Icelandic Road Trip Series: Solheimasandur Plane Wreck

Last updated: 29 July 2023

By: @russellofearth

This is the third post in a 5 part series covering our adventure through the natural wonder that is Iceland! There was just so much to see and do to cover in a single post so we decided to break it up into a 5 part series.

The first post covered the all the reasons why Iceland is considered a must-travel destination, the second post covered how to get around on the Icelandic Ring Road, and this week I cover the wonder that is the Solheimasandur plane wreck

Update: Road Access Closed

As I was writing this post I came across this news article from March 14th 2016 which outlined that the access road to the plane wreck has been closed to the public because “visitors’ behaviour in the area was not acceptable”.

As someone who has visited the plane wreckage I can only hope that this decision is reversed because it’s one of the most spectacular places we’ve visited and one that I hope fellow travellers will have the opportunity to visit.

As the below post was written before we’d been informed of the access road closure, I hope that you enjoy the article and that it inspires you to add Iceland to your To Travel List.

“Did you know….”

What if I told you there was a beach in Iceland where you can not only see the remains of a plane wreck, which has been left exposed to the elements for the last 42 years, but that you can get as close to it as you’d like? Or, in the case of some visitors, climb on top of it? Intrigued?

I remember the first time that Roma asked me “did you know that there is a plane wreck you can visit in Iceland? It’s along the ring road…” I think the surprised look on my face answered her question. In fact, unless you’d read about it online or have been told about it from the local tourist information office, there is little else which indicates its existence. Exactly how we like our tourist attractions!

So if you like exploring attractions which are a little off the beaten track then a visit to Solheimasandur plane wreck is going to be right up your alley.

A Brief History

On November 24th 1973 (some records reflect 21st November) a United States Navy (Douglas Dakota DC-3) ran out of fuel and forced landed on Solheimasandur beach. All passengers on board survived and walked away from the crash. Whilst there is no official reason for the forced landing, there is speculation that the plane ran out of fuel after the pilot switched over the wrong fuel tank.

Iceland was home to 4 US Navy Douglas Dakota DC-3 planes stationed at the US Navy base in Keflavik, the planes originally served in the Korean and Vietnam Wars before making their way to Iceland. Unfortunately, all 4 planes found their demise during their stay in Iceland involving incidents during take-off.

Finding the wreckage

There are 2 main hurdles that you need to prepare for when visiting Iceland’s most famous plane wreck; the first is actually finding where is it and the second is driving along the road to get there.

As someone who depends on Google Maps most days, doing a quick Google search for Solheimasandur Plane Wreck will reveal the following map.

The yellow road is the Ring Road, the main road you’ll follow when road tripping around Iceland, more information can be found in Part 2 of our Icelandic road trip series.

IMPORTANT NOTE – the location on Google Maps is not the location of the actual plane wreck, it is the location of the start of the road which will LEAD you to the plane wreck. It’s about 4km from the starred location to reach the plane wreck! 

This is a very important point to be aware of, you will not see any major signs indicating the plane wreck so if you’re driving down the M1 following Google Maps then make sure you slow down because you’ll be turning off the road onto a cattle grate and then a smaller gravel road. Take your time and drive carefully.

Once you turn off the ring road on to the gravel road then you will see a small sign indicating the direction of the plane wreck. It’s about 4km and the road is bumpy. Well, bumpy might be a bit of an understatement because it was rough! Plenty of holes, uneven surfaces, and a lot of gravel!

It took us an age to reach the plane wreck. The sign said 4km to the plane wreck and I’m pretty sure I reached a top speed of 10 kmph! I don’t apologise for it since it was a rental car and there was no way I was paying excess for damage caused on the way to a wreckage. This is one of the times that we were very happy to have chosen a 4WD over a hatchback/sedan. 

You can’t realistically do this drive in a sedan/hatchback so make sure that when you are choosing your rental car that lean towards getting a 4WD to cover all road conditions.

One point, if you decide to visit during winter and it’s snowing then take extra care because the potholes in the gravel road will be covered and very difficult to see so you want to take extra time driving to the wreck.

Visiting the plane wreck
After navigating the 4km of gravel road we finally saw the plane wreck in the distance, and boy was it something. It was a thrill seeing something that we’d only seen in photos appear in front of us and the smiles on our faces ran ear to ear.

As we approached the plane wreck I was struck with where should I park since the only indicator were the other cars from fellow tourists who were exploring the wreckage. I didn’t want to be that guy who parked right near the plane and ruin everyone else’s photos so I parked a couple of hundred metres away.

We checked our camera gear and headed towards to the plane wreck.

The Solheimasandur Plane Wreck

I think the best word to describe the plane wreck is surreal, it almost seemed like a dream. There we were standing on a black sand beach in Iceland, inches away from a 42 year old DC-3 plane wreckage with the roaring ocean in the distance. It was incredible.

The plane wreck, missing its tail and wings, sits atop of the black sand beach at Solheimasandur. It’s remained virtually untouched since it crash landed decades ago.

One of the most amazing aspects of visiting the Solheimasandur plane wreck is that it’s simply the remains of a plane wreck on a beach. No ticket office, no queues, no tacky merchandise. This means you can take as much or as little time as you want to take.

The benefit of parking away from the wreckage is that it allows you the opportunity to take photos from a distance capturing the barren and desolate background which adds a degree of character to the photos. If you time it (and angle it) just right then the other tourists add perspective to your photos.

After you take plenty of photos from a distance and you head closer to the wreckage you begin to realise how remarkably well-preserved the plane is considering it’s been exposed to the elements for 42 years! 

One of the most surprising aspects for me during the visit was having the ability to walk through the plane. I don’t know why but I expected to only be able to see it from the outside, maybe it was because most of the photos I saw online were taken from a distance or from the outside. Just having the option of being able to stand inside a piece of history was simply remarkable, an absolute highlight.

It wasn’t exactly my thing but if you’re like quite a lot of other tourists then you have the option of climbing on top of the crashed plane for a photo. Now when I say you have the option to climb it, I mean there is no one there who’s going to stop you…so if you’re going to do it then make sure that you have someone who can guide you because based on what we saw, it didn’t exactly look easy.  

The Waves of Tourists

There’s a good chance that whilst you’re setting up your photo someone is going to walk into the shot, or a car is going park right at the edge of your frame, or someone is going to start yelling something when you’re recording video. There’s a very good chance of this, actually, it will happen. It happened to us a lot during the time we were there.

However, all is not lost because what we discovered was since the plane wreck was the attraction and there was little else around to see that the arrival of tourists came in waves and inbetween the waves, there were moments of silence when you could take as many photos and record as much video as you’d like without anyone else around, you just need to be patient.

If 5 cars suddenly turn up and 20 people get out and make their way to the plane wreck then maybe take 15 minutes to take a walk along the black sand beach and enjoy some solitude because when you return they’ll be gone and you’ll have plane wreck to yourself.

The Essentials

Location: The GPS coordinates are: 63.4912391,-19.3632810. However, the easiest way to navigate to the crash site is to use Google Maps and search for Solheimasandur Plane Wreck. The location is displays is the start of the 4km gravel road which will take you to the plane wreck.

Cost: Free (like most attractions in Iceland…)

Access: You will need to drive to the plane wreck. Our suggestion is to hire a 4WD because it’ll make the 4km long gravel road much easier to navigate

When to visit: We’d suggest around sunrise or sunset because the light will be better however we visited in Winter so we were just grateful that it wasn’t snowing or raining when we visiting. Also one final piece of advice, if you visit in Winter then keep in mind that once the sun sets, there are no street lights and it’s PITCH BLACK.

Next week on our Icelandic Roadtrip Series: Jokulsarlon Iceberg Lagoon