South Haven, Michigan (AP) – A group puts an end to a 20 -year search for an airplane that crashed into Lake Michigan in 1950, killing the 58 people on board, after swept the vast body of water using Sonar technology and even obtained the support of an acclaimed adventure writer.
When Northwest Orient Flight 2501 crashed, it was the worst aviation disaster in American history.
Valerie Van Heest, executive director of Michigan Shipwreck Association, said that she had mixed feelings about the end of research, which started in 2004.
“This is a difficult thing to say because part of me has the impression that we have failed”, Van Heest told Detroit News“But we did so much to keep the memory of this accident and these victims at the forefront that I feel like I did better for them than if we had found the wreck.”
After having covered 700 square miles (1,813 square kilometers) of Lake Michigan, Van Heest said that scientists thought that the plane collapsed into pieces that were too small to be detected by Sonar with side sweeping and probably “sunk in the mud” at the bottom.
The plane, a DC-4 focused on the propeller, left Laguardia airport in New York at night on June 23, 1950, with two stops planned on the road to Seattle. An intense storm suddenly appeared and the plane fell.
The debris and the parts of the body washed on the ground at South Haven, Michigan.
“We know that this plane struck the water with great strength, and we know that there was no way to survive,” said Van Heest, who Write a book About the mystery, “Crossing Fatal”.
Clive Cussler, an author whose adventure fiction sold in millions, supported financially a research until 2017. Also known for its own shipwrecked hunt and its underwater exploits, Cussler died in 2020.
“I hope one day that the families of these losses will be closed,” wrote Cussler in 2018.
