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Your Dakota Crew
Thank you for your request.
Our reception will contact you as soon as possible.
Kind regards
Your Dakota Crew
The Dakota Hotel tells the miracle at the Gauli Glacier in 1946, a true story that caused a worldwide sensation and is inextricably linked to Meiringen.
On November 18, 1946, an American Dakota C-53 took off from Vienna with twelve passengers on a flight to Pisa. After the stopover in Munich, the pilot Ralph Tate decided to fly over the Swiss Alps and misjudged the altitude conditions. Flying too low, the plane grazed the Gauli glacier at an altitude of 3350 meters at a speed of 280 km/h. The plane skidded through the high snow, past crevasses and ultimately came to a stop with no life-threatening injuries among the 12 occupants.
The crew was able to make an emergency call with the radio set still intact. However, no one knew where the plane was. By chance, it was not until days later that a B-29 search plane discovered the wreckage of the Dakota. Finally, the rescue work could begin. It was to go down in history as the largest rescue operation in the Alps.
After various attempts by American mountain fighters to reach the accident site had failed, Swiss Captain Viktor Hug took the scepter and coordinated the rescue operation from the air. Therefore the rescue aviation in the Alps was born. With the help of the Fieseler Storch, all occupants of the Dakota were rescued from the glacier after six days. The media celebrated the two pilots Major Pista Hitz and Captain Viktor Hug as heroes.
In 1952, the “Swiss Air Rescue” was officially founded. Even today, the Dakota exhibition at the Grimseltor in Innertkirchen is a reminder of the gigantic achievement of all those involved.
