The wreckage of a Pan Am flight that ditched in the ocean off Puerto Rico in 1952 has been found using an autonomous underwater vehicle. The crash, which killed 52 people, led to mandatory passenger safety briefings on commercial flights.
Searchers used an autonomous underwater vehicle equipped with high-resolution sonar to locate the fuselage and separated tail in nearly 2,000 feet of water. The search was aided by records from the Civil Aeronautics Board, which attributed the accident to inadequate maintenance and the captain's handling of the aircraft after power was lost.
The Clipper Endeavor aircraft made a hard landing in the ocean after losing engine power shortly after departure from San Juan, Puerto Rico, en route to New York City. The 17 passengers and crew who lived told investigators that everyone survived the landing, but many passengers struggled to locate life vests and the crew had a difficult time pulling out life rafts.
The recent discovery of the wreckage is a result of years of research by the Air/Sea Heritage Foundation, led by President Russ Matthews. Matthews began to dig deeper after hearing about a luggage tag from the flight washing ashore in Florida in 2019.
A previous attempt to find the wreckage two years ago was disrupted by bad weather, but Matthews and his volunteers were determined to locate the plane before the 75th anniversary of the crash. The key to the discovery was found in records from a hearing held on the crash and a map estimating the site of the crash made by Air Force pilots who witnessed the accident.
The search was also aided by an advanced underwater drone, originally created for military uses such as finding undersea mines. Tony Romeo, the CEO of the undersea exploration firm Deep Sea Vision, had been speaking to Matthews for some time about the possibility of helping to find the aircraft.
The drone located the wreckage on its first pass over the search area, but searchers were unaware until it returned to the surface with images. The discovery of the wreckage is a significant step in understanding the circumstances surrounding the crash.
