Looking for missing airplane

[bell47]

We are going to start looking for a missing airforce jet(T-33a) that crashed in the ocean near where i live. It is actually in a bay, we believe. The navy did a pretty big search at the time but found nothing, but I have a pretty good lead from a retired fisherman as where to start. I don't think the plane would be recognizable on a side scan due to age in the water, marine growth, and probable break up on impact. Is there a good way to locate possibly scattered aircraft wreckage among rocks/ledges and marine growth such as kelp/seaweed? I think some pieces of the wreckage may be large pieces such as a wing, tail, or part of the fuselage, but after nearly 50 years underwater they will be hard to recognize. We thought about starting in the spot where the fisherman puts us, and doing 100 foot circles using metal detectors and wreck reels on scuba equipment. I also thought about a magnetometer but there is LOTS of old lobster traps(steel wire) in the area and having never used one, we may miss it, especially since it was mostly aluminum anyway. I know this isn't treasure, but somewhere there is a family that has been missing a loved one for a long time, I thought as long as we're looking for stuff, we should look for the plane. Any ideas would be appreciated.

 

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[FISHEYE]

A mag would be the best to use since the engine and landing gear is made out of iron and steel.If the navy couldnt find it cause its in little tiny pieces depending how the jet impacted the ocean.Water is just like concrete when hit at 200+ mph.

 

[bell47]

I figured a magnetometer would be best but several grand for one is out of the question for my buget right now. Cheapest one Ive seen is about $5000 on Kellyco's website. I do think the plane is gonna be in pieces. Although, there may be one relatively big piece according to my retired fisherman source. Could be the engine, wing, piece of fuselage, ect.............We don't know yet.

 

[barney]

I would contact Missing Aircraft Search Team (MAST) - this is what they do, and they have specific experience with T-33s. They have the toys you need and may be interested in working on this with you

 

[GOHO]

SideScan is still your best tool for locting this... Side Scan has amazing detail... You could definetly distinguish between rocks, lobster traps and an aircraft wing or pieces. The Side Scan also has a wide swath so you can cover a lot of ground in just a few survey lines...

 

[seismosaurus]

We go sometimes after these fisherman stories. And we did find on their positions a few WW2 planes so far.
to give you an idear how different crassites can look like with sidescan 65-70 years later some pics:

 

[bell47]

WOW---Thanks for the side scan images. That's more than likely what we'll use. I'm actually getting a Hummingbird 998SI in the next week or so. I thought I was gonna get it this past week but ran out of time. My fisherman seems to be a good source. He was telling me about pulling up a big piece of painted metal with his fishing gear, just under the surface the rope broke and it sank back to the bottom. This was back in the 1970's. He remembers at the time thinking it looked like a piece of airplane. He said it was big enough to lean his 28 foot boat over to a scary angle. He didn't know about the missing T-33 until I told him about it. He says he can put us really close to where he saw the piece of metal. Back then he had no GPS or Loran to record the "numbers" so they went by landmarks from shore. He wants to go with us, so I assume he's serious. Oh, and this is just about a mile or so from the center of the Navy serch area for the plane, in the direction that it was last seen flying. It all adds up to be pretty exciting. We'll see in the next few weeks. Keep the ideas coming guys, thanks so far.

 

[bell47]

SEISMOSAURUS--- i meant to ask, what kind of airplanes were you looking for? What have you found? What were the SSI pics of? Thanks for sharing that.

 

[Shawmen]

Got a BuNo?? Can make a few phone calls that may help...Could help alot more if it was Navy, but so be it....

 

[seismosaurus]

SEISMOSAURUS--- i meant to ask, what kind of airplanes were you looking for? What have you found? What were the SSI pics of? Thanks for sharing that.

We did start with the stories from a fisherman and were not searching after a specific plane. On one of the locations they couldn't even tell if it was a shipwreck or an airplane. They have been out with us as well using landmarks, amazing what they did see and could navigate on that. Sometimes it was somewhere in a straightline but using the echosounder, other times it was a real cross section spot on.
on the pictures you see 3 different bombers:
1=halifax, 4 engines , broke in bigger pieces
2= B24 , 4 engines, scattered over a big area
3= wellington 2 engines, as far as we can see piled up, wellington had frame construction and canvas skin
we did recover some bits on each site for examination and did find out it is all known by official authorities.
The fisherman now have better data and now catch even more fish
However, these are the success stories, we also did spend a lot of time on (maybe) rumours, fairytales,wrong information .. or we did search not good enough, or just missed it, or it did disappear. but never give up !

 

[TURNMASTER]

General Electric/Allison J33, should be some good scrap value there plus the Al. However it is a grave site. Not my call.

Jeff