Search Team News

The wreck of one of the U.S. Navy's longest serving battleships has been found 15,400 feet beneath the surface about 65 nautical miles southwest of Pearl Harbor, researchers said Monday.The USS Nevada (BB-36), which served in two world wars over the course of a career that spanned more than three and a half decades, was discovered by underwater and terrestrial archaeology firm SEARCH, Inc. and marine robotics company Ocean Infinity at the bottom of the Pacific.The mission was jointly coordinated between SEARCH's operations center and one of Ocean Infinity's vessels, Pacific Constructor.

A South Korean company’s claims that it has discovered the wreck of a Russian warship containing $130 billion in gold “treasure” off South Korea has been met with scepticism from researchers and regulators in Seoul.Shinil Group, which was established last month, said on Tuesday it had discovered the wreck of the Dmitrii Donskoi, a Russian armored cruiser built in the 1880s and sunk in 1905 after battling Japanese warships.The company said the ship held 150 trillion won ($130 billion) in gold and it would provide evidence next week to support its claim.

Wreckage believed to be of the cargo ship El Faro, which was lost in Hurricane Joaquin in a sinking that claimed the lives of its 33 crew members, was discovered on Saturday at a depth of 15,000 feet, U.S. officials said in a statement. A search team aboard the U.S. Naval Ship Apache discovered the wreckage using sonar equipment, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a statement. The statement said officials planned to send a deep ocean remotely operated vehicle to confirm the identity of the wreckage on Sunday. El Faro disappeared on Oct. 1 while en route from Jacksonville, Florida, to Puerto Rico. (Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by James Dalgleish)

Teams searching the Indian Ocean for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 have discovered a previously uncharted shipwreck. Search vessel Fugro Equator’s deep tow system detected a cluster of small sonar contacts in the southern part of the search area, 12 nautical miles to the east of the 7th arc. The sonar data was carefully analyzed and categorized to be “of potential interest but unlikely to be related to MH370.” It could not, however, be ruled out, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) said.

Seventy years after the conclusion of World War II, philanthropist and entrepreneur Paul G. Allen has located the Musashi, one of the two largest and most technologically advanced battleships in naval history. Allen and his team of researchers began their search for the Musashi more than eight years ago. Using historical records from four countries, detailed undersea topographical data and advanced technology aboard his yacht, M/Y Octopus, Allen and his team located the battleship in the Sibuyan Sea on March 1, 2015.

Vesper Marine, a manufacturer of marine safety products and virtual Aids to Navigation (ATON), announced that its Virtual AIS Beacons are employed in the search for lost Malaysian airliner MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean. The international search team is a closely coordinated effort between United States-based Phoenix International, Dutch engineering company Fugro and the governments of Australia and Malaysia. After an exhaustive period of mapping the ocean floor, the on-the-water search is focused on an area of ocean roughly twice the size of Massachusetts.

The Franklin Expedition ship discovered in early September by the 2014 Victoria Strait Expedition is Her Majesty’s Ship (HMS) Erebus. Sir John Franklin, who was in command of the Franklin Expedition, sailed on HMS Erebus, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Wednesday. On May 19, 1845, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror of the Royal Navy departed Greenhithe, England, on a much-heralded Arctic expedition in search of a Northwest Passage. Under the command of Sir John Franklin…

The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) is working to track down a prankster who called in fake distress calls in Washington state that led agency officials to launch two rescue efforts that cost over $200,000, an official said on Thursday. The suspect made his first call over VHF radio on May 31, reporting he was on a burning fishing vessel in Puget Sound and that he and four other people were grabbing life jackets and jumping off, the Coast Guard said in a statement. Two Coast Guard MH-65 Dolphin helicopter crews, the team of a 45-foot Coast Guard rescue boat and the crew of a local Sheriff's Office vessel searched for the fishing boat said to be on fire, but found nothing.

A renewed search for four British sailors who vanished with their yacht a week ago in the Atlantic was called off late on Friday, hours after the overturned vessel was spotted at sea with no sign of its crew, the U. S. Coast Gurad said. The missing men, all experienced sailors, ran into trouble last Friday, May 16, as they were returning to Britain from a sailing event in Antigua in the Caribbean. They had reported that their vessel, the 39-foot (12 meter) Cheeki Rafiki, was taking on water, forcing them to change course for the Azores. On Friday, a U.S. Navy search team discovered the capsized vessel about 1,000 miles (1,600 km) off Cape Cod, Massachusetts, but detected no sign of the crew, the U. S. Coast Guard said in a statement.

A number of archaeological groups and marine service companies are acquiring boat-towed metal detectors to assist in locating shipwrecks and to perform geophysical surveys. These devices can locate a variety of targets including the piles of magnetic ballast stones found on many old wrecks, gold and silver bars, cannons, anchors, pipelines, cables, and various metal debris which must be removed from an area before dredging. The two primary pieces of equipment used in these operations are a magnetometer and pulse induction (PI) metal detectors.

A search team led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) has located the wreckage of Air France Flight 447 some 3,900 meters, or nearly 2.5 miles, below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean off Brazil’s northeastern coast. The team left the port of Suape, Brazil, aboard the vessel Alucia on March 22, arriving at the search site on March 25. After one week of searching, one of the mission’s three autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), the REMUS 6000s, detected debris on the seafloor. A second vehicle was dispatched to the area for more detailed sonar mapping and photographic imaging.

On August 18 the Remote Operating Vehicle (ROV) operating from the Royal New Zealand Navy Diving Tender, HMNZS Manawanui, has allowed formal identification to be made of the sunken vessel resting on the seabed as the Princess Ashika. The ROV identified the vessel by allowing the Royal New Zealand Navy’s (RNZN) Diving and Underwater Search Team to read the ship's name plate. Conditions on the surface are not currently favorable but the Navy team is continuing with its efforts. The water clarity is reported to be very good and this has allowed the team to conduct a thorough search of the sunken vessel. One side of the Princess Ashika is obstructed and the ROV is unable to see into the passenger compartment. The vessel is sitting flat on the seabed and appears to be intact.

A team of underwater search experts from the U.S. has located the wreckage of Israeli submarine Dakar in 9,600 fsw in the Eastern Mediterranean. The search team, headed by Nauticos Corporation of Hanover, Md., consisted of Williamson and Associates of Seattle, and Phoenix Marine, Inc. of Arlington, Va. Initial detection of the wreck was accomplished using a side scan sonar system. After detecting a strong target on two sonar passes, the search team deployed a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) to perform a detailed video inspection of the wreck. Video images from the ROV enabled topside naval experts to positively identify the wreck as Dakar. Dakar and its 69 member crew disappeared mysteriously on January 25, 1968.

Official U.S. Navy file photo of father of the U.S. Navy, John Paul Jones' tomb at the U.S. Naval Academy. Jones is forever immortalized by uttering the words, "I have not yet begun to fight", during the battle between his ship Bonhomme Richard and HMS Serapis, off the coast of England in 1779. The Naval Historical Center and other researchers are planning an expedition to try to find the wreck of Bonhomme Richard in the Summer of 2006. The Naval Historical Center (NHC) announced in October it is joining the Ocean Technology Foundation (OTF) in spearheading an expedition in the summer of 2006 to search for the remains of American Revolutionary War naval hero John Paul Jones’ ship Bonhomme Richard.