The Kee Bird and the B-twenty-nine that burned in Greenland the day she was meant to fly home

The Kee Bird was a B-29 Superfortress that crash-landed on a frozen lake in northwest Greenland on February 20, 1947, sat perfectly preserved in the dry Arctic air for nearly fifty years, and was almost flown out under her own power in 1995 — only to catch fire on her takeoff roll and sink into the lake where she remains today. Her loss came down to a single loose auxiliary fuel tank. As in 1947, every person aboard survived; only the airplane was lost.

What Was the Kee Bird?

The Kee Bird was a B-29 Superfortress, the largest and most advanced bomber of World War II — pressurized, powered by four Wright eighteen-cylinder radial engines, and the type that ended the war in the Pacific. “Kee Bird” was originally her radar code name, and it stuck to the aircraft permanently.

In February 1947, the war was over but the Cold War was beginning, and the U.S. Army Air Forces were intensely interested in the Arctic. The thinking was simple: if another war came, it would come over the North Pole. So American crews flew long reconnaissance missions across the top of the world, mapping and photographing the ice.

How Did the Kee Bird End Up on a Frozen Lake?

On the night of February 20, 1947, the Kee Bird was flying over northwest Greenland, hundreds of miles from anywhere. Her navigation failed, the weather closed in, and her fuel ran low.

The aircraft commander found a frozen lake in the dark — a flat expanse ringed by mountains — and set the enormous bomber down on the ice with the gear down and the belly intact. It was a remarkable landing in the middle of the Arctic night.

All eleven crew members survived. They sheltered in the freezing fuselage, got out a distress call, and a rescue aircraft pulled every one of them off the ice alive a few days later. The Kee Bird, however, stayed behind. Snow drifted over her, and the world largely forgot about her for roughly half a century.

Why Was the Aircraft So Well Preserved?

More than two hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle, the Kee Bird didn’t rot — she was preserved. The cold, dry air holds almost no moisture, and there was no salt, no acid rain, and no scavengers to strip her.

The same brutal climate that nearly killed her crew turned out to be one of the finest preservation lockers on Earth. Decade after decade, the bomber sat on her belly in the snow — complete, intact, her aluminum skin still bright. Pilots flying the polar routes would occasionally spot her, and within the warbird community she became a legend: the perfect silver bomber still sitting out there, the one nobody had brought home.

Who Tried to Recover the Kee Bird?

The recovery was led by Darryl Greenamyer, one of the most accomplished pilots of his generation. He was a Lockheed test pilot who flew the SR-71 Blackbird, a champion air racer at Reno, and a man who set a world speed record in a Grumman Bearcat he had largely built himself.

Most great warbird recoveries bring an aircraft home in pieces — hauled from a lake in chunks or dug from a swamp, then rebuilt over years in a shop. Greenamyer’s ambition was far bolder. He didn’t want to dismantle the Kee Bird. He wanted to repair her on the ice, start her four engines, and fly her off the frozen lake under her own power — making her one of only a handful of flyable B-29s left in the world.

What Did the Restoration on the Ice Involve?

In 1994 and 1995, Greenamyer assembled a full expedition. There was no road, no town, no fuel depot, and no hospital anywhere near the site. Every tool, every gallon of fuel, every spare part, and every man had to be flown in, staged and shuttled north aboard a C-54 transport landing on rough ice and tundra strips.

The crew worked bare-handed on metal in temperatures that strip skin from fingers, with hydraulic fluid thickening like molasses and daylight on the Arctic’s schedule. The scope of the work was staggering:

All four original Wright engines were seized and ruined, so the crew flew in and installed four replacement engines — on the ice, with no hangar.
They jacked the aircraft up out of the snow, patched her skin, and serviced her controls, systems, and fuel.
They fitted fresh tires and got her standing on her own gear for the first time since 1947.

Eventually they got all four Wright Cyclones running, taxied the aircraft across the lake, and did everything but fly. Then the brief Arctic summer window closed, the weather turned, and the crew went home, intending to return and finish the job.

What Happened on the Day She Was Meant to Fly Home?

The crew returned in 1995. By spring, the Kee Bird was about as ready as she would ever be — but the real adversary was no longer the airplane. It was the lake.

As summer arrived, the ice softened and meltwater rose, and a soft lake cannot hold a thirty-ton bomber. A hump in the terrain at one end of the lake also stood in the way of her takeoff run. The window had narrowed from days to hours, so the team made the decision to fly.

On May 21, 1995, with Greenamyer in the left seat, they fired up the engines and began the takeoff roll. Mounted near the tail was a small gasoline-powered auxiliary power unit, fed from a fuel tank inside the fuselage.

As the Kee Bird accelerated across the lake, that auxiliary fuel tank came loose. It tipped and spilled, fuel ran across the floor, reached the running generator, and the rear of the aircraft caught fire during the takeoff roll.

Greenamyer chopped the power and aborted — you cannot take a burning bomber into the air. He brought her to a stop on the ice, and every crew member got out safely. As in 1947, not a single life was lost.

The airplane was not so lucky. With no water truck and no fire crew anywhere on that lake, the crew could only watch. Fifty years of preservation and two years of brutal work burned away. The Kee Bird settled through the melting ice and sank, and she remains at the bottom of a lake in northwest Greenland today — the most complete surviving B-29, lost on the very day she was meant to fly home.

Why Does the Kee Bird Story Still Matter?

The Kee Bird endures as more than the story of one airplane — it’s a story about reaching for something difficult. Greenamyer had no obligation to go to Greenland; he went because he couldn’t accept leaving a perfect, forgotten machine to disappear. He and his crew came astonishingly close, and the difference between triumph and tragedy was the width of a couple of bolts on a fuel tank.

That spirit lives on. Every B-29 still flying today — FIFI in Texas and Doc in Kansas among them — is kept alive by people who understand exactly how thin the margins are and go to work anyway. The Kee Bird didn’t make it home, but she remains a powerful part of why so many other historic aircraft did.

Key Takeaways

The Kee Bird was a B-29 Superfortress that crash-landed on a Greenland lake on February 20, 1947; all eleven crew survived.
The cold, dry Arctic air preserved the aircraft almost perfectly for nearly fifty years, making her a legend in the warbird community.
Test pilot and air racer Darryl Greenamyer led a 1994–1995 expedition to repair her on the ice and fly her out under her own power.
The crew installed four replacement Wright engines and fresh tires in brutal conditions with everything flown in by C-54.
On May 21, 1995, a loose auxiliary fuel tank ignited during the takeoff roll; the takeoff was aborted, everyone survived, but the Kee Bird burned and sank into the lake, where she remains today.