The Kee Bird B-29 was a United States Army Air Forces B-29 Superfortress that became stranded on the Greenland icecap during a secret Cold War reconnaissance mission in 1947. The crew was rescued, but the aircraft was left in place. In 1994, an attempt was made to recover and restore the aircraft, but it ended in failure when the Kee Bird caught fire and was destroyed during the attempted restoration.
The Kee Bird was on a classified mission to conduct aerial reconnaissance in the Arctic region when it encountered severe weather and was forced to make an emergency landing on a frozen lake in Greenland on February 21, 1947. The crew survived the landing, and after spending three days in the harsh conditions, they were rescued by a ski-equipped C-47 aircraft.
The B-29 remained largely intact and undisturbed on the icecap for nearly five decades. In the early 1990s, aircraft recovery expert Darryl Greenamyer located the Kee Bird and decided to lead a salvage operation to restore the aircraft to flying condition. The recovery effort was documented and turned into a television program.
The team worked under extreme conditions to repair the aircraft, with the goal of flying it out of Greenland. However, during the restoration process, a fire broke out due to a heater used to keep the engines warm. The fire quickly spread, and despite efforts to extinguish it, the Kee Bird was consumed by the flames. The fire destroyed the aircraft, ending any hopes of it ever taking to the skies again. The remains of the Kee Bird still lie in the same spot on the Greenland icecap, a testament to the era of strategic reconnaissance and the perils of Arctic aviation.
