Mountaineers Missing Since 1992 Found in Swiss Glacier

Two Mountaineers Missing Since 1992 Found in Melting Swiss Glacier

By: Shane Lambert
Original publication date: August 20, 2026

Two Belgian mountaineers who disappeared in the Swiss Alps in 1992 have been identified more than 30 years later after their remains emerged from the rapidly melting Trift Glacier. A hiker discovered the remains on July 26, 2026, and DNA testing confirmed their identities. The men were 39 and 41 when they vanished in the Weissmies region.

The earliest coverage I could find was from The Brussels Times earlier this month. With that publication, they were listed as "possibly" found. Since then, numerous sources have picked up the story, including People.com with a Sam Gillette article.

On August 6th of this month, I produced a small list of missing people who had been found because of climate change. Melting glaciers revealing missing people is nothing new. Missing people are also showing up in evaporated lakes in the hot North American summers.

Who Were The Mountaineers Missing Since 1992?

Swiss authorities identified the two men through DNA testing after their remains were recovered from the glacier. The discovery finally provided an answer to a disappearance that had remained unresolved for more than three decades. 

1992, the year of their disappearance, predates mainstream usage of the Internet by 3-4 years. That being the case, an online contemporaneous source was not available. But I did find an obscure blog post which might be from 2002 that mentioned missing men on the applicable mountain (no author listed/titled Canary 2002).

The obscure source mentions two missing climbers as Marcel Bastyns and Jos Van Deun. However, because I have not found an official 2026 source publicly naming the two men, I am treating these names as my best-supported identification rather than presenting them as an officially released identification.

At 4,023 meters, the Weissmies is the highest mountain in the northeastern Pennine Alps. The approach to the summit runs across a large glacier and can nowadays be made via Hohsaas, which lies, as it were, at the foot of the glacier.

The climb is not without danger. Marcel Bastyns and Jos Van Deun made the ascent to the Weissmies on September 3, 1992. They encountered bad weather and have been missing since the night of September 3 to 4, 1992. Their bodies have never been recovered. Fortunately, the same fate did not befall us as these two men from Turnhout.