Switzerland Misfortune Plane Gauligletscher, 1946 (b/w photo)

On 24 November 1946, passengers of the US Air Force Dakota, who had made an emergency landing on the Gaulig glacier, left the rescue plane at the Unterbach airfield near Meiringen with which they had been flown out of the scene of the accident. On 19 November 1946, an American military aircraft, a Douglas C-53 Dakota (military version of the DC-3), crashed onto the glacier in the Bernese Oberland with twelve persons on board. All casualties can be rescued alive after an elaborate rescue operation. The two Swiss military pilots Victor Hug and Pista Hitz will land two Fieseler stork planes, equipped with snow runners for landing on the glacier, near the wreck and bring the passengers to safety. This mission is the birth of the flying mountain rescue.