Arm in the Ice (preview)

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New fingerprint- and DNA-identification techniques solve a mystery from a 60-year-old plane crash

By Colleen Fitzpatrick ?| November 25, 2011

TRAGEDY: It took nine years to identify the arm recovered from the wreckage of Northwest Flight 4422. No one knows what caused the crash. The plane was off course before it slammed into the mountain. Image: Lines History Department (airplane); Courtesy of Kevin A. McGregor, ? 1999 (man with camera); Courtesy of Roy Wittock (arm); Alaska State Troopers/AP Photo (van Zandt); Courtesy of Mike Grimm, Jr. (fingerprint)

In Brief

• More than 50 years after the 1948 crash of a Northwest Airlines plane killed all onboard, a desiccated arm and hand were retrieved from the scene.
• Initial fingerprint examination and DNA analysis of the arm and hand were unable to determine the identity of the remains.
• Researchers finally identified the remains after developing new techniques that may one day be used for disaster victims and unknown soldiers.

On March 12, 1948, at 9:14 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, Northwest Airlines Flight 4422 crashed into Mount Sanford, a peak in the remote Wrangell Mountains in eastern Alaska. All 24 passengers?merchant mariners returning to the U.S. from Shanghai, China?along with six Northwest crew members, probably died on impact. The debris, too difficult to reach, was quickly covered by snow and eventually entombed by ice.

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