I (webmaster) spent some considerable time on this, and I did manage to find the story behind this wreckage (mainly thanks to the earlier work by one Doug Davidge).

First I came up nil:

www.baaa-acro.com/crash/crash-douglas-dc-3-yukon-8-killed RCAF, no tail - wrong date: 04Nov71 ! No other suitable Yukon crashes on this website, none; this is relevant as Chris has doubts about the identity of 'his' crashsite being N75391 - based on how the parts are distributed compared to the small photo of Interior Airways N75391 below. Doug Davidge stated on lswilson.dewlineadventures.com/comments/ (20Jan2018):

"I was too young to experience life on the DEW-line but grew up hearing 'BAR-C'…a place where my Brother spoke of when he worked with Imperial Oil Ltd. out of Inuvik and Tuk.

Later, my work took me to Shingle Point and Stokes Point; once camping at Stokes in the mid 1980s for about 6 days. Of late I am trying to track down more information about an Interior Airways DC-3 that crashed in January, 1958 en route to or from one of the sites back to Fairbanks.

There appears to be all but one photo of this accident site from about 1962, taken by a helicopter pilot who was working with geologists at the time mapping the north Yukon.

There is a recent blog on the story (prepared by a good friend, Murray Lundberg - explorenorth.com/wordpress/another-dc-3-crash-site-yukon/) with the limited information we have so far.

It seems few people actually know about the wreck, so now we are trying to figure out exactly where it took place and if the wreckage could still be there or if it was salvaged/cleaned up. The Wordpress article included several images to illustrate the research; I've compiled them in one image.

The article is from The Fairbanks Miner



That small photo of the crashsite is probably from a book by Kit Cain ('Flying the Yukon's Bush', 2006)

Further down are more exact map indications and the lat/long coördinates Determined to be C-47D N75391 c/n 26366/14921 (ex/ USAF C-47B 43-49105)

Mostly reported as 'Destroyed at Aklavik, 16Jan58' Article in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner of 17Jan1958. " Interior DC-3 Crashes; Two Aboard Safe.

Two crew members aboard am Interior Airways DC-3 airplanes which crash landed late last night on the Canadian Arctic coast were alive and unhurt.

James Magoffin, president of Interior Enterprises, said here this morning. The plane made a forced landing about 10 p.m. some 15 miles south of Herschel island while on its wayto Alaska after flying freight to a Canadian DEW line site. Magoffin said he had no information on extent of damage to the aircraft.

Earl Casellius, pilot, and Roy Morgan, co-pilot, were spotted at 9:20 a.m. today by an Interior Airways search plane which left Fairbanks at 4 a.m. to hunt for them."



Doug Davidge found a basic record of the crash at the Aviation Safety Network: '..it records the registration as

N75391 , a C-47D built in 1944 (construction number 26366; but other sites disagree with that construction number’s history)'.

Note from Webmaster: Air Britain's most authoritative book 'The Douglas DC-1/DC-2/DC-3 - The First Seventy Years' quote N75391 as c/n 26366 with Interior Enterprises Inc, crashed 16Jan1958 Aklavik, Yukon. Dirk Septer wrote (20Jan2018) as a reaction on the Wordpress article: "One summer flying into the Firth River strip, the pilot pointed out this DC-3 to me and gave me a lat and long of it. I was hoping to get some pictures of it on the return flight, but unfortunately the wreckage was obscured by clouds."

I spent a long time looking at partially hi-res resolution (wego.here.com) but so many snow pockets remain in the imagery, it's a needle in a haystack. Apparently it is supposed to be on a "slope of the mountain about 50 feet below its summit". But that did not help me. The book 'Triumph Over Turbulence' (written by the founder of Interior Airways, Jim Magoffin) has more details about the DC-3 N75391 wreck, but obviously not all information is correct.

Magoffin mentions the accident on page 124 and includes a copy of the newspaper story, reporting the accident at the time. He states "In a hair-raising brush with possible tragedy, the plane drifted a bit south of course and, in doing so, scraped the top of a snow-covered ridge. The plane came to a spectacular sliding stop that bent the props and put indentations on the skin of the plane’s belly."

Magoffin then goes on to say in the next paragraph on page 125, "We were able to subsequently repair the DC-3 with much difficulty and put it back on the job."

This is obviously not correct, although parts may have been salvaged. On Facebook 'Dewline', Doug Davidge wrote (05Apr18)

"Trying to find out the fate of an Interior Airways DC-3 ( N75391) that crashed in 1958 during a re-supply flight from Barter Island to BAR-2 and BAR-1.

On the west bound leg between BAR-2 and BAR-1, it clipped a hill top South of Herschel Island and belly landed on the hillside.

Both crew survived but the plane was badly damaged.

Wreck was photographed in 1962 by Kit Cain (pilot, Klondike Helicopters), but no recent information can be found about the wreck i.e. is it still there or was it salvaged?" aviation-safety.net/database/ details on the 1958 vent:

"The captain used the nondirectional radio homing beacon (DF) for navigation while flying over a remote area of Canada. He had not been advised that this facility is frequently unreliable at levels due to terrestrial conditions and normal atmospheric disturbances.

The aircraft deviated from the planned course and crashed in a ridge, some 50 feet from the top."

In the book 'Triumph over Turbulence' Jim Magoffin claimed the root cause was the novelty the CAA insisted on all take offs, landings, radio calls, to be logged by the crew - done in darkness this required putting the lights on in the cockpit, spoiling the crew's nightvision and this caused the aircraft to drift of course unnoticed and crash...

I think the initial coördinates of N75391's crashsite was poorly mapped; just like the documentation of 'near Aklavik'.

Personally I don't think there are two DC-3 crashsites we're speaking off here. But that's just my two cents...

Doug Davidge shares my theory: "My guess is very strong winds have caused the destruction and re-distribution

of the pieces." Mind, there's a gap of 1962-2018, that's 56 years last time I counted!

Wind & water move entire mountains, admittedly over longer period of time, but I think that is the case here too.

Sat imagery using ArcGIS, showing a wingsection on 69.13N 139.20W

On the small insert there seems to be a trail of a landslide or track of smeltwater, maybe a cause of parts moving.



X marks the spot, zooming out from the ArcGIS imagery above.