Kee Bird - What was the end goal?

[APG85]

A lot has been written about the attempted recovery of the B-29 Kee Bird. I was wondering what the end goal was with the airplane had the recovery attempt succeeded. They were going to fly it to Thule for more maintenance. Does anyone know what that plan was i.e. replace hydraulic lines, engine work, etc.? Was Thule AFB going to provide a hangar and support? Where in the US was the plane going to be taken? Was it going to a museum for restoration, storage or was it going to be completely restored for airshow flying like DOC and FIFI?
Just curious if anyone knows what the plan was for the plane had it survived.

[DoraNineFan]

My understanding was that Darryl Greenamyer partnered with a real estate mogul who wanted to profit on warbird recovery and sales. The plan was to sell the aircraft for about $1 Million in 1994 dollars. So for profit unless I understood wrong.

The plan was to ferry it to Thule and continue maintenance for the ferry flight to the US. There is a very old thread here on WIX with info allegedly from an airman at Thule saying that the base commander did not want any of the nonsense or possibly a crash on his record and was planning to stop them if they landed.

Corrections are welcome.

[Warbird Kid]

I'm also quite curious into what was the long term goal for this airframe, had the recovery been successful. I remember seeing someone comment that Daryll wanted to fly her into Oshkosh after the recovery. Presumably July of 1995 had they gotten her out of Greenland. Or maybe 1996 if more work was needed had they arrived in Thule. I have also heard that the base commander was planning on seizing the aircraft upon landing. Though I'm not sure if there is any validity to that claim.

My question is: Will we ever see the remains of the Kee Bird recovered? The aircraft didn't sink completely as expected initially, and its wings, engines, nacelles, etc are all still very much intact and could be a great foundation for a static restoration. I would imagine in order to accomplish such a task, you'd need to get a heavy lift helicopter up there during the summer months, lift the pieces on to dry land, dismantle / prep them for recovery, and most likely sling them out from underneath a helicopter down to Pituffik Space Base (formerly Thule AFB). Or could a C-130 get in there to recover the remains of the airframe?

Something interesting to note: one of the original Wright R-3350 engines that was on the Kee Bird when it crashed is currently for sale down in Texas.

Original “Kee Bird” B29 engines - Listed in Gainesville, TX
I have the original B29 engines that were on the “Kee Bird” when it went down in Greenland. Have documentation to go with them.
https://www.facebook.com/share/175RYrxoeY/

[JohnB]

If they were planning on selling it, I wonder who the potential buyer might have been?
Spending that kind of money to recover a pretty esoteric type without an eventual buyer in mind seems pretty sporty.
The two main players, the CAF and Weeks, already had B-29s.
Perhaps Nichols at Yanks, or Evergreen?

A B-29 is a bit too much for a casual collector, or even a "Sally B"-like enthusiast group to fly.
And a million dollars would have been more than most museums could afford for a static.

Perhaps they were looking at someone like Paul Allen (I'm not sure when he started collecting), or perhaps a large community group like the one that restored Doc.

Last edited by JohnB on Mon Aug 11, 2025 11:29 am, edited 1 time in total.

[old iron]

Or could a C-130 get in there to recover the remains of the airframe?

What I heard is that the Kee Bird recovery crew left a real mess -- I heard this from someone working on the environmental cleanup. Oil on the ground and so forth. The upshot of all this is that there will likely never be permission granted for another try.

This was something of a "cowboy" operation (I say without the intent to criticize cowboys), which led to the loss of the aircraft and something of a black eye that will be raised whenever similar operations might be proposed.

A great story, but with a so-sad ending, and could have been even worse if permission to land in Thule was an issue.

[JohnB]

Let's remember while a Thule commander would of had some say so, ultimately he would answer to his bosses, and if told to do so (probably following political intervention) he would have had to welcome the B-29 and crew.
By the time of the Kee Bird affair, the Air Force was officially supportive of historical efforts, so the Thule commander very well could have been told to support the effort.

Still, in my AF career, I found a few commanders to be pretty risk adverse. At one base, a commander closed the base aero club for fear of an accident somehow making him look bad.
Others were a bit more accommodating. One SAC air division commander allegedly kept his Mustang on base.

[Warbird Kid]

Or could a C-130 get in there to recover the remains of the airframe?

What I heard is that the Kee Bird recovery crew left a real mess -- I heard this from someone working on the environmental cleanup. Oil on the ground and so forth. The upshot of all this is that there will likely never be permission granted for another try.

This was something of a "cowboy" operation (I say without the intent to criticize cowboys), which led to the loss of the aircraft and something of a black eye that will be raised whenever similar operations might be proposed.

A great story, but with a so-sad ending, and could have been even worse if permission to land in Thule was an issue.

I have heard this too and would imagine if a recovery was ever granted permission in the future, one of the conditions would probably be to remove every bit of evidence that humans were ever there.

[lucky52]

Any idea the water depth where it Sank?

[APG85]

I'm not sure who the Base/Wing Commander was at the time, but I would think he would have been fully briefed on the effort to get the plane out and down to Thule. I think (could be wrong) that the Smithsonian had some background support for the effort. The sticking point probably would have come from the Air Force verifying the plane was safe to fly out of Thule and back to the States. Was Geenamyer qualified in B-29 operations and would he have been allowed to fly it back? Maybe a CAF B-29 crew would have participated as oversight? With the cost and amount of work needed, I have doubts that this plane would have been maintained as a flyer once it got to the States. Who knows? Would have been neat to see the plane in a hangar on display un-restored...maybe with the Caribou.

The lake the wreckage sits in looks very shallow from the recent pictures that are on the internet. Most of the wreckage is above the ice. With other B-29's disassembled and in storage, I doubt anyone will ever make the effort to recover the Kee Bird wreckage.

[blue3992]

A lot has been written about the attempted recovery of the B-29 Kee Bird. I was wondering what the end goal was with the airplane had the recovery attempt succeeded. They were going to fly it to Thule for more maintenance. Does anyone know what that plan was i.e. replace hydraulic lines, engine work, etc.? Was Thule AFB going to provide a hangar and support? Where in the US was the plane going to be taken? Was it going to a museum for restoration, storage or was it going to be completely restored for airshow flying like DOC and FIFI?
Just curious if anyone knows what the plan was for the plane had it survived.

I read this book awhile back: Hunting Warbirds: The Obsessive Quest for the Lost Aircraft of World War II , which covered the Kee Bird recovery attempt, along with other warbird recovery efforts.

My memory is fuzzy, but I seem to recall Greenamyer stated he wanted to take the Kee Bird to Oshkosh. It would have been something to see an unrestored B-29, fresh from the Arctic, out on Boeing plaza at Oshkosh. It did seem like a little bit of wishful thinking, though.

As others have said, it seems questionable that the Air Force would allow it to leave Thule. The book goes into how the Air Force seemed to keep the whole effort at arms length. They originally gave hangar space to Greenamyer's helicopter, but then tried to charge them for the space after the fact, or something to that effect. That kind of thing. Either way, with the Air Force being as risk-averse as they are, it seems questionable how much they would have supported the effort, had Greenamyer and his team actually got it on the pavement at Thule. As I recall, at the crash site, they replaced the engines, recovered the control surfaces, and other repairs. But the landing gear shocks were still all flat (which I think partly caused the rough taxi which eventually dislodged the gas tank, causing the fire), and I can't imagine all of the other work it needed before attempting a flight across the North Atlantic.

Ultimately, the whole effort had an element of "shoot first and ask questions later," and the plans for what to do at Thule seemed to follow that logic.

I've also questioned how confident they were in getting the thing off the ice in the first place. The runway they carved out of the ice with the bulldozer seemed very short, to my recollection of the book. It wasn't clear if they actually had run the numbers on the runway length, or if they were just going to firewall the throttles and hope for the best.

[blue3992]

double post

[APG85]

I always wondered if the nose landing gear would have held up on a take-off run across the snow.
I read someplace that the take-off attempt depicted in the Nova documentary was not actually going to be a flight attempt. He was just going to taxi it to get a feel of the plane, come back to parking and add more fuel for the actual take-off. You can see the crew ladder is still down out of the nose gear as he taxied out.
Lot's of interesting "what-if's" with this story.
Despite the criticisms that have been leveled at the attempt over the years, I really admire the guys that gave this a shot. I can't imagine the logistics involved and the conditions they were working in. If they had gotten the plane down to Thule, I imagine they would have gotten a heroes welcome, tons of press and support to get the plane to the States would have poured in. What a story that would have been!

[sandiego89]

......Despite the criticisms that have been leveled at the attempt over the years, I really admire the guys that gave this a shot. I can't imagine the logistics involved and the conditions they were working in. If they had gotten the plane down to Thule, I imagine they would have gotten a heroes welcome, tons of press and support to get the plane to the States would have poured in. What a story that would have been!

It would have been a legendary recovery if they had pulled it off, but I think you are being a bit polite. I too would have loved for them to succeed, but there is often a fine line between bold and foolhardy. They almost killed themselves more than once in the grossly over loaded Caribou, they ignored safety limits and some common sense, did some questionable repairs, I do not think they ever paid or returned the engines that were promised on a handshake, etc. IF they had gotten airborne, the ferry to Thule would have also been fraught with challenges.

I seem to recall the USAF folks at Thule were not excited about it and expressly told them not to attempt a fly in when they were closed, but the team really ignored the folks at Thule. I do not think there would have been a hero's welcome (but perhaps some smiles). I'm not here to disparage anyone, and can recognize legendry feats as well as anyone, but if it had gone any worse than it did the questioning would have been hard to ignore. A true recovery would have had it come out in pieces, but that would have been prohibitively expensive. This is always a touchy topic, and I know others will disagree, that is OK.

[lucky52]

Did the recovery crew hang 4 overhauled on the plane for the flight out and bring back the original engines?

[phil65]

"They almost killed themselves more than once in the grossly over loaded Caribou, they ignored safety limits and some common sense, did some questionable repairs"

They killed the mechanic...

Phil - A&P, I.A.