An Arctic search
for Russian pilot
Sigismund Levanevsky

The plane never reached Fairbanks.

For seven months after the plane disappeared, searching parties from Russia, Siberia, Canada, and Alaska flew over the Arctic seeking the lost flyers. I had the honor of leading one of the searching expeditions, which operated north from Canada and Alaska.

No trace of the missing machine or its crew has yet been found.

Our expedition, however, was not wholly in vain, for we flew over and explored 170,000 square miles of the Arctic Ocean, of which at least 150,000 square miles, an area larger than Montana, had never before been seen by human eyes.

As a result, we can safely conclude that there is no new land to be discovered in the Beaufort Sea and the area between longitudes 120° and 145° west and the North Pole. Much of the remainder of the area seen by us was visited in the winter season, a time of year during which it never had been seen before; therefore our flights gave valuable information on winter conditions there.

We flew a total distance of 44,000 miles, made the first winter flights by moonlight ever undertaken in the Arctic, and gained experience which I believe will greatly increase the usefulness of airplanes in the Arctic during the months of winter.

Levanevsky's ill-fated flight followed the brilliant success of two single-engined airplane flights from Moscow to the United States earlier in 1937. He had a four-engined plane, and with his improved equipment success seemed assured.

He had passed the North Pole and was some 300 miles on the Alaskan side when his last authentic message was received: “Message No. 19. Motor 34. Flying heavily against l00-kilometer wind, losing altitude from 6,000 meters to 4,300 meters."

Then followed a jumble of signals which only one of the stations listening in interpreted as "48-3400," which when decoded means "We are going to land in ... "