A recent photo captured by NASA’s P-3 Orion shows the remains of Kee Bird, a B-29 Superfortress that crash landed on a Greenland ice sheet in February 1947 during a Cold War spy mission gone awry.
The new image was taken during a flight for Operation IceBridge, a program that records changes in the Earth’s ice over time. NASA researcher John Sonntag says Kee Bird’s resting place between Humboldt and Petermann Glaciers, two key study locations, makes it a common sight during scientific aerial missions in the area.
Today the wreckage of Kee Bird lies partially submerged beneath snow and ice after an attempt to recover the airplane in the 1990s was abandoned when the aircraft caught on fire during restoration attempts.
The B-29 met its fate during a reconnaissance mission to the North Pole, where crewmembers were tasked with mapping the region and searching for Soviet activity. Poor weather and low fuel forced the crew to make a crash landing in Greenland. All 11 crewmembers survived the crash and were rescued three days later.
View our Kee Bird photo gallery here.
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