by Dee Norton Seattle Times staff reporter

RENTON - It's been nearly 50 years since the World War II-vintage "flying boat" took its last journey before crashing into the waters of Lake Washington.

But if the work of Navy divers goes as planned, the last known surviving PBM Mariner aircraft will be pulled from its watery grave next week and begin a journey to a privately owned air museum in Pensacola, Fla.

Yesterday, a collection of Navy officers from Washington, D.C., Hawaii and Everett explained how the aircraft will be salvaged in what Rear Adm. Frank Harness, commander of the Naval Surface Reserve Force, described as a training project.

Navy divers have been at work for a week removing five feet of mud from the wings of the twin-engine PBM Mariner, which has been resting at the bottom of Lake Washington near Renton since 1949.

Harness said the recovery project has been under way for 10 years "and has had its ups and downs." Six years ago, a Navy reserve diver, Ted Gunhus of Everett, died of a pre-existing heart condition during a training program focused on the PBM.

But Puyallup salvage diver Robert Mester is contesting the Navy's right to salvage the aircraft. He said the Navy is hurrying to recover the PBM before U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Zilly rules next month on his lawsuit that could set a precedent for ownership of old sunken military aircraft.

The lawsuit seeks to have the aircraft declared abandoned.

"The Navy has abandoned this plane. It's not listed on the Navy inventory and its log books have been destroyed. But they say they have not abandoned it and still own it," said Mester. He seeks salvage rights to it.

"It's been on the bottom of the lake since 1949 and they didn't care about it until I got a state permit to salvage it five years ago," he said.

However, Mester's salvage permit expired while he has been awaiting a court ruling and the state has refused to renew it.

Mester said a federal court in Chicago last spring acquitted a diver who was charged with theft after he raised a World War II dive bomber from Lake Michigan. "This is a case of heavyweight politics. My suit will come down with a ruling that they abandoned that PBM," he said.

Harness denied the timing of the salvage attempt had any particularly significance. Asked if the Navy was responding to a legal challenge, Harness replied, "I don't know that that is the case."

The PBM is believed to be the last of 1,367 built by the company now known as Lockheed-Martin. "All the others have been scraped or were lost in action," said retired Navy Capt. Bruce Handler, of the Mariner/Marlin Association of former pilots and crewmen.

The plane flipped and sank on May 6, 1949, when a wing pontoon struck a piling several hundred yards from the Renton Airport following a flight from the Sand Point Naval Air Station. All seven crew members escaped unhurt.

Little is known of the history of this aircraft, said Rich Wills, archeologist with the Naval Historical Center, Washington, D.C. "That is being researched," he said.

The plane, about the size of a Boeing 737, rests upside down in 70 feet of water. Pairs of divers from reserve-training units are working one-hour shifts each day, hosing away the mud.

They will patch several holes in the hull and attach and inflate air bags to give the PBM some buoyancy to lift it near the surface.

An Army Corps of Engineers barge crane will lift the plane tail first. Additional air bags will then raise the plane to its normal floating position for movement to the airport and lifting by a Boeing crane onto a special cradle.

At the Naval Museum of Flight in Pensacola, three to four years of work and an estimated $2 million still to be raised by donations will be needed to prepare the PBM for display. It will not be restored to flying condition, Handler said.

Cost of the salvage operation was estimated by Harness at about $80,000.

All of this makes Mester irate. "Do you think I could get the Corps of Engineers to loan me the two barges they have out there . . .?" he asked.

© Seattle Times

6 September 1996

DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER
                                       901 M STREET SE -- WASHINGTON NAVY YARD
                                                WASHINGTON DC 20374-5060

                                                              

Martin PBM Mariner Patrol Bomber-BuNo 59172

History

The U.S. Navy Martin PBM-5 Mariner patrol bomber Bureau of Aeronautics serial number 59172 or "BuNo 59172," (meaning "bureau number 59172"),
was constructed in 1944 under contract for the Navy by the Glenn L. Martin Company at their Baltimore, Maryland facility. Delivered to the Navy in
January 1945, it was one of the 1,367 PBM Mariners constructed by Martin). During the World War II and Cold War eras, BuNo 59172 saw service with
various Navy units in a number of capacities. Its last operational assignment was Naval Air Station, Seattle, Washington, in late 1948.

BuNo 59172 was wrecked on 6 May 1949 while being ferried across Lake Washington from Naval Air Station, Seattle to the Boeing seaplane ramp at
Renton, Washington, where it was intended to be placed in storage. During a power taxi to the Boeing ramp, rapidly changing wind conditions contributed
to a collision between the boat and an underwater obstruction, causing it to capsize and sink. The crew of the boat escaped unharmed. 

Wreck

Today, the wreck of BuNo 59172 remains where the aircraft came to rest in 1949, in the southernmost end of Lake Washington, in the vicinity of Renton,
just off the old seaplane ramp at the Boeing plant. The aircraft rests on its back in 71.5 feet of water, near the mouth of the Cedar River outflow, embedded
in a dense silt bottom, with between five and nine feet of overburden deposited over the wreck, depending on wing depth and wreck orientation at the point
measured. The hull projects approximately 12 feet above the bottom at its highest elevation.

BuNo 59172 has been the object of a number of previous unsuccessful salvage attempts. During one in 1980-81 over a hundred artifacts were removed
and accessioned into the custody of the National Museum of Naval Aviation at Naval Air Station, Pensacola, Florida. Another took place in 1990 with
assistance provided by Navy Supervisor of Salvage resources. A number of additional artifacts are thought to have been taken by sport divers over the last
20 years, as this wreck has traditionally constituted one of Lake Washington's most captivating and well known sport diving spots.

Today, custody of BuNo 59172 is assigned to the National Museum of Naval Aviation, and the flying boat continues to serve the Navy in several ways. In
addition to constituting a valuable cultural resource which serves as a historical reminder to sport divers, it also provides a useful environment for the
continuing training of Navy diving salvage personnel. In particular, this Navy aircraft wreck has long been associated with Naval Reserve Mobile Diving
Salvage Unit One's Detachment 522 (NRMDSU-1 Det 522) of Naval Station Everett, Washington. This detachment has used the wreck as a staging site in
their operations for a number of years and was involved in the 1990 attempt to recover the aircraft in cooperation with their parent command, Mobile
Diving Salvage Unit One (MDSU-1) of Naval Station Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The project was discontinued following the unfortunate work-related death of
a Detachment 522 diver due to a preexisting heart condition. 

Personnel from Mobile Diving Salvage Unit One returned to the wreck site in March of 1994 to assess the feasibility of another salvage attempt. They
concluded that a recovery of the aircraft with minimal further damage was feasible, and that such a project would not only help to place this aircraft in the
collections of the National Museum of Naval Aviation for the purpose of active preservation and public education, but would also provide a valuable and
challenging training exercise for a number of Naval Reserve Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit Detachments. 

In 1992, the non-profit Mariner/Marlin Association began formulating a plan for a potential future recovery effort. Their activities included identifing an
appropriate museum to house the aircraft, helping to formulate a recovery plan, and determining the best means of transporting the aircraft to the museum.
In 1995, the Association requested permission and assistance from the Chief of Naval Operations and the Naval Historical Center in recovering BuNo
59172. In 1996, Mobile Diving Salvage Unit One was tasked to undertake this activity. Some logistical support was provided by Naval Reserve Mobile
Diving and Salvage Unit One Detachment 522, the Naval Historical Center, and the Mariner/Marlin Association. Other agencies which became involved in
supporting this cooperative effort included the Washington State Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation; the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
Seattle District; and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, Western Review Office. The Boeing Corporation provided a substantial amount of
additional cooperation and logistical support during the course of the project.

The project to recover BuNo 59172 took place from 19 August to 23 October 1996. The two basic objectives of the exercise were (1) to recover the
aircraft, and (2) to provide a marine salvage training evolution for Naval Reserve Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit Detachments, while ensuring maximum
safety protection for participating personnel, and protecting dedicated equipment resources to as great an extent as possible. Over 500 dives were
conducted during the course of this project, providing an exceptional level of realistic training in difficult but controlled conditions using a variety of
different tools and techniques. The training value of the activity became apparent when Mobile Diving Salvage Unit Two, Mobile Diving Salvage Unit
One's east coast counterpart, was tasked to participate with the Navy Supervisor of Salvage in the recovery of the wreck of the TWA Flight 800 Boeing
aircraft off East Moriches, New York. Mobile Diving Salvage Unit Two undertook this assignment during the same period that Mobile Diving Salvage
Unit One and Mobile Diving Salvage Unit Two active duty and reserve personnel were training on the Martin Mariner site. 

While the training objective of this mission was achieved with exceptional results, the concurrent goal of recovering the aircraft intact for museum
preservation was not. After over a month and a half of laborious overburden removal efforts, and several unsuccessful attempts to free the upside-down
aircraft from bottom suction and inertia in order to elevate it in preparation for righting, the final introduction of strain concluded with the rear of the
aircraft separating from the rest of the fuselage. At this time it was decided to (1) recover the tail section, document it, and turn it over to the National
Museum of Naval Aviation for a restoration project that may allow it to be displayed as a stand-alone exhibit for memorialization and educational purposes,
(2) suspend salvage operations, (3) remove all potentially hazardous features on the site, and (4) seal off all accessible penetration points with mesh screens
or blanking plates in order to make the site safe for sport divers. All four of these activities were successfully executed. 

In terms of future site management strategies, three options presently exist for the wreck site: (1) complete recovery at a future time, (2) preservation in
place, or (3) preservation in place coupled with its development as a dive preserve. The first option, complete recovery, does not presently constitute a
realistic option for the short term. However, it should be considered as a potential long term possibility. The second option, preservation of the wreck in
place as an archaeological reserve, is a feasible alternative that involves lower cost and lower maintenance, and would be intended not as much for diving
and education purposes as it would be for simple physical preservation. This would also preserve it so that the rest of the aircraft might be recovered if
funds and resources become available. It should be noted that any future salvage attempt would require revised and more extensive planning. The third
alternative, development of the wreck site into a State of Washington underwater historic wreck preserve, is dependant upon the availability of resources
and the permission of appropriate agencies. Such an objective could be achieved through a cooperative effort between the Washington State Office of
Archaeology and Historic Preservation, the Naval Historical Center's Underwater Archaeology Branch, and perhaps Naval Reserve Mobile Diving Salvage
Unit One's Detachment 522. The best answer for the short term seems to be preservation in place while exploring options for potentially developing it as a
diver-accessible historic wreck preserve.