SerpApi.Org
More than 70 years after a Pan Am plane crash off Puerto Rico prompted a major overhaul in airline safety, searchers have finally found the wreckage.
According to the Associated Press, Pan Am Flight 526A, a Douglas DC-4 nicknamed the “Clipper Endeavor,” took off from San Juan, Puerto Rico, with 64 passengers and five crew members. The flight was headed to New York City when it experienced engine trouble after takeoff and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean.
Everyone on board initially survived the crash. However, passengers had trouble finding life vests, and the crew had trouble locating the life rafts. A short time after the crash, the plane sank. Of the 69 people on board, only 17 survived.
The crash led to safety changes, including pre-flight briefings on the location of safety equipment and improved equipment for water landings.
The crash had been on the mind of Russ Matthews, president of the Air/Sea Heritage Foundation, since he saw a story about a luggage tag from the flight that washed ashore in 2019.
After traveling to Puerto Rico and finding documents from a hearing that estimated the plane wreckage’s location, Matthews attempted to find it in 2024, but weather forced him and the search crew to call off the search.
In April 2026, however, Matthews partnered with Deep Sea Vision, a deepwater survey company, to find the plane. With the Discovery Channel documenting the search, the plane’s fuselage and tail were found 2,000 feet below the surface using an autonomous sonar drone typically used to find undersea mines.
According to CNN, the search will appear on an episode of “Expedition Unknown” later this year.
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