Currently, a Norwegian expedition is searching the sea floor between
Bjørnøya and Northern Norway in the hope to find remains of Roald Amundsens
plane Latham 47.
The Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen was the first to cross the
Northwest Passage, he won the spectacular race to the South Pole against his
rival, Robert F. Scott, and he led a pioneering expedition across the Arctic
Ocean. But in the end, a revolutionary method of transport became his
nemesis – the airplane. On June 18th, 1928, Amundsen boarded the Latham 47,
a sea-plane bound for Svalbard. He was accompanied by a crack team of French
Air Force pilots. Extraordinarily, Roald Amundsen wanted to save his
fiercest rival: Umberto Nobile. The Italian general and aviator had crashed
his airship Italia on a return voyage from the North Pole. Nobile and his
surviving crew members found themselves drifting helplessly on the pack ice
of the Arctic Circle.
Amundsen was asked to join the rescue operation. It would be the final
mission of his epic and controversial life: At 6.45 p.m. on that day in
June, one last radio message was picked up from Amundsen’s aircraft – then,
there was silence.
The desire to find the Latham 47 has been alive throughout the decades. Soon
after the disappearance of the plane and its men, France and Norway - along
with several other countries - initiated an extensive search effort. The
French sent a warship, and Norway sent four naval vessels which searched
continuously until September 1928. Yet only a pontoon and one single fuel
tank from the Latham 47 were ever found.
80 years later, in 2008, an expedition community was founded consisting of
the Maritime Combat Service & Support in The Royal Norwegian Navy (MARLOG),
the Aviation Museum in Bodø, Kongsberg Maritime AS and Context TV GmbH.
On 24 August 2009, this group of experts embarked on a large-scale naval
expedition in search of Latham 47. The mission will keep them at sea for
almost two weeks, searching an area of 72 km2. Two ships work together: KNM
Tyr, a Royal Norwegian Navy Vessel, and its supply vessel, the KV Harstadt,
belonging to the fleet of the Norwegian Coast Guard. Together, they search
for the wreck of Amundsen’s plane with a fully automatic sonar system in
order to uncover the truth behind the disappearance of the legendary polar
explorer Roald Amundsen.
Most important for the success of the mission is the high tech apparatus
that is onboard: Hugin 100, a autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) and
Scorpion 21, a remoted operated vehicle (ROV)
Hugin 1000 is a powerful deep water scientific AUV, equipped with side scan
or synthetic aperture sonar, multibeam echo sounder, and a state of the art
integrated inertial navigation system. With Hugin 1000, the Navy can program
missions within the device, deploy it and the AUV then operates
independently without any cables. The AUV is capable of high resolution
seabed mapping – essential in such an expedition.
The ROV Scorpion 21 is highly manoeuvrable and operated by one person aboard
the vessel. It is connected to the ship by a tether, a group of cables that
carry electrical power, video and data signals back and forth between the
operator and the vehicle. The ROV is equipped with four cameras including a
ultra modern HD-TV camera.
In order to maximize the chances of finding any objects of interest on the
sea floor, the project has also teamed up with Norwegian company Sperre AS
who will bring along another sonar and ROV and search from onboard KV
Harstad.
Follow the expedition blog:
http://www.searchforamundsen.com/cms/index.php/blog/
(Source:
www.searchforamundsen.com)
Read more:
Expedition homepage:
www.searchforamundsen.com
<< Return
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Roald Amundsen
The plane Latham No. 2 in Bergen in 1928.
Hugin 100 before its first launch on KV Harstad
The Sperre ROV Subfighter (all pictures:
www.searchforamundsen.com)
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