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Seventy-four years after a Pan Am flight crashed into the water off Puerto Rico, killing 52 people and prompting sweeping reforms including preflight passenger safety briefings, an aviation search team has found the wreckage sitting on the ocean floor.
The Air/Sea Heritage Foundation, in partnership with others including the Discovery Channel’s “Expedition Unknown” show, last month found the wreckage of the Pan Am “Clipper Endeavor” at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean off Puerto Rico’s northern coast, Discovery said in a release Tuesday.
The discovery, which involved an autonomous underwater drone, ends decades of mystery about precisely where the Douglas DC-4 aircraft came to rest after crashing into the ocean shortly after it took off from Puerto Rico on April 11, 1952, with 64 passengers and five crew members aboard.
Although all passengers survived the initial impact, only 17 people would be rescued, and the rest would be lost with the quickly sinking plane – a result that investigators would blame in part on a lack of safety briefings and that would spur changes in the aviation industry.
“We are all stunned and elated by this discovery yet also humbled to remember what happened in that place so long ago,” Russ Matthews, president and co-founder of the Air/Sea Heritage Foundation, said in the release.
NBC first reported the discovery on the “Today” show Tuesday morning.
The search team, which also involved the Deep Sea Vision company, used high-resolution sonar to locate the wreckage on the ocean floor some 2,000 feet below the surface on June 2, the release said.
The craft was broken into two sections. A follow-up photographic survey conclusively identified the plane, with images clearly showing the iconic winged Pan American logo and aircraft name still legible, according to Discovery’s release.
Discovery Channel intends to cover the finding in an “Expedition Unknown” episode later this year.
The Air/Sea Heritage Foundation is now working with the government of Puerto Rico to expand protections for the wreckage site and is advocating for a memorial honoring those lost in the crash, according to the release.
Families directly impacted by the tragedy and the crash’s only two known living survivors have also been contacted, the release said.
Crash led to aviation changes
The plane, which was bound for New York, lost both right-side engines shortly after takeoff, according to the Pan Am Historical Foundation, forcing the pilot to conduct a violent water landing minutes later.
The aircraft had life rafts and personal flotation devices for all aboard, according to the Pan Am foundation. But confusion ensued in part because no safety briefing was given, there was a language barrier, and no coordinated evacuation procedure was in place, Discovery said in its release. The plane sank in less than three minutes, Discovery said.
Though the US Coast Guard and Air Force sprang into action to save 12 passengers and five crew members, Discovery said, the other 52 people aboard died.
In a report on the 1952 crash, the Civil Aeronautics Board, a predecessor of today’s Federal Aviation Administration, proposed amendments to the civil air regulations “to assure a greater degree of safety to the occupants of aircraft flying over water routes.”
Proposals that were implemented included preflight briefings for passengers on where to find and how to use life vests, life rafts and emergency exits.
“Every time you step onboard an airplane today, you are safer because of what happened to ‘Clipper Endeavor’ and her passengers three quarters of a century ago,” Josh Gates, a host of Discovery Channel’s “Expedition Unknown,” said in the company’s release.
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