{"id":10848252,"date":"2026-08-09T18:25:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T16:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/?p=10848252"},"modified":"2026-08-24T16:56:54","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T14:56:54","slug":"sandbar-mitchell-b-25-river-restoration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/fr\/sandbar-mitchell-b-25-river-restoration\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bomber the River Kept for 44 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\r\n<p>On 27 June 1969, a North American B-25 Mitchell lifted off from Fairbanks, Alaska, lost an engine moments later, and came down wheels-up on a sandbar in the middle of the Tanana River. Everyone walked away. The bomber did not.<\/p>\r\n<p>Recovering it would have cost more than the airplane was worth, so it was simply left where it lay. For the next forty-four years, the river kept it &mdash; scoured by ice in winter, half-swallowed by silt in summer, stripped for parts by anyone who could reach the island. It earned a name that stuck: Sandbar Mitchell.<\/p>\r\n<p>Today that same aircraft is in a heated workshop in Michigan, its skin coming back panel by panel, rebuilt largely by teenagers. It is one of the most quietly moving restoration stories in American aviation &mdash; and it is not finished yet.<\/p>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">A working airplane, not a museum piece<\/h2>\r\n<p>By 1969 the B-25 was a quarter-century old and long past its war. This one, serial 44-30733, had found a second career as a fire bomber, dropping retardant on Alaskan wildfires for operator Edgar Thorsrud. When the engine quit on takeoff, the pilot did the only thing he could and put it down on the nearest flat ground &mdash; which happened to be a river.<\/p>\r\n<p>Bush Alaska is unsentimental about dead aircraft. The Mitchell became a landmark, then a curiosity, then almost a myth: a whole bomber sitting on an island in a river, going nowhere.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #1565c0;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7\"><em>&ldquo;It has been a lifelong dream of mine since I was very young to own a B-25 Mitchell. There are very few B-25 wrecks left to be recovered. I cannot believe it is still there.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Patrick Mihalek<\/strong> &mdash; Founder, Warbirds of Glory Museum<\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f5f5f5;padding:20px;border-radius:8px;margin:24px 0\"><strong>Informations cl\u00e9s<\/strong><br>\r\n<strong>A\u00e9ronef:<\/strong> North American B-25J Mitchell, serial 44-30733<br>\r\n<strong>Down:<\/strong> 27 June 1969, engine failure, wheels-up on a Tanana River sandbar<br>\r\n<strong>Abandoned:<\/strong> 44 years on the island near Fairbanks, Alaska<br>\r\n<strong>Recovered:<\/strong> July 2013 by the Warbirds of Glory Museum, funded by a $20,000 Kickstarter<br>\r\n<strong>Maintenant:<\/strong> Under restoration in Michigan, largely by high-school students<br>\r\n<strong>But:<\/strong> Return to airworthy condition and fly again<\/div>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Fifteen people and a river<\/h2>\r\n<p>The rescue began with a phone call in January 2013. Patrick Mihalek and Todd Trainor tracked down locals in Fairbanks, then the aircraft's old mechanic, Jim Anderson, and confirmed the wreck was still there. A Kickstarter campaign raised around $20,000. That summer, a team of about fifteen &mdash; volunteers from Michigan and a couple of Alaskans &mdash; went in to free the bomber from the silt.<\/p>\r\n<p>On 5 July 2013, after forty-four years, Sandbar Mitchell finally left the island. Then came a 3,700-mile road journey to the Warbirds of Glory Museum in Michigan, where the real work would begin.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_078EDzNUQc\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;border-radius:8px\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n<p style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;font-style:italic;text-align:center;margin-top:-12px\">\"The Restorers\" filmed the actual recovery of Sandbar Mitchell from the Tanana River in 2013.<\/p>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Rebuilt by kids<\/h2>\r\n<p>Here is the part that turns a salvage job into something better. The restoration doubles as a mentorship programme. High-school apprentices &mdash; the museum's Kittyhawk Academy &mdash; work on the aircraft alongside experienced restorers, learning to read master assembly drawings, form ribs, heat-treat metal, and fit and paint parts they made themselves.<\/p>\r\n<p>The most damaged section, the bomb bay, has been the hardest fight; decades of crash damage and scavenging left it a puzzle. A team travelled to AirCorps Aviation in Minnesota to press-form ribs on custom dies. By late 2024, project leader Patrick Mihalek reported the top of the bomb bay was around 98% complete.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img data-opt-id=1331642303  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:0e0_.b970\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/08\/b-25-engine-assembly-wwii.jpg\" alt=\"B-25 engine assembly during WWII production\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">A B-25 engine being fitted on the wartime production line. Eighty years on, students are re-learning the same skills to bring 44-30733 back. Photo: US National Archives.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n<p>The bottleneck is never enthusiasm. It is money and time &mdash; rare materials like L-channels and T-channels can take eight months to source. Mihalek puts it plainly.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #d32f2f;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7\"><em>&ldquo;Mentoring the kids is the easy part. Restoring the airplane is the easy part. It&rsquo;s the fundraising that&rsquo;s the hard part.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Patrick Mihalek<\/strong> &mdash; Project leader, Warbirds of Glory Museum (Vintage Aviation News, 2025)<\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/h5w12K5GZ3E\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;border-radius:8px\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n<p style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;font-style:italic;text-align:center;margin-top:-12px\">A walkthrough of the ongoing restoration and the students doing the work.<\/p>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Why bring it back at all<\/h2>\r\n<p>There are easier ways to own a flying B-25. You could restore a more complete airframe, or buy one already airworthy. The point of Sandbar Mitchell is not efficiency. It is that a bomber everyone had written off is being resurrected by the generation furthest from the war that built it &mdash; and that when it flies, it will carry them, and the veterans it honours, with it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img data-opt-id=82657081  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:0e0_.b970\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/08\/b-25-mitchell-crane-recovery.jpg\" alt=\"B-25 Mitchell lowered by crane\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">A preserved B-25 Mitchell is craned into position. Getting Sandbar Mitchell off its Alaskan island was the easy part; the rebuild has run for more than a decade. Photo: US Navy.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9RiOThq4tBE\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;border-radius:8px\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n<p style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;font-style:italic;text-align:center;margin-top:-12px\">The full \"resurrection of a forgotten B-25\" story from the Commemorative Air Force.<\/p>\r\n<p>Forty-four years in a river did not kill it. A river just made it wait for the right people to come looking.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;font-style:italic\">Sources: Warbirds of Glory Museum; Vintage Aviation News (Spring 2025 restoration update); Anchorage Daily News (2013); b-25history.org.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f0f4ff;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:16px 20px;margin:32px 0 8px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0\">\r\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:600;color:#333\">Articles similaires<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/fr\/the-swamp-ghost-a-b-17-the-jungle-kept\/\">Le fant\u00f4me des marais : un B-17 que la jungle a gard\u00e9<\/a><\/p>\r\n<p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/fr\/the-bomber-that-hit-the-empire-state\/\">Le bombardier qui a frapp\u00e9 l&#039;Empire State Building<\/a><\/p>\r\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On 27 June 1969, a North American B-25 Mitchell lifted off from Fairbanks, Alaska, lost an engine moments later, and came down wheels-up on a sandbar in the middle of the Tanana River. Everyone walked away. The bomber did not. Recovering it would have cost more than the airplane was worth, so it was simply [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":10847666,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[666,664],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10848252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history-and-legends","category-military-aviation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Sandbar Mitchell: The B-25 the River Kept 44 Years<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sandbar Mitchell, a B-25 abandoned on an Alaskan river sandbar for 44 years, is being restored to fly again - largely by teenage apprentices.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/fr\/sandbar-mitchell-b-25-river-restoration\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"fr_FR\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sandbar Mitchell: The B-25 the River Kept 44 Years\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sandbar Mitchell, a B-25 abandoned on an Alaskan river sandbar for 44 years, is being restored to fly again - 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