Lake Superior Plane Search Round 2

Less than a year after its initial deployment to find a missing plane wreck, members of the Great Lakes Smart Ships Coalition were returned to Lake Superior to inspect targets identified from their September 2024 search. The team conducted follow-up mapping and archaeological exploration in Lake Superior in hopes of finding the wreckage of a 1968 plane crash. 

The search aimed to find the wreckage of a National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) plane that disappeared over the lake in 1968, sparking a decades-long mystery. On a routine mission to collect water radiation and temperature data, the plane vanished after its last contact with the Houghton County Memorial Airport. 

The team used a Side Scan Sonar (SSS) device that offered real-time data from the targets identified during the initial 45-square-mile search of the lakebed last September. The team also deployed a Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) for closer inspection of some areas. 

“We identified dozens of anomalies in the first search, ultimately narrowing them down to a half dozen high-priority targets based on size, shape, and likelihood of being unnatural features,” said Travis White, Research Engineer at the Great Lakes Research Center and project lead. “This next phase is a critical step in identifying and characterizing our findings.”
 
While the team did not locate the missing plane, further consultations with local residents has provided leads for additional search areas in the future. The team provided results of the work back to the Smart Ships Coalition on a July 14 webinar.