A plane crash hidden within a glacier is now exposed uncovering a family history

THIS IS A STORY about my grandfather's disappearance and my visit to his plane’s crash site now that the wreckage is no longer locked inside glacial ice. It is a story about how family history can help build one’s identity, and how identities are very often something that must be searched out. It's a universal story of the search for where we come from and where we are going.

P2v Neptune

Crash Site at Mt Gemes, BC 1989

Become the Mountain
by Mason Hall

On November 4th, 1948, my grandfather’s plane disappeared into a terrible snowstorm while running wartime simulations near Vancouver Island. My grandmother was due the next month with her fourth child, my aunt, and living on the naval base in Oak Harbor, Washington, with her Navy pilot husband and their three sons. There were flares seen and radio transmissions received from the area days after the disappearance, but the plane wasn’t found until almost 15 years later. My father and his siblings grew up thinking their father might show up on their doorstep at any time.  

My grandfather’s plane lay buried inside a glacier within an extinct volcano, hidden from view ’til 1962. It wasn't until 1989, thanks to the persistence of Swentek, the brother of a crewman on the missing plane, that the Navy flew a team of specialists to the crash site to finally determine what happened, and to bring remains back to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Most of the plane’s wreckage still lay hidden within an ice cave then, and many questions still remain about the crash.

In 2021 the pandemic lockdown suspended my work. While cleaning the house, I came across home movies of my grandfather before his disappearance. After sharing the footage with my family it was clear no one had seen the footage before. I became fascinated again by the story of his disappearance and the location of where the wreckage lies.

According to Google Earth and locals, the glacier has disappeared, completely melted. I hope to visit the site, stay the night, and look for the plaque and burial site created by the first naval visit in 1962, as well as document any new wreckage now exposed in high definition.

Mt Gemes, BC 1962

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Become the Mountain Outline

Part I Dead Reckoning

The never-before-seen footage brings back to life Mason Hall's grandfather for an entire family that never knew him since he disappeared in 1948 before all of his children were age 4. Mason interviews family members about Albert Jr and Virginia (his grandfather and grandmother), focusing on their relationship from their elopement and early deployment to WWII up to Albert’s disappearance and how it altered life for Virgina and her 4 young children. What does the documentation left behind tell us about who Albert Jr and Virginia were? What were the details of Albert’s disappearance and how did it change his family for generations to come.

 Part II Skip Distance

Part II focuses on the details surrounding the plane crash in 1948 up to 1990, when the navy sent a team of specialists to retrieve human remains and bring them to Arlington Cemetery for burial. Swentek’s story of persistence was responsible for the 1989 mission but mysteries around what happened to the plane still remain hidden underneath unstable glacial ice. This part of the story affected everyone involved including those specialists the Navy employed. What do the surviving members of these events have to say about the story and where are they now?

Part III Celestial Navigation

Reflecting on the relationship we have to our past can be a process of defining the truth of a story and this truth can be tied to how we define our personal identities. In the final chapter of the film Mason journeys to the remote crash site alone and uncovers new evidence of what happened to Albert’s plane now that the glacial ice that hid the plane wreckage has melted.  The experience of making this film is as much a personal journey of reconciling family as it is a universal story of where we are from and where we are going. ​

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