On 17 January 1949, a wet and cloudy day with the mist hardly rising above the loch, John MacKenzie, while working with the plumber Hugh Sleith, heard the unmistakable sound of an aeroplane which was obviously flying very low and in the direction of the village. This was unusual enough to cause comment, but they were not prepared for what they were about to hear. Minutes later they heard a crash followed by an explosion somewhere above Corrow. There was no doubt that it could only have been the plane. Very quickly John, Hugh, Davy MacLachlan and Alistair Douglas the postmaster took it upon themselves to search the hills in the hope that they might be of assistance. They had no idea what the extent of the damage was or exactly where the crash had taken place. It was agreed that they should pair off, and while Hugh and John went towards Stob na Boine (the hill with the trig point behind the ‘ski-jump’ firebreak) the others headed up towards Beinn Lochain. When Hugh and John reached the summit, despite an extensive search of the area, they found no sign of anything untoward. They then decided to make their way to meet up with Davy and Alistair. As they descended into the valley between them and Beinn Tharsuinn the smell of burning was in the air and they began to find parts of the aircraft scattered all over the hillside. They found bodies among the wreckage but no one was still alive. Later in the day the authorities arrived and the bodies were recovered from the hill.

According to a report in the Daily Mail of 3 April 2004, the B29 Superfortress which crashed into the summit of Beinn Tharsuinn was carrying a haul of diamonds that today would be worth a quarter of a million pounds. Needless to say, these have never been found, although other valuable goods and wallets containing several thousands of dollars were retrieved. The twenty men on board had been involved for the previous months in the Berlin airlift, taking supplies by air to the city which had been blockaded by the Soviet forces, and were returning home for a few weeks’ leave. The plane, accompanied by a second B29, was bound for the Smoky Hill air force base at Salina, Kansas. It took off from RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire on a very cold morning, and was due to make a short stop at Keflavik in Iceland to refuel and take on some supplies. Over Scotland the two aircraft began to experience problems with icing on the wings, making control difficult. One of the pilots, Captain Donald E. Riggs, decided that conditions were too bad and turned to head back to Scampton. The pilot of "62276", First Lieutenant Sheldon C. Craigmyle, radioed in and asked to increase his altitude from 10,500 to 14,500 feet. It is not certain exactly what happened next, but a few minutes later the plane clipped the summit and crashed in Succoth glen, bursting into flames. Apparently the explosion was heard for miles around, and the debris was scattered for half a mile around the impact crater. There was an official inquiry into the crash, but no exact cause could be determined, although it was considered that adverse weather and heavy icing were contributory factors.

The story about the diamonds was exposed fifty years later by another airman, Erwin Eckhert, whose own flight home had been postponed by the bad weather. In the late 1940s there was a thriving black market in goods across the Atlantic from the ruins of Hitler’s regime. The National Archives at Kew reveal that concerns over contraband goods were so great that MI5 was brought in to try and put a stop to the trafficking. However, airmen serving Berlin were ideally placed to exploit the situation, and according to Eckhert there was a brisk trade in jewellery, works of art and – suprisingly – pedigree dogs. He also said that Craigmyle, who was known as the "undisputed king" of contraband, had been buying diamonds in Germany and the Netherlands in order to start his own jewellery business once he was out of the airforce. He had allegedly stuffed an Alka Seltzer bottle with diamonds worth at least $50,000.

The members of the RAF Kinloss mountain rescue team were among the first on the scene and had the unenviable task of retrieving the bodies – gathering limbs and torsos to account for the twenty persons on board. A member of the team, William Patrick, reported finding three pairs of solid gold pilot wings, indicating that at least some of those on the plane had been high-ranking officers. He also said that an American padre turned up and began burning documents from the site. The rescuers were alarmed that potentially vital evidence might be destroyed, but the padre pulled rank (he was a US air force major) and told them that it was none of their business. Patrick came to the conclusion that the officer was not a padre at all, and his suspicions that something more sinister was going on were reinforced when he tried to find out later which ranks were entitled to wear sold gold wings but was blocked at every turn. Some years later he discovered from a naval officer, who had been on the scene three months after the crash, that a twenty-first body had been found at the site and had been buried close by.

According the to report in the Daily Mail a number of valuables have surfaced from the crash site over the years, including three gold rings. One of these, possibly Bavarian in origin, had a large diamond set in the centre of a double-headed eagle. It also bore the inscription "7/32", indicating that the owner had attained the second highest ranking in international freemasonry, the 32-degree "Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret". Erwin Eckhert revealed that he and a number of his colleagues were masons, but could not identify who among the crew and passengers could have attained that level, of which there were fewer than 200 holders at that time.

In 1981 a tin box containing photos of the wife and children of one of the passengers, Sergeant John B. Lapicca, was found among the wreckage, along with some tattered love letters. Ronnie Waugh, from Dumfries, set about finding relatives to whom to return the items. With the help of various agencies and the new media, the papers were returned in 1990 to the airman’s daughters in Texas and Virginia.

On 23 October 1993, ATC officers and cadets, along with US personnel, attended a memorial service for the 20 men killed in the crash.

Some of the remains of the aircraft have been swallowed in the bogs but other parts are still up there among the heather and in the burn. There are also a few remains of a smaller, fighter sized, aircraft which crashed during the war on the steep east face of Ben Bheula, though these are more difficult to find