About 13 km outside Ndola, a small memorial marks the spot where the DC-6 carrying UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld crashed on the night of 17 September 1961. Hammarskjöld was en route to negotiate a ceasefire in the Katanga secession crisis in the Congo; he never arrived. The crash site is in the bush, accessible by road, and consists of a stone monument and a small park maintained by the Zambian government.
The memorial is a pilgrimage site for those interested in Cold War history and the history of the UN. The conspiracy around the crash has attracted sustained attention — credible claims have been made that the plane was shot down or sabotaged — and several official investigations have left the matter inconclusive. A tree that survived at the crash site is preserved; some wreckage remains in the Copperbelt Museum.