Exploring the wreck of the USS Macon
19 Sep 2006
1935 US Zeppelin Wreckage Investigated at 785 Feet Underwater
Cool:
Today all that remains of the Macon and the four warplanes carried in its massive belly are ruins scattered on the seafloor- a historic site that is being intensively explored for the first time in a five-day expedition that started Sunday.
The expedition is expected to last five days.
Researchers are using a remote underwater vessel called the Western Flyer to record videotape of the wreckage. Those pictures will be used to recreate the debris field.
Even cooler: Follow the expedition in real time!
LIVE! From the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary and the Macon Dirigible Airship September 18th-21st
Here’s a couple of screenshots showing some wreckage (And some fish):
Plus: ‘35 crash comes to light
UPDATE: Haunting painting of the loss from National Geographic in the extended section below
Click for bigger version
September 20th, 2006 at 9:29 am
I don’t think an intact structure full of Helium would sink like that. Unless they’re concealing a great gaping whole on the other side. The Shenandoah crashed a couple miles from the place where my Grandfather lived, there’s now a really cheap and disgusting roundish hotel on the site, just off I-70 near Cambridge, Oh.
September 20th, 2006 at 9:56 am
It did float around nose-up for quite a while after hitting the water. That’s why they didn’t find it until the early 1990s, I think. They knew where it crashed but not where it sank.
September 20th, 2006 at 5:44 pm
That picture looks more like an illustration for an H.P. Lovecraft novel than the National Geographic.
September 20th, 2006 at 7:52 pm
The Akron class were really the last word in ‘light carriers’. He ducks…he covers…he flees.