Diver1111 in the News

[webmaster]

Back in 2015 I posted this thread about losing my GoPro camera while tubing in Meredith Bay. Remarkably, our long-time member Diver1111 (Hans) found it the next year using his side-scan sonar and search patterns. He has posted pictures of many other finds in the lake in our Diving Winnipesaukee area. It's worth a look if you haven't seen them.

This morning I saw this article about a jet missing since 1971 that was recently found with Hans' assistance. His methods are obviously effective and we've been very fortunate to have him as an active member.

Thanks Hans for finding my camera and for all your efforts!

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ain-found.html

[Biggd]

Originally Posted by webmaster

Back in 2015 I posted this thread about losing my GoPro camera while tubing in Meredith Bay. Remarkably, our long-time member Diver1111 (Hans) found it the next year using his side-scan sonar and search patterns. He has posted pictures of many other finds in the lake in our Diving Winnipesaukee area. It's worth a look if you haven't seen them.

This morning I saw this article about a jet missing since 1971 that was recently found with Hans' assistance. His methods are obviously effective and we've been very fortunate to have him as an active member.

Thanks Hans for finding my camera and for all your efforts!

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ain-found.html

I wonder if he can find the gold bars in the lake that fell off my boat in the 70's?

[ishoot308]

Hans is awesome! Very experienced and proficient diver! Does it for the love of it and not the money.

I have had the wonderful opportunity to go with Hans (not diving, just driving the boat!) on a couple of occasions to dive sites on the lake. Once was with WMUR Chronicle and another was a personal venture to search for a sunken steamship that had been seen on a fishing camera while ice fishing. Both times were great memories!

Hans has some great stories from his many many dive excursions!

Dan

[brk-lnt]

Hans is a great guy, cool to see him getting recognition.

[Diver1111]

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

[WeirsGuard]

Diver111 - The second target, "non small Cessna", may be an Air Force KC-97 refueling aircraft from Plattsburgh AFB that crashed in 1957. A Google search can provide related articles. You may already have been aware of this as it was a pretty well reported event. Keep up the great work!

[ApS]

A longer account appears at "Flight Aware".

I'm irked, however, that the proximate "military plane" was so readily dismissed by NPR.

https://www.npr.org/2024/06/12/nx-s1...mplain-vermont

[TheProfessor]

10 years later.
In the mail was the contents of my wallet. Credit cards and such.
Found on bottom of lake by a scuba driver. Not near my residence. Rough waters day that I lost wallet.

The leather wallet had deteriorated.

And the paper money ? I never got that back. I do think that the fish got to the paper money first and that the fish spent it.

Thank you to the scuba diver for tracking me down. As my mailing address was not in my wallet.

[Diver1111]

As to crashes in Champlain, I researched over the winter a huge variety of sources for information to build a list of 17 crashes, both military and civilian since 1935. Most were recovered, some not.

The KC-97 tanker went in in 1957 or so along with a P2V Neptune same year. Furthermore a local aviation historian in VT is working with us now as he has a much larger crash list he has assembled over about the last 30 years. He remains baffled as well as to what we have here-what we now call Plane #1.

I find it unbelievable given the fact that Champlain is 12 miles wide and 120 miles long, that we found not one plane but 2. And so far nobody anywhere has information about Plane #1.

We continue to work to ID it.