1973 Sólheimasandur Douglas C-117D crash
1973 plane crash in Iceland
On 21 November 1973, a Douglas C-117D transport aircraft operated by the United States Navy crashed onto Sólheimasandur sandy beachline in southern Iceland during severe icing conditions. All seven crewmembers on board survived the accident, and the aircraft was written off. The main fuselage wreckage has remained relatively intact since the accident, leading to the crash site becoming a tourist destination.
Accident
The aircraft involved in the accident was flying from Hofn Hornafjördur Airport to Naval Air Station Keflavik, after delivering supplies for the radar station at Stokksnes. En route the aircraft encountered severe icing and the crew were forced to land on a frozen river at Sólheimasandur. All seven crew members survived and were rescued by helicopter, but the aircraft was written off ('surveyed' in US Navy parlance). The unsalvaged remains of the aircraft were left at the scene.
The pilot's recollections
In an interview with Morgunblaðið in 2025 Gregory Fletcher, the pilot who crash-landed a Douglas R4D/C-117D aircraft on Sólheimasandur in November 1973, recalls the dramatic incident. About 45 minutes after takeoff, ice began to form on the aircraft, eventually reaching a critical level. Like many planes from the World War II era, this particular Douglas aircraft used a traditional carburetor system, requiring oxygen to be mixed with fuel for combustion.
The public source identifies “1973 Sólheimasandur Douglas C-117D crash” as 1973 plane crash in Iceland. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Sólheimasandur, Douglas and C-117D.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q85724315. Authority coordinates are 63.459, -19.365. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1973 and 2025.
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This entry incorporates text from “1973 Sólheimasandur Douglas C-117D crash” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.