Gauli Glacier. — **The wreck of the *Dakota C-53* on the Gauli Glacier.rnrn** Keystone

Almost unbelievably, nobody was seriously hurt. Everybody was fine, apart from a few grazes and broken bones. Better still, the radio device was intact. The pilot immediately made an emergency call, which was duly answered. They believed their position to be somewhere in the French Alps.

The French authorities had trouble hearing the distress call, whereas Meiringen airfield boss Viktor Hug could hear every word. Hug immediately put the word out that an airplane had crash landed nearby. The Division for Airforce and Anti-Aircraft Defence initially failed to take his report seriously and they turned down his request to dispatch a rescue party.

There are still parts of the wreckage on the Gauli Glacier, serving as a reminder of the Dakota C-53 crash in 1946. — **There are still parts of the wreckage on the Gauli Glacier, serving as a reminder of the *Dakota C-53* crash in 1946.** Photo: Nadja Brunner
Image 01 of 03

As a result, it took three whole days for the rescue operation to swing into action. While the Americans and French worked feverishly to find the Dakota C-53 in the area around Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa, the passengers tried to make their own way to safety. However, they quickly realised that it was draining and dangerous for them to move around the area without a specific objective.

The Americans move into Meiringen

Eventually, the military command believed Hug. The Dakota C-53 was located on the Gauli Glacier, with all survivors accounted for. By then, public interest had skyrocketed. The Americans “flooded” Meiringen with technical equipment and personnel. Soon, snowcats, jeeps, and soldiers dominated the streets of the tranquil Bernese Oberland village. However, none of this equipment proved useful in the mountains, forcing the Americans to drop supplies from the air.

**A small exhibition in the Gauli hut featuring items from the accident site.** Photo: Katrin Brunner

When a 60-kilogram coal sack struck the wing of the downed Dakota, the survivors immediately requested that no more heavy objects be dropped, fearing potentially fatal accidents. Having already survived a plane crash, they were determined to avoid such a senseless death.

Support also came from Switzerland: a rescue team consisting of local mountain guides and members of Fortress Guard Company 16 set out toward the crash site in heavy snowfall and darkness. The team reached the crash site after a grueling 13-hour climb. A return to the valley the same day was impossible, so the entire group had to spend the night on the glacier in freezing conditions. Meanwhile, feverish preparations were underway in Meiringen to enable an aerial rescue. All hopes rested on a small aircraft called the Fieseler Storch (German for stork).

A Stork on Skis

The Fieseler Storch A-97, with its unique design, was capable of taking off and landing over short distances. During World War II, Viktor Hug and his team had experimented with equipping the plane with skis instead of its usual wheels. Switzerland had acquired the German aircraft by chance when two German military pilots, en route to Italy, became disoriented and landed in Samedan in 1943. The Swiss promptly confiscated the planes. In 1944, Hug had begun testing takeoffs and landings in deep snowfields, making Switzerland the first country with experience in high-altitude snow landings.

Fieseler Storch with skids: Viktor Hug and his team equipping a plane to land in the snow. — *Fieseler Storch* with skids: Viktor Hug and his team equipping a plane to land in the snow.rn Keystone

The modified plane, fitted with skis and additional auxiliary sleds, landed six days after the crash in perfect mountain weather near the wreck of the Daktoa on the glacier. In several flights, Swiss military pilots safely transported all the survivors to Meiringen. On the final flight, even the passengers’ luggage was “rescued.”

While people and luggage were evacuated, most of the Dakota C-53 remained on the Gauli Glacier. The Americans initially wanted to destroy the plane to prevent sensitive military technology from falling into the wrong hands. However, Switzerland objected, arguing that such an action would violate their sovereignty. In the end, the countries agreed to leave the wreckage on the glacier. As a result, parts of the plane continue to surface today as the glacier melts.

This remarkable feat of human and mechanical ingenuity was celebrated extensively. Hollywood even adapted the story into a dramatized film titled Broken Journey. More importantly, the event marked the beginning of modern aerial mountain rescue operations.

Swiss newsreel of 1946 showing what happened on the Gauli Glacier. Swiss Federal Archives

More of: 20th / 21st century Technology Tourism Transportation

Further posts

The dream of an alpine waterway

Helmut Stalder 27.06.2024 Pietro Caminada had a simple idea to turn the inconceivable into reality: huge cargo ships crossing the Alps without using self-propulsion. The stroke of genius by the engineer with Graubünden roots was a viable project – at least he thought so.

A mountain pass complete with waterway: Caminada’s canal of parallel lock chambers up in the Alps.

Safien Valley’s roads: built by Polish soldiers

Dominik Landwehr 11.07.2023 Polish and French internees built pathways and roads in many parts of Switzerland during the Second World War. They were especially busy in the Safien Valley – living under the most basic conditions.

The Polish soldiers worked on various sections of pathways and roads in the Safien Valley.

Electrification 2.0

Dominik Landwehr 01.10.2021 In Switzerland, as elsewhere, climate change is forcing a rapid switch to renewable energies. The trend is called ‘electric’ and its advent harks back to the age of electrification, which in Switzerland occurred very early on, at the end of 19th century. Are there parallels to that era? Are we currently experiencing Electrification 2.0?