Cussler hopes to solve plane crash mystery

[DirkPitt]

Author, shipwreck group hope to solve old plane-crash mystery

By James Prichard
Associated Press

http://www.lsj.com





HOLLAND - Capt. Robert Lind struggled to keep the DC-4 aloft during the raging thunderstorm as the airliner approached southern Lake Michigan from the east.

Strong winds and frequent lightning had knocked out the power that evening along much of the lake's southeastern coast, from Holland down to Benton Harbor. Three pilots who had taken off from Detroit turned around because of the turbulence they encountered at the edge of the fierce storm.

Lind had taken off a few hours earlier from New York's LaGuardia Airport. Northwest Airlines Flight 2501, carrying 55 passengers and three crew members, was scheduled to arrive the next morning in Seattle after making stops in Minneapolis and Spokane, Wash.

It never made it.

57 on board die

Flight 2501 crashed into the lake late on June 23, 1950, killing Lind and the 57 others on board. At the time, it was the deadliest airliner accident in the nation's history.

While a Coast Guard cutter found most of the debris in the water about 18 miles north-northwest of Benton Harbor, no one is certain exactly where the plane went down. Within a couple weeks of the crash, some partial human remains washed ashore near South Haven, which is about midway between Holland and Benton Harbor.

Next month, Valerie and Jack van Heest and their nonprofit group, Michigan Shipwreck Research Associates, will resume their nearly 3-year-old search for the crash site. They hope to find at least one of the plane's four engines intact.

"We have a much greater chance of narrowing down the area this year than we ever have in the past," said Valerie van Heest, 46, who has put her marketing and graphic design career on hold to focus on the search. She's also trying to contact victims' relatives to make them aware of her group's efforts.

Novelist to back search

The hunt will take place about 15 to 20 miles off the coast of South Haven, in the same general area of the lake where the group previously located the well-preserved remains of a historic, 208-foot-long steamer, the Hennepin, upright in 230 feet of water.

The Holland-area couple has the financial backing of best-selling adventure novelist Clive Cussler, who learned through a 2004 newspaper article about their interest in locating the plane crash site and called to offer his support, van Heest said.

The van Heests started searching for Flight 2501 in the fall of 2004, aided by sonar expert Ralph Wilbanks, whom Cussler provided. They conducted additional searches in May 2005 and again last May.

"It is a good mystery. Nobody's quite sure exactly what happened and it certainly was a significant tragedy in its day," said Dirk Cussler, who has co-authored a couple of books with his father and runs their shipwreck group.

Van Heest said she has found the representatives of 20 of the families who lost loved ones. It's important to her that she reach as many as she can.

"I don't want anything out of this except the satisfaction of helping them come to grips or closure or whatever you would call it with this accident," she said.

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[oswalder]

Maybe we'll read about their discovery in Sea Hunters III.

[tonym5]

Or in a Novel!

[Sandecker Fan]

They just had an article about this in the local paper Sunday. Is wasn't the same as this article though. Funny thing is though that I thought it sounded like a historical preface in a Cussler novel.

[loren1]

That was the first thought that came to my mind too Sean.

[Riyukco]

Wow.

[Andy in West Oz]

The latest:

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article.../707120365/1008

[Foss Gly]

Very interesting...though the ladie's pic on the right of the update article startled me.

[loren1]

Why is that? Ladies are not that scary.