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
No Responses to “Exploring the wreck of the USS Macon”
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.
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.
That picture looks more like an illustration for an H.P. Lovecraft novel than the National Geographic.
The Akron class were really the last word in ‘light carriers’. He ducks…he covers…he flees.