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Thursday, March 19, 2015
Park Service to Allow Diving Tours of B-29 Wreckage in Lake Mead
image:
http://thumbs.media.smithsonianmag.com//filer/c8/f3/c8f3241e-1cb7-4833-96e9-506611b53ddc/nps_archeologist_examining_nose_damage28.jpg__800x600_q85_crop.jpg
In this 2003 photo, an archaeologist inspects damage
to the nose of the B-29 that sank in Nevada's Lake Mead in 1948.
(Brett Seymour/National Park Service)
Park Service to Allow Diving Tours of B-29 Wreckage in Lake Mead
The Nevada crash site hasn’t been open to the public since 2008.
On July 21, 1948, a modified B-29 Superfortress conducting secret
research to develop a sun-based missile guidance system slammed into
the surface of Lake Mead. The heavy bomber, which had been disarmed and
reclassified as an F-13 reconnaissance aircraft, was flying at 230 miles
per hour at the time of impact. Three of its four engines were torn
from its wings, and the aircraft skipped along the lake’s mirrorlike
surface for approximately a quarter of a mile. The five-man crew – four
military, one civilian – escaped on a life raft before the ruined
airplane sank in one of the largest manmade bodies of water in the
world. (Formed by the construction of Hoover Dam in 1936, Lake Mead
straddles the border between Nevada and Arizona.)
More than half a century would pass before anyone laid eyes on
B-29 No. 45-21847 again. A team of private divers found the wreckage
using side-scan sonar in August 2002, about a year after the crash
report, which had remained classified since the incident, was made
available to the public. The following summer, the National Park Service
dispatched divers from its Submerged Resources Center to map and
document the wreckage. In August 2003, a U.S. District Court judge ruled
against the Historic Aircraft Recovery Corporation, which had tried to
claim ownership of the submerged B-29.
Last month, the National Park Service started accepting applications
from dive tour operators who want to lead qualified divers down to view
the decaying bomber, albeit from a respectful distance: It’s a
protected historic artifact. Touching it is forbidden.
In 2008, the NPS granted two companies one-year licenses for guided dives. (Smithsonian magazine documented
the efforts to prepare the site for visitors in 2005.) At the time, the
wreckage sat approximately 160 feet below the surface, meaning visits
to the sites were “technical” dives, which require more specialized
training and equipment than “recreational” dives shallower than 130
feet. The NPS did not renew the licenses once they expired because the
companies found them too restrictive to be profitable, Christie Vanover,
a Lake Mead National Recreation Area spokesperson, explained via
e-mail.
The new application rules have been made more alluring to
potential operators in several respects: The licenses will be good for
two years, and will allow up to 100 client dives during each 12-month
period. The licensees will also be allowed to conduct “unlimited diving
instruction and scuba charters in all open areas of Lakes Mead and
Mohave.”
Also, because the water level of the reservoir has dropped in
recent years, the B-29 is now in shallower water. Vanover said by phone
that the NPS does not release the exact current depth of the wreckage
“for the protection of the artifact,” though she said it now fluctuates
between “recreational” and “technical” depths. Once the licenses are
awarded, patrons wishing to make the plunge will be able to call the
tour operators and be advised on what type of dive they’ll be making.
Mel Clark, who dived to the B-29 site in 2008, wrote about and published photographs from his expedition in Advanced Diver Magazine that
year. He noted that damage to the nose section allowed him “to peer
into the cockpit. There is a folded parachute, a crescent wrench, and a
pair of pants lying undisturbed.”
Steve Schafer led tours to the site in 2008. He dived to the
wreck again in 2013, under a scientific permit, to check its condition.
He told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that quagga mussels had proliferated on the wreck’s surface in the five years since he previously saw it.
According to the National Atmospheric & Oceanic
Administration, the Lake Mead B-29 was one of the last of the 1,620 such
bombers manufactured by Boeing at their plant in Wichita, Kansas. It
was delivered eleven days after Japan formally surrendered on September
13, 1945. A total of 3,960 of the revolutionary long-range bombers were
built. As of 2014, only one was still flying.
The Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on
Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 is on permanent display at the National Air
and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia.
Read more: http://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/lake-mead-b-29-180953839/#HG1RtwyB1742cmsi.99 Save 47% when you subscribe to Air & Space magazine http://bit.ly/NaSX4X Follow us: @AirSpaceMag on Twitter
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