05/20/2026 Forum Plus - Secrets in the Sky: The Hidden Story Behind Globemaster Down

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Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author Tod Robberson recently joined me to discuss his new book, Globemaster Down, the story of a U.S. military plane that crashed on March 23, 1951, all 53 people on board were unaccounted for.

What makes this tragedy especially haunting is that the wreckage was reportedly spotted soon after the crash by American search pilots…yet no rescue was ever made. At the height of the Cold War, U.S. leaders feared a Soviet move into Western Europe, and secretly positioning an atomic bomb in the United Kingdom was seen as a possible deterrent. But the mission was highly classified.

Robberson tells me about many uncovered new details that had never been made public and why he thinks there is much more to the tragedy than previously reported. More than 75 years later, the question still lingers: why has the U.S. government never fully declassified the records surrounding Globemaster 49-244?