The wreckage of the Pan American Airways plane that crash-landed within the Atlantic Ocean has finally been found.
The Clipper Endeavor was certain for Recent York when it suffered multiple engine failure shortly after take-off on April 11, 1952, and plunged into the ocean.
While everyone onboard survived the initial impact, the plane quickly sank, dragging passengers down with it. Just 17 of the 69 passengers and crew on board lived.
Now, an expedition to seek out the sunken plane has uncovered the wreckage 2000ft below sea level off the coast of Puerto Rico.
Led by the Air/Sea Heritage Foundation, in partnership with the Discovery Channel’s Expedition Unknown show and numerous other organisations, teams used an autonomous drone to locate the Douglas DC-4 aircraft last month.
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Russ Matthews, president of the Air/Sea Heritage Foundation, said: ‘We’re all stunned and elated by this discovery, yet also humbled to recollect what happened in that place so way back.’
The invention got here after researchers found records from a public hearing in Puerto Rico.
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These included a map drawn by air force pilots who had seen the crash and weather data, allowing teams to focus their search on a ten square nautical mile area.
The drone detected the plane’s fuselage and tail first, resulting in the invention of the remaining of the aircraft – which had broken in two – on June 2.
The wreckage was confirmed to be the Clipper Endeavor in a follow-up photographic survey, which captured snaps of the Pan Am logo and the aircraft’s name on the fuselage.
‘To have a front-row seat to an expedition like this because it’s unfolding is tremendous, and so I feel really lucky that we were in a position to be a component of it,’ Expedition Unknown host Josh Gates said.
The crash led to an overhaul of safety procedures on industrial flights. Airlines are actually required to stipulate the placement of a plane’s emergency exits and life vests, in addition to how one can inflate them.
Gates added: ‘Each time you step onboard an airplane today, you’re safer due to what happened to Clipper Endeavor and her passengers three-quarters of a century ago.’
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