The wreckage of a Pan Am flight that plummeted into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Puerto Rico more than 70 years ago in an accident that shaped commercial a
Last month, explorers discovered the wreckage of Flight 526A that crashed off San Juan, Puerto Rico, in April 1952, on its way to New York City, using a sonar drone to locate the fuselage, which was lying 2,000 feet below the water’s surface
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The plane, the Clipper Endeavor, which was roughly the same size as a Boeing 737, was carrying 69 passengers and crew when it made a hard landing on water after losing both engines less than 10 minutes after takeoff, according to the Air Sea Heritage Foundation, which announced the discovery
Everyone initially survived the accident, but 52 died when the aircraft’s tail broke away and the fuselage sank
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Pan Am Historical Foundation/John Johnson Collection via AP
The 17 passengers and crew who survived told investigators that panic set in as people struggled to find life vests and the crew were unable to locate life rafts
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The accident set the precedent for modern-day safety instructions, where flight crews are obligated to identify the plane’s exits and inform passengers on the location of life vests and how to inflate them
“This one became a catalyst, and it helped drive safety steps forward of better flotation equipment and the preflight briefings,” aperating Systems, told The Associated Press
“So this is one stepping stone along the path to what we today enjoy as a
It took extensive research to locate the plane’s sunken carcass, but the moment that led to its discovery dates back to 2019, when Russ Matthews, a historian and explorer specializing in aeronautical and maritime subjects and president of the Air Sea Heritage Foundation, read a blurb about a luggage tag from the ill-fated flight that washed up on a Florida beach, The Associated Press reported
While he was researching a different Pan Am incident at the time, the scrap of evidence prompted a deep dive into Pan Am Airlines and Coast Guard archives, where Matthews and his colleagues scoured for clues about the plane’s watery grave. Reports from the Civil Aeronautics Board, the predecessor to the Federal A
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Air/Sea Heritage Foundation and Deep Sea Vision via AP
Speaking on his research in a news release published by the Air Sea Heritage Foundation, Matthews said he was “astonished that such an important story had largely faded from public memory.”
“The story is so powerful and the impact so far-reaching. We are all stunned and elated by this discovery yet also humbled to remember what happened in that place so long ago,” he added
The key to finding the wreckage lay in records from a hearing in Puerto Rico about the incident and a map drawn by trainee pilots, who estimated the aircraft’s location after witnessing it go down during a training flight, as well as from survivor testimony and real-time radio transcripts
An attempt to locate the plane was interrupted in 2024 by bad weather, but Matthews and a team of volunteers who work with his foundation were set on making a second attempt. Through a collaboration with the undersea exploration firm Deep Sea Vision, they used a military drone designed to locate underwater mines to pinpoint the wreckage, which the drone found on its first pass of the search area
“There we were, and everything kind of came together at the moment: good weather, the right team, and the right equipment and ship. So we took a shot at it,” Tony Romeo, the CEO of Deep Sea Vision, told the AP
Deep Sea Vision previously led an unsuccessful six-month search to find Amelia Earhart’s plane, but Romeo had a special interest in the Pan Am case because his father was a mechanic and pilot for the airline and the drone used in the search already had a Pan Am sticker on the side
Its discovery comes ahead of the 75th anniversary of its disappearance. Finding it before the anniversary was the goal, Matthews said
In a statement on Instagram, Matthews recalled saying to the team, “‘This time next year is the 75th anniversary of the Clipper Endeavour accident, so we really need to find this plane.’ And in June, we did.” He added that the discovery has also brought peace to family members of those who died in the accident
“What means the most is reading the warm and heartfelt responses from the impacted families whose loved ones were aboard flight 526A,” the statement reads. “52 people lost their lives during the Clipper Endeavor tragedy, and being able to find their resting place and reconnect families with their loved ones is incredibly humbling and a great honor,” it concluded
— with files from The Associated Press
