6 people searching for plane that crashed 80 years ago in Yunnan still missing, 7 others contacted

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Photo: Yunnan Forest Fire Brigade

Photo: Yunnan Forest Fire Brigade

Photo: Yunnan Forest Fire Brigade

Six people are still missing after a group of 13 people lost contact as they bypassed checkpoints in a county in southwest China’s Yunnan Province and entered Cangshan Mountain by Dali without permission. Search and rescue work for the six is ​​ongoing.

The missing squad are believed to be searching for a military transport plane which crashed 80 years ago while flying over the Hump, an air route linking India to China above the mountains of the Himalayas to supply Chinese war efforts and the better known First American Volunteer Group. as “Flying Tigers”, during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45).

Two batches of rescue teams were dispatched on Saturday morning, including 29 workers, 240 sets of various types of rescue equipment and two search and rescue dogs.

The area where they got lost is located on the southwest slope of Cangshan Mountain, with dense vegetation cover, ravines and valleys. The temperature is between 10 and 20 Celsius, with light to moderate rain.

Among those missing is Sun Chunlong, a former journalist and initiator of a “veterans coming home” charity event.

According to sources familiar with the matter, Sun and his peers traveled to the mountain in search of a plane that crashed and lost contact about 80 years ago while flying over “the hump”, a name referring to the eastern end of the Himalayan mountains above which military transport planes flew from India to China to resupply Chinese war efforts and China-based Flying Tigers units, reported thepaper.cn

Sources said they brought several satellite phones with them, but one has lost power and another couldn’t get through due to rain. There were local tour guides and members of the Blue Sky Rescue Team, a Chinese civilian rescue organization, accompanying Sun’s trip.

“We will walk for four days carrying more than 10 kilograms of weight and we will come out of the bush. For me, it will be the biggest physical challenge of my life,” Sun said on his WeChat Moments on Monday before entering the Woods.

The Hump route stretches over 800 kilometers through the Himalayas, the elevations of the mountains along which are around 4,500 to 5,500 meters, with the highest elevation reaching 7,000 meters.

Flying over the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, transport planes could not reach the desired height above the peaks but could only fly through the canyons, giving their flight paths the shape of ‘a bump, whose route was named.

In addition to the difficulties of flying through snow-capped peaks, canyons, glaciers and areas occupied by Japanese troops, the climate of this region was extremely harsh – strong drafts, low air pressure, hail, to name a few. name a few. The air route has thus been dubbed the “road of death” due to the alarming rate of aircraft crashes.

world times

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