Recovering P-38G 42-13400: Abandoned on Attu for 54 Years

P-38G 42-13400 sat abandoned in Attu Island’s remote Temnac Valley for 54 years before a recovery team finally removed its surviving wreckage in June 1999. The Lockheed P-38 Lightning had come down on January 1, 1945, after both propellers struck the terrain during an extremely low training flight, forcing pilot Robert Nesmith to make a wheels-up landing. But recovering P-38G 42-13400 was not as simple as lifting an intact fighter. Wartime salvage crews had already removed the outer wings, armament, turbo-supercharger equipment, and other reusable components. Over the following decades, the remaining structure settled into mud, vegetation, and muskeg. By the 1990s, preservation specialists believed enough of P-38G 42-13400 survived to support a major static restoration. After years of negotiations, permits, delays, and one failed recovery effort, final approval arrived in 1999. The recovery team excavated buried sections by hand, dismantled the weakened wreckage into manageable loads, and prepared each section for helicopter hoist operations. HH-60 Pave Hawks from the Alaska Air National Guard then carried the aircraft out of Temnac Valley. Back at Elmendorf, P-38G 42-13400 underwent an extensive aircraft restoration using surviving Attu structure alongside period P-38 components recovered earlier from Amchitka. Roughly 12,000 labor hours later, the abandoned wreck had regained the unmistakable shape of a Lightning. This is the extraordinary aircraft recovery story of P-38G 42-13400. Subscribe for more aviation recovery, rescue, and investigation documentaries.