What a surprise to see this search mentioned as it was Vermont not the Big Lake-thank you Don.
Sept. 2022 I mentioned to Garry Kozak (
www.2Kozak.com) that I have wondered for many years what the story was about this plane and he said he happened to be working on it so we teamed up to pursue it.
Garry obtained 30+- year old side scan sonar data from the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum taken for reasons that involved studying both the geology, geography and shipwreck sites in the lake. From that he literally extracted possible (3) targets-of-interest that we felt were going to be either a dump or a debris field from a plane.
Scanned 1st target in about 250 feet of water: Natural geology;
Scanned 2nd target in about 300 feet of water then checked w/Remotely Operated Vehicle/ROV: A plane-no small Cessna either; huge mystery we are working on now as nobody has any idea so far what plane it is;
Scanned 3rd target in about 200 feet of water: Found it-The Rockwell 1121 Jet Commander.
I recruited Tim McDonald of Marine Solutions in Meredith to bring his ROV to the search. He really knows how to fly his ROV, producing outstanding videos that were critical to a positive ID of the Rockwell. He nailed the ID for us.
Side scan sonar image attached we took among others of the debris field of the Jet and one of the flight path as best as we could reconstruct it.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/underwate...225517663.html (use this w/video)
https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-n...lake-champlain