Gaspereau Lake Crash
Gaspereau Lake (Location of Gaspereau Lake, plane position unconfirmed)
Museum renews efforts to raise bomber
By JENNIFER ROBINSON– The Canadian Press
The search for a rare Second World War bomber that crashed through the icy waters of a Nova Scotia lake almost 60 years ago may soon be over after years of chance sightings and bad luck.
Salvagers are planning to lower a small submersible camera into Gaspereau Lake this winter to probe the murky waters for the Lockheed Hudson.
If recovered, the twin-engine aircraft would be one of a handful of the American-made bombers still in existence. Hudsons were used to fight the Japanese in the Pacific and hunt for German U-boats in the Atlantic.
Although a few local people have reported seeing the ghostly outline of the silt-covered plane through the lake ice, its exact location has remained a mystery.
“We do know it’s there,” says Bryan Nelson, curator of the Greenwood Military Aviation Museum, located in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley.
“We’ve had a number of local people who’ve seen it through the ice in the last five to seven years.”
The museum, which holds the salvage rights to the plane, has been trying without success for the last three years to find the Hudson.
Nelson says he hopes LUCIE, an acronym for “laser underwater camera imaging enhancer”, will finally find the elusive wreck.
The submersible is operated by Satlantic, a Nova Scotia company that is using the Hudson search to test the technology originally
developed by the Defence Department.
Retired Maj.-Gen. Ian Patrick, chairman of the museum’s society, says the Hudson find is an important one for aviation buffs and
for Canadian aviation history.
“This was a very important airplane,” Patrick says. “In Greenwood, it trained a large number of crews to go over to Europe and fly
other bombers and anti-submarine aircraft.”
The plane is one of about 2,500 produced by Lockheed during the war.
About 60 Hudsons were stationed at the Greenwood, N.S., military air base between 1942 and 1943. They were later replaced by the
much faster Mosquito.
The missing bomber’s four-man crew ran into trouble in March 1943 while returning from checking a sighting of a German U-boat near
Shelburne, in southern Nova Scotia.
Fuel was low and attempts to transfer gas from the belly tank to the wing tanks were unsuccessful. As the plane ran on empty, the
pilot decided to crash land the 8,325 kilogram Hudson onto the frozen surface of Gaspereau Lake, about 80 kilometres northwest of Halifax.
The crew members survived the emergency landing and were later rescued by another plane from Greenwood.
A team of technicians left behind fixed the aircraft but when they turned the plane’s powerful twin-engines for a test,
the vibrations caused the lake’s ice to crack.
A technician still working in the Hudson desperately struggled to remove the Hudson’s autopilot — an invaluable piece of technology in wartime — as icy water swirled up to his waist. He escaped with the gear intact.
Luckily, no one was injured as the snub-nosed plane slipped into the lake, coming to rest an estimated 14 metres below the surface.
It lay there forgotten for more than 50 years until a pair of search-and-rescue crewmen from Greenwood spotted it in 1998.
Although they told Nelson about their find, they died in a Labrador helicopter crash on Quebec’s Gaspe Peninsula before revealing its exact location.
Nelson says he’s been told the Hudson is in “fabulous shape” with only the propellers bent and a slight dent in the port wing.
He estimates the plane, if restored to flying capabilities, could be worth as much as $5 million today, and pegs the cost of retrieving
and fixing the plane at more than $500,000.
{ 26 comments… read them below or add one }
Always been intrigued by this. There was awebsite put up by a gentleman from the Berwick area that had underwater videos of this aircraft. Hvaen’t been able to find it. It had co-ordinates etc to the location. Ive been there in my boat seems to be about 40-50 ft deep.
My dad has seen this plane while flying over the lake in a Cessna and people have said you could swim down an see it when they drain the lake in the fall. Im planning to go out an have a gander this fall when he waters low
I’m the coordinator for the Greenwood Hudson search and would be pleased to hear from anyone who has any information on this aircraft. Some of those who say they saw this aircraft actually saw the remains of a Hurricane, since removed, in the water in the NE corner of the Lake. The videos spoken of above were inconclusive and no aircraft was found at the coordinates on the videos. Recent water levels have been very low and reached historical low levels during NSPs work on their dam over the last two years. No aircraft was sighted during the low water.
A Hurricane…wow!! What a find…Huricanes and Spitfires are probably my most favorite aircraft. Any idea of Lat and Lon for the ‘cane? Ian do you have arough idea of the Hudson location? I live about 10 minutes from the lake. Water levels are at normal now…probably down again this summer as the work continues….email me
Ian could the plane be covered up in silt .the lake has only a very few places where a plane could land and take off of that size in the winter. in the summer or fall when the lake in low there are only a few pools of water left. that are not that deep.and in march or towards spring there are only a very few places where the lake would thaw out first and make the plane go down.
how could you see the plane through the ice in the winter i lived around the lake all my life and i’m yet to see through the ice if so i would not be walking on it the way they rais and lower the lake . For the hydro plant.
Charles Trahon (spelling) a local resident who has now passed away told Cecil Keddy who told my father in law that he used to “dance on the wing” of that bomber at low water.
My father in law also said that a Hurricane that was pulled out of that lake in the late 1970′s to early 80′s that had gone down by the cement cross. Folks who know the lake know that place. He remembers an old lady, Mrs Alders, who lived by the lake who saw that one hit. She said it bounced off a rock and sunk after a mid air collision.
Ian i am waiting for your reply about seeing the hudson through the ice in the winter when the lake is frozen it must be thin when you can see it. I also see my comment is not with the four comment ? you may have took it down .In order to reply to it or it maybe on a diffrent one of these site . Thanks again Leon.
Very nice. A good friend and I are currently trying to locate a Harvard in Grand Lake. We have spoken to many eyewitnesses to the crash, and have had some sonar gear out there along with a small dive team, but as yet have been unable to locate it. I hope the Hudson is found and returned to it’s glory days.
A CBC Documentary today,Sunday, Jan.3 / 2010 was aired . about the famous Hudson crash in the lake near GREENWOOD . NS . It came to no conclusion as where exactly the aircraft is, though it did conclude that the hunt for the WW II was to be reopened at a later date.
I think there may be some Seafires in the water off Shearwater, as we got some from the British during the War on the the aircraft carrier
HMS Warrior, which was returned to them in 1948, I belive, however most of the Seafires did not make the return journey.
Can anyone tell me is there a certain area of the lake that they think the Hudson is in? I was on Google earth and when I was scanning around I think I see what appears to be an outline of a large aircraft, Maybe I’m seeing things, Maybe not. Let me now what you think.
> Can anyone tell me is there a certain area of the lake that they think the Hudson is in?
There are thousands of rocks sticking above the water (or ice) of the lake.
I would think that they would need a long, straight stretch with no obstructions
to safely land the plane. The best candidate to me would be near the west end of the main lake
before the channel to Two Mile Lake.
I go out on the lake quite a bit in winter and also some in my kayak when the water is “soft”.
I often see small planes from Waterville flying low over the lake. Maybe they are looking too?
A friend of mine had talked to a lot of the people who claimed to know about the plane.
One of them gave him a copy of a copy of a photo that they claimed was of the repair crew
working on the plane. But the background of the photo was too fuzzy to get an idea
of the location.
I had been waiting for the TV documentary about the plane for several months, but missed it.
The Land and Sea documentary from Jan 3 is available at:
http://www.cbc.ca/landandsea/2010/01/the-hudson-bomber.html
Update on the Harvard. We have procured all the witness statements and the official accident report. It seems that the Flt. Sgt. who was flying the plane was performing “unauthorized aerobatic maneuvers” when his engine stalled. He was unable the restart the engine and was forced to land in the lake. He landed with gear and flaps up, and settled gently onto the water. He escaped immediately, and the plane sank immediately. We have spoken to one individual who dove on the wreck in the late 80′s. He reported that the plane is in remarkable condition with most of it’s bright yellow paint intact. He was able to give us the registration number which led us to the accident report. This summer we plan to locate and dive upon this wreck, with hopes to eventually raise her, and donate her to a worthy museum.
On this site they claim to have found the Hudson in Sept 2000
and have pictures of it!
http://www.atlanticseaview.com/item23.htm
The co-ordinates given are 44-58.403N 64-33.023W (UTM 377749 4981163
20T) which is 1 km due south of the concrete cross. I think this is the
area where parts of the Hurricane were recovered.
The Land and Sea documentary was re-aired on CBC on Sunday July 11.
The documentary video is still available on CBC’s website, but with new address:
http://www.cbc.ca/landandsea/2010/07/the-hudson-bomber.html
On July 7 I saw an armed forces diving team loading up “zodiacs”
at the boat ramp near the south end of the lake.
Richard
I noticed the post about the Harvard, we are diving in Grand Lake looking for equipment lost while trying to locate the plane. We are diving in Grand Lake this summer starting this week. We are from Shearwater and if you have a good idea where the Harvard is and willing to pass on the info we would like to take a look with our sonar equipment. Thank you.
i think the site is actually 200 -300 meters south / south east of where they have it marked on the above map i know there is over 40 feet of water where i say when the lake is high.
If the plane is supposed to be in 14 meters of water , the west end of the lake below 2 mile lake David , has maybe 20-25 feet at the deepest, i have only seen over 40 feet in the main part of the lake which i referred to in my earlier comment. I have looked at those photos, and to me they seem to looking south/south west towards the cove just east of where blue mountain lake brook runs into gaspereau lake…. that’s the area i believe the Hudson is to be found.
anyone have coordinates for the cenebt cross?
i guess my fingers were not cooperating above…what i meant to type was coordinates for the cross.
i’ve seen pictures of it and it doesn’t appear to be on an island but i’m wondering if you can walk to it from the dam/ fish ladder area.
If anyone is planning a search this fall for either the Harvard or the Hudson, please contact me. I would be more then willing to volunteer some time. I am a certified diver, have my own equipment, and could help anytime.
Has it been found?
There is a damaged wing, sitting on a DND trailer in Willow Park in Halifax. It’s grey, with an insignia……a star within a circle, does that sound like something from WW2 ?
The wing you saw in the DND lot is a Ventura wing that was from a lake near country harbour,is was at the atalantic Canada aviation museun along with there hudson fuseluge that went to the museum in Trenton this past fall.
The wing you saw on the trailer is one from a lockheed venture, its was on its way from the ACAM to Trenton Ontario to be use in the restoration of Acams HudsonMK6, the wing came from armstong lake near contry habour, it has early American markings on it.