A recovery team tried to start the greenland-stranded Kee Bird after the World War II-era B-29 bomber had been frozen into the ice cap for nearly 50 years. The aircraft had been left behind after an emergency landing in Greenland in 1947, when all 11 people onboard survived and were rescued three days later. In the 1990s, a private team led by test pilot Darryl Greenamyer returned to the site in an attempt to repair it and bring it back to life.
How the Kee Bird ended up in Greenland
The Kee Bird departed from Ladd Field, Alaska, on February 20, 1947, on a top-secret Cold War reconnaissance mission toward the North Pole. The plane was meant to search for evidence of Soviet military presence in the Arctic, but bad weather and malfunctioning instruments forced the flight into trouble. Running low on fuel, the pilot made a successful emergency belly landing onto a frozen lake in Greenland, and the aircraft remained there for decades.
That wreck became the focus of a private recovery effort in July 1994. The team replaced the engines and tires and installed a new power system, hoping to restore the bomber after years in the ice. The work was interrupted when the chief engineer died of illness and winter weather forced the mission to stop.
Recovery effort returns to Greenland
The team came back in May 1995, nearly a year after first arriving at the site. They cleared ice for a makeshift runway and prepared for takeoff, pushing the recovery attempt into its most ambitious phase. During a taxi test, however, a makeshift auxiliary power unit fuel tank broke loose, cutting into the plan.
The attempt to start the Kee Bird in Greenland underscored how difficult it is to recover an aircraft that has spent decades frozen in place. The mission had moved from wartime history into a high-risk restoration challenge, with each step shaped by the ice, the weather, and the limits of field repair.
What this Greenland recovery means next
The available record shows a recovery effort that advanced, stalled, and then returned to the ice with determination. The Kee Bird remained a reminder of the 1947 flight, the emergency landing, and the later effort to revive a bomber that had spent nearly 50 years in Greenland ice. Any further progress would depend on whether the aircraft could be kept intact through another round of recovery work.
