Leo Mustonen

Who was Leo Mustonen?

Leo Mustonen was a Finnish-American World War II Army Air Corps aviation cadet who was reported missing after a plane crash on November 18, 1942 until his frozen remains were found in October 2005 on the surface of the Mendel Glacier in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, 63 years later. He was 22 at the time of his death.

Mustonen's aircraft, a Beech 18 AT-7 Navigator #41-21079 was based at Mather Field in Sacramento, California. It was on a navigation training mission when it disappeared. It was piloted by 2nd Lt. William Gamber. In 1947, four UC Berkeley students found the wreck. One of the students guided an air-sea recovery team from Hamilton Field in Marin County, California, to the wreck site in late September, 1947. Engine identification tags confirmed that the plane wreckage belonged to #41-21079. No bodies were recovered. In 1948, a team of soldiers from Ft. Lewis in Washington returned to the glacier but were also unable to recover any remains. In August, 2007, the body of another cadet was discovered by Peter Stekel, an author conducting research for a book about the four aviators and the disappearance of their airplane.