In 1968, 8th December, three American Lockhead jetplanes flew from Goose bay in Canada heading for Keflavik, Iceland. They were hit by bad weather over Greenland and tried to make an emergency landing at Kangerlussuaq. In those days, there were no roads whatsoever in Greenland, and this area is still called ”Arctic Sahara”.

This ”highway”, or ”Autostrada” as the Greenlanders call it, was built partly during WWII and partly 1995. The river is in low water prone to sandstorms that disturb GPS signals. Tall masts have been built to help out.

Anyway, no road existed where the three planes were lost and finally ran out of fuel. The whole crew of four people, managed to jump out before the planes crashed in no man’s land. In winter the temperatures can fall to -40 degrees C. And this was in December.

Luckily all four of them were saved by helicopters before freezing to death.

The remains of one of the planes were still spread out along the Autostrada, and our bus stopped for us to have a look. There was a sign warning people not to take any souvenirs – but showing respect for the pilots and the remains of the jets. But, there wasn’t much left to see, I guess there were souvenirs brought to many homes as the road made the area accessible.

The driver told us there were many stories about this accident, and he told us one of them – one that he believed was really true:

Since the Autostrada was built, family and relatives of the pilots started visiting the place. Story has it that when the daughter of one of the pilots and her husband was on their way to the site, her father (the pilot) asked them to look in the glovebox for his wallet. And – they found it.