Smart Ships Coalition Launches Underwater Survey Demo
Help Us Solve a 55-year-old Mystery in Lake Superior by Using Autonomous Technology
~Smart Ships Coalition Launching a New Era of Exploration~
In late October of 1968, a National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) plane carrying two pilots and a University of Wisconsin graduate student disappeared over Lake Superior, sparking a decades long unsolved mystery. The plane, on a routine mission to collect water radiation and temperature data, vanished without a trace after its last contact with the Houghton County Memorial Airport in Michigan.
Despite extensive search efforts, only a few pieces of debris have washed ashore between 1969 and 2014, baffling investigators. The plane vanished in the “Great Lakes Triangle,” a region known for mysterious disappearances of planes and ships. The NCAR case still remains open today.
We aim to launch a new, modern search mission. Using an 8-meter state-of-the-art autonomous surface vessel (ASV), outfitted with a Norbit ultra-high-resolution 3D bathymetric sonar system, we will map and explore Lake Superior and attempt to crack this case.
Project partners include GSGP, Ocean Infinity, Michigan Technological University, Norbit, the Geat Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society, Kongsberg, and the Great Lakes Observing System.
