Final Flight: The Mystery of a WW II Plane Crash and the Frozen Airmen in the High Sierra

Mysterious Radio: Paranormal, UFO & Lore Interviews

Mysterious Radio

4.3 • 3.4K Ratings

🗓️ 27 September 2023

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

My special guest is author Peter Stekel who's here to discuss a true story behind a mysterious WWII plane crash and the “Frozen Airmen” found in the High Sierra. Get his book Final Flight: The Mystery of a WW II Plane Crash and the Frozen Airmen in the High Sierra on Amazon. Uncover the compelling true story behind a mysterious WWII plane crash and the “Frozen Airmen” found in the High Sierra. In October 2005, two mountaineers climbing above Mendel Glacier in the High Sierra found the mummified remains of a man in a World War II uniform, entombed in the ice. The “Frozen Airman” discovery created a media storm and a mystery that drew Peter Stekel to investigate. What did happen to the four-man crew who perished on a routine navigational training flight in 1942, some 150 miles off course from the reported destination? Peter found bad weather, bad luck, and bad timing—empty graves, botched records, and misguided recovery efforts. Then, in 2007, the unimaginable happened again. Peter himself discovered a second body in the glacier. Another young man would finally be coming home. Through meticulous research, interviews, and mountaineering trips to the site, Peter uncovered the story of these four young men. Final Flight explores their ill-fated trip and the misinformation that surrounded it for more than 60 years. The book is a gripping account that’s part mystery, part history, and part personal journey to uncover the truth of what happened on November 18, 1942. In the process, Peter narrates the young aviators’ last days and takes us on their final flight. *Help us in our ultimate goal to be completely ad-free by supporting our team and becoming an Apple Subscriber on Apple Podcasts or Patreon Supporter.* Copy and Paste our link in a text message to all your family members and friends! We'll love you forever! https://www.mysteriousradio.com

Transcript

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0:00.0	My name is Peter Steckel and I'm the author of two nonfiction books about U.S. Army Air Force's
0:05.8	training accidents in California in the Sierra Nevada Mountains during World War II.
0:11.4	And my background academically is actually in botany and ecology.
0:16.4	And I've been working as first freelance magazine and newspaper writer starting in 1991.
0:24.4	And I started writing nonfiction books about 10 years ago.
0:29.6	The first is called Final Flight, the mystery of World War II playing crash,
0:35.1	and the frozen airmen in the ICERA. That was published in 2010.
0:39.6	And it chronicles my research to set the record straight about the crash of a B-18,
0:45.4	187 Navigator and its crew of four in 1942.
0:49.8	The first member that crew wasn't, its remains wasn't found until 62 years later by a couple climbers.
0:57.5	And in 2007, it found the remains of the second crew member.
1:02.0	And that too led into my second book, which is called the Neathonded Waters,
1:06.4	the tragic tale of two B-24s lost in the Sierra Nevada Mountains during World War II.
1:12.4	And that was published in 2017.
1:15.2	And this book is my attempt to solve the mystery of how one B-24 liberator bomber
1:21.8	disappeared during a training flight in December 1943.
1:26.0	And then why a second liberator was lost during the search.
1:29.6	That first B-24 wasn't found until a 1960 in a high Sierra Leite King's Candy National Park.
1:37.2	And the second B-24 was discovered in 1955, five years earlier.
1:42.6	When the Huntington Lake Reservoir on the west slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains was trained,
1:47.8	and 12 young men were killed between the two crashes and two miraculously survived.
1:54.8	The biggest mystery of both these stories is how little anybody knows about the depths
	...

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