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!"