Big Sur Coast News

On September 17, 2006 researchers from NOAA’s National Marine Sanctuary program and Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute will embark on an expedition off the Big Sur coast to conduct an archaeological investigation at the submerged wreck site of the rigid airship USS Macon, the nation’s largest and last U.S. built rigid lighter-than-air craft. The 785-ft. USS Macon, an U.S. Navy "dirigible," and its four Curtiss F9C-2 Sparrowhawk aircraft were lost on February 12, 1935 during severe weather offshore of Point Sur, Calif., on a routine flight from the Channel Islands to its home base at Moffett airfield. The wreckage of the USS Macon provide an opportunity to study the relatively undisturbed archaeological remnants of a unique period of U.S. aviation history.