Pan Am plane wreckage that remained untraceable for 74 years has finally been found
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "Pan Am plane wreckage that remained untraceable for 74 years has finally been found")
File photo of a Pan Am airplane
A plane that crashed into the Atlantic 74 years ago has finally been found. The wreckage was found split into two, with the Pan American logo and aircraft name still visible on the plane. A water landing triggered chaos, and the plane went down within three minutes.
A Pan American Airways passenger plane that crashed off the coast of Puerto Rico in 1952 with 69 people on board has been found 74 years later. The Air/Sea Heritage Foundation announced in a release Tuesday that the wreckage was found on June 2, nearly 2,000 feet beneath the Atlantic Ocean. The agency said that the plane was split into two large chunks. High-resolution sonar and an autonomous underwater vehicle were used to locate the aircraft that crashed, killing 52.
The hunt for the plane had been going on for years, with Discovery Channel’s “Expedition Unknown” and the Deep Sea Vision company also involved in the investigation.
The Clipper Endeavor incident led to an overhaul of aviation safety measures. The on-board safety measures flight attendants demonstrate before the flight takes off started because of the Pan Am accident. Carrying five crew members and 64 passengers, the flight was going to New York City. The engines failed shortly after take-off, and the pilot was forced to make a water landing. The initial accident did not lead to any deaths. However, a lack of information on how to tackle the situation from here on turned things for the worse.
Pan Am accident led to start of safety demonstrations on board aeroplanes
The foundation said, "With no safety briefing provided, a significant language barrier, and no coordinated evacuation procedure in place, passengers faced chaos, confusion, and heavy seas as the aircraft flooded and sank in less than three minutes." The Civil Aeronautics Board, a body that existed before the Federal Aviation Administration, introduced mandatory preflight safety briefings and demonstrations.
“Every time you step onboard an airplane today, you are safer because of what happened to Clipper Endeavor and her passengers three quarters of a century ago,” Josh Gates, explorer and host of “Expedition Unknown”, said.
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The search for the wreckage started when Russ Matthews, the ASHF president, went through "scattered accident investigation reports" and conducted several surveys off the coast of San Juan in 2019. It collaborated with Gates for an episode of “Expedition Unknown” and found several clues.
A chart map made by US Air Force pilots was also recovered. Weeks ago, a research vessel joined the search. The team had only two days to locate the wreckage using the underwater drone. The discovery was made in the first attempt itself. Images clearly showed the iconic winged Pan American logo and aircraft name "on the battered, but largely intact and well-preserved fuselage."
