The Glacier Adventure

At a time when Loftleiðir, Iceland's fledgling

airline was struggling to remain afloat in the

middle of the 20th century, a group of the

company's leading figures achieved the feat

of travelling high onto the country's largest

glacier to recover a DC-3 aircraft that the US

Air Force had been forced to abandon a year

before.

The aircraft turned out to be practically un- damaged and the Loftleiðir team were able to

fly it back to Reykjavík. The DC-3 was subsequently sold to an overseas airline and provided the company with much-needed finance at

a turbulent time in its history.

This book recounts the story of the recovery

expedition in words and pictures, making use

of the diaries of Alfreð Elíasson and Árni Kjartansson's outstanding photographs.

The expedition to the glacier took a whole

month and this is a tale of daring and endurance. Loftleiðir's pilots had flown over the

glacier while the aircraft was still visible on

the surface, enabling them to establish rough- ly its position. But at the site, they had to dig

seven metres through the snow to reach Jökull

(Glacier), as the DC-3 was christened.

This venture onto the glacier was a unique

achievement in the history of aviation, and is

well known among those with an interest in

flight around the world.