Adventure Author Cussler Backing Underwater Explorers

Explorers funded by adventure-novelist turned wreck-hunter Clive Cussler have returned to Lake Michigan to resume their search for Northwest Flight 2501, a DC-4 (file photo of type, below) that plunged into Lake Michigan and broke up -- if it didn't do it the other way around -- 56 years ago. Aero-News covered last year's attempt in some depth (no pun intended).

Team leader, underwater archaeologist Ralph Wilbanks is from Younges Island, SC. "It's just a mystery what happened to this plane," he told the Chicago Tribune. Wilbanks (below) has worked with Cussler's group, NUMA -- named after the fictitious agency in his novels -- for 26 years. The effort to find Flight 2501 pools the resources of NUMA and local groups including the Michigan Shipwreck Research Associates.

The problem with finding the Northwest airliner's wreckage is the depth of the busy lake, and the sheer amount of other stuff on the lake bed, which has been a major commercial waterway for centuries. Last year's search found several forgotten shipwrecks, and many sunken logs, but no sign of the plane.

This year, things are a little more promising. Along with Wilbanks, the team (above) includes diver Harry Pecorelli and Captain Steve Howard, all experienced search experts. On Wednesday they wrapped up a search with sonar and magnetometers that showed several possible targets. Divers will go to the targets over the weekend -- a challenging dive to depths of as much as 200 feet.

Clive Cussler (right) was more or less a "dive bum" when he took up writing novels. He used a stratagem to get his first novel read by a busy agent -- pretending to be the author's lawyer -- and never looked back; more than 100 million of his books have been sold. His novels feature a flying, diving, car-collecting hero, Dirk Pitt; fast-moving action; and always center around sunken treasure of some kind.

In real life, Cussler led the NUMA team that found a completely different kind of treasure: the CSS Hunley, the world's first submarine to sink a ship.

Northwest Flight 2501 went missing on June 23, 1950. Body parts and airplane parts washed up on the shores of Lake Michigan. But the bulk of the wreckage of the 35-ton takeoff-weight propliner has never been located. (Many more details of the doomed flight are in last year's Aero-News story, linked above).

"I'd hate to not find this airplane," Wilbanks told the Trib. But if they strike out again this year, they're not giving up. They'll be back in 2007. And Wilbanks has another target in mind, elsewhere: John Paul Jones's Bonhomme Richard, which sank after Jones's famous victory over HMS Serapis. Just like he has for Flight 2501, he's looked for the Bonhomme Richard before, but he's far from giving up. Stealing a line from Jones, Wilbanks says, "I have not yet begun to search!"

FMI: www.michiganshipwrecks.org, www.numa.net