Looking for the Lost

Veteran polar expedition leader New Zealander Rob McCallum is leading the search to find the submerged seaplane wreck which had been carrying Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen to the Arctic island of Spitsbergen in 1928. McCallum, who is project coordinator of the two-week expedition, will use a remote-operated underwater vehicle with sonar to search for the Latham 47 flying boat. The former head of the Department of Conservation’s Auckland conservancy, McCallum told BBC News: “We are using equipment that can get down to 20cm resolution (on the sea bed). So we can detect very small items indeed. If we can’t detect anything within that search area, then the mystery will probably remain forever, because Amundsen could be anywhere within the Barents Sea.” McCallum said all that might remain of the plane after so many years are its engines, because the rest of the aircraft was made of perishable materials such as plywood. A veteran of several seasonal expeditions cruising in the Antarctic, including a full circumnavigation of the continent in 2001, McCallum was expedition leader for the 2005 RMS Titanic Expedition.