[Eric] This is a search for three individuals.
All three have been missing from their families for over 70 years.
This is kind of a smoking gun, if this is accurate,
then 400 yards out there should be a lost World War II plane.
[Eric] These are AUV's. Autonomous Underwater Vehicles.
Okay. Let's do it.
We got something, we got structure.
- [Eric] Oh this is incredible. - Look at that!
[airplane buzzing]
[Josh] Unbelievable. What a thrill!
I'm gonna go in. I see the wreck.
Absolutely incredible.
"No one left behind."
That's the pledge we make to American soldiers
willing to sacrifice their lives for our country.
In World War II alone,
more than 75,000 servicemen were listed as missing in action.
But not tallied in that number are the more than 18,000 airmen
who died in fatal training and aviation accidents.
Most of them right here, in the USA.
This is the story of three of those young men.
The baffling mystery surrounding their disappearance
and the effort to bring them home.
February 1945.
A squadron of Avenger bombers is on a training mission
near California's, Channel islands.
When suddenly two of the planes collide.
And crash into the pacific.
One of those planes is never found.
It's three man crew,
pilot Dennis Ruehle and crewman Russell Guzzetta and Ernest Williams,
vanished never to be seen again.
Now in the race against time and the elements,
a group of scientists and archaeologists
called Project Recover
is using the latest deep sea tech to reconstruct the accident
and mount a search to find the lost avenger in the depths of the Pacific.
My mission is to join them
and uncover what happened on that fateful day
and to hunt for the final resting place of three servicemen
who have waited three quarters of a century
to be brought home.
My name is Josh Gates.
Hello!
Explorer. Adventurer.
This is sick! [screams]
And a guy who ends up in some very strange situations.
[bleep] That was exciting!
With a degree in archeology and a passion for the unexplained.
[cheers]
I travel to the ends of the earth investigating the greatest legends in history.
Okay, let's punch it.
This is Expedition Unknown.
[waves splashing]
[seagull squawks]
I'm driving in an authentic Willys Jeep.
This iconic four wheel drive vehicle
replaced the Military's literal work horses.
The draft animals that were used during World War I.
And it was so popular
That Willys manufactured more than 350,000 of these
during World War II.
I am headed towards La Jolla, California
to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography
and the beginning of an expedition in search of a lost World War II era plane.
And a mystery, 75 years in the making.
Founded in 1903,
Scripps is one of the oldest and most important earth science centers on the planet.
I'm here to meet Scripps lab director and Project Recover co-founder
Dr. Eric Terrill.
- Hey, Josh. Thanks for coming. - Hey, nice to meet you, man.
This place is stunning.
Scripps is a global institution looking at sea level rise.
We are studying ocean waves, the forecasting of the ocean.
- So if it has to do with the ocean, Scripps is on it. - We're on it.
And I take it these are some of the tools of the trade here?
[Eric] Yes, AUV's. Autonomous Underwater Vehicle.
We can go out and sample a 1000 football fields in one deployment.
Wow.
This is revolutionizing what we do here at Scripps.
Things we never dreamed off a decade ago, we're doing now.
[Josh] These sonar quipped torpedo bots
are transforming deep sea exploration.
Allowing scientists to map earth's final frontier, the ocean.
I got to see them in action while searching for Gertrude Tompkins.
Another missing World War II pilot
whose story inspired me to seek out more of our nation's lost heroes.
And among the many missions that you're associated with
is this thing called Project Recover.
[Eric] Yes.
We've conducted over 50 missions in 20 different countries.
Looking explicitly for missing in action associated with past conflicts.
Incredible.
[Josh] Project Recover scours the globe for American M.I.A's with one objective.
To bring them home.
Their efforts have led to the discovery of more than 30 World War II wrecks,
associated with more than a 100 missing servicemen
who made the ultimate sacrifice.
More than a dozen of these individuals have been repatriated.
Giving long awaited closure to their families.
[Eric] So, Josh. Why don't we go upstairs and I'll show
you the next mission we're getting ready for.
- I would love to. Come on. - Let's do this.
[Josh] Eric leads me to the aptly named "Vis Room."
Welcome to our operation center.
- I mean, this is like mission control. - It is.
You launched a space shuttle from in here.
- We can at least track it. - Right. There you go.
This is unbelievable. So, when we talk about American M.I.A's,
how many are still out there?
Josh, the numbers are staggering.
83,000 missing in action since World War II up to their present.
83,000?
For instance, let's take a look at this map here, Josh.
We've got maps of cases just in the European, Mediterranean theatre.
Each one of these dots represents a case file.
So these are all potential missions?
Yes.
And some of them aren't even on the Defense Department radar.
US doesn't recognize people who got lost during training accidents.
- They're not counted as M.I.A. - They're not counted as M.I.A.
So if you were in a training accident,
you're not listed as missing in action
even though your body was never found and brought home to your family.
And how many people are we talking about?
We have about 18,000 individuals that were lost in training accidents.
Really?
And does that also mean that, nobody's looking for those people?
It's currently not on the search list for US government.
And in fact a lot of these cases are in our own backyard.
So as we spin the globe here, we're gonna bring you into Southern California.
Yellow dots here represent training accidents that
our team's been able to uncover for the last year.
[Josh] Project Recover's next mission and one of its most mysterious is here
off of California's, Anacapa Island.
These two targets here represent a mid-air collision between two torpedo bombers.
[Josh] On the morning of February 22nd 1945.
A squadron of Avengers took off from the naval air station in Oxnard, California.
Each plane had a 3 man crew on board.
Flying over Anacapa Island.
They were practicing torpedo runs critical to the war effort,
when two of the planes collided.
[explosion]
According to the report by the commanding officer,
Dennis P. Ruehle's plane, ducked suddenly
and then flew right up into the aircraft of Pilot John Buckley.
Ruehle's plane went down south of the island
and Buckley's plane crashed to the North,
where he and another crew member survived.
That wreckage has now been located.
Second plane on the southern side of the island.
It's never been found.
[Eric] Josh, this is a search for three individuals.
We've got the pilot Dennis Ruehle.
We've got the bomber Ernest Williams.
We've got the radioman Russ Guzetta.
All three have been missing from their families for over 70 years.
[Josh] Dennis Ruehle's family received the following message
from the commander of his unit.
"I realize how weak and fruitless must be"
"any words of mine which should attempt to comfort you."
"Exhaustive searches were initiated,"
"but no report of his recovery was made."
A month after the accident,
Russell Guzzetta's bereaved parents contacted their local paper.
Noting that no details of the crash were released.
A desperate appeal for more information
on the fate of their missing son.
Now, 75 years later,
Project Recover hopes to answer that plea.
If they collided in midair, one would think,
it must be close to the plane that's been recovered, right?
You would think. Big airplane, bigger ocean.
Look how long it took to find the Titanic,
we still haven't found Malaysian Air.
And to be honest, nobody's been really charged with that mission
to go after these training losses.
So the question is, how do you find it?
So the way we're gonna find this
is using not only all that high tech equipment that I showed you downstairs,
but we really gotta do due diligence
on all the historical documents
to really set up our search areas.
- To understand the crash itself? - Exactly.
Before we're gonna undertake our mission,
we have to really understand in all detail
their mission on that fateful day.
In order to solve the mystery of the missing Avenger,
I need to get in front of one and decipher the accident itself.
Luckily, there happens to be an Avenger
just 20 minutes down the coast on the deck of the USS Midway.
Commissioned in 1945,
this thousand foot long airport on the ocean
served until 1992, offering critical support
during the Vietnam War,
and as the flagship in Operation Desert Storm.
Now, like a lot of 76-year-olds,
she's retired to sunny San Diego.
I head down the flight deck to meet historian and naval veteran
Karl Zingheim.
- Karl. - Hey, Josh!
- How are you, man? - Welcome aboard.
Hey, thank you. Happy to be here. And look at this.
The Avenger.
You know, my first reaction to being up close to it,
is how big it is.
I think the photos don't really do it justice.
This is the largest single engine aircraft
to routinely operate in World War II
at squadron strength.
Why so big?
You needed a big engine to do a big job,
and, quite literally,
they start with a large R-2600 engine
- and build the rest of the airplane around it. - Right.
And that big job, I assume, is dropping these.
That's a two thousand pound torpedo,
a delicate instrument in its own right.
And this is live, right? This is left over?
It better not be.
So, okay, I get it, you need a lot of power
and it looks like a pretty big wingspan to pull that off.
How important was this plane to the US in World War II?
Critically important.
This was a huge step up for naval aviation at the time
because now you finally had a torpedo plane
that could keep up with the other aircrafts
so you could have a combined strike.
Previous torpedo plane was just too slow, and you had disjointed attacks.
With the top speed of about 275 miles per hour,
the powerful Avenger lived up to its name, raining fire and fury
on Japan's Navy.
They sank the super battleships Yamato and Musashi,
as well as 30 submarines to help win the war in the Pacific.
But the torpedo bomber's innovative feature
was its signature stow wing.
- How cool is that? - Awesome, isn't it?
-Oh, my word. That is so badass. -Look at that.
Probably one of the cleverest ways
of putting an aircraft away on a carrier deck.
For deployment on aircraft carriers, including this one,
it cuts the plane's 54 foot wingspan in half when they move it below deck.
Let's talk about this incident out at Anacapa, right?
I'm trying to understand this, we know there was a midair collision out there,
do you suspect that that might be because of how the aircraft flies
or because of what they were trying to do with it?
It's a very forgiving aircraft to fly.
- Okay. - It's got such a large wing area,
you don't have much to worry about
in terms of instability or losing control of the aircraft.
It probably was down to what they were attempting to practice.
Right.
Dropping a torpedo under combat conditions is the most demanding attack
in all of naval aviation.
Even in a big stable bomber like the Avenger,
delivering a torpedo on target took some serious skill.
The torpedo is still the most potent single weapon of destruction
against enemy shipping,
but only if used properly.
And according to reports from the Anacapa island crash,
pilots Ruehle and Buckley were perfecting a complicated new attack
called an Anvil maneuver.
Squadrons of bombers would approach a ship on both sides,
so that whichever way the ship turned, it faced a torpedo strike.
So the planes are flying kind of toward each other?
Essentially.
It does seem like understanding that maneuver
is the key to figuring out both the collision and where these planes crashed.
We could speculate all day about what happened.
But to really understand it,
you have to fly in one.
Which, I assume, is impossible.
I don't think this thing's lifting off the deck any time soon.
How many of these are even left?
Maybe a handful.
But one of those is nearby.
- It flies? - It flies.
What's it like to be a new pilot flying an 80-year-old Avenger?
I'm about to find out.
I meet pilot John Maloney on the wing,
as he makes final preparations for takeoff.
- How are you doing? - Good. How are you doing?
- I'm Josh. - John, how do you do.
Great to meet you. You wanna fly or am I flying?
- No, it's gonna be me. - You know what, probably best if you fly, John.
- I'll be back here, yeah? - Yeah.
Like a glove.
I squeeze into the navigator's seat,
thankful that I'm not in the even more claustrophobic
tail gunner position.
Look at this!
Let's rock and roll.
This historic aircraft is about to fly its first mission in decades.
Our directive, to reconstruct the accident, to learn how it happened,
and solve the mystery of where the lost Avenger lies.
Unbelievable! This is sick!
In 1945, two Avenger torpedo bombers
collided off the coast of California's Anacapa island.
One of them and its three man crew is still missing.
Now I'm flying in an identical plane to investigate
the crash and find the lost Avenger.
This thing gets up in the air fast.
Unbelievable!
Packing a whopping 1800 horsepower,
the Avenger's right R-2600 twin Cyclone engine
has us cruising above the clouds in no time.
If there's a better view than this, I haven't seen it.
Amazing!
This is sick!
It really does feel stable,
I mean, it's just an absolutely smooth ride up here in this thing.
It's like riding in a Cadillac up here, I mean, it's smooth.
Affectionately nicknamed "The Turkey",
the Avenger was built like a truck, and she handles like one.
And I'm flying an Avenger.
You can't see it, John, but I'm grinning from ear to ear.
Somebody pinch me. I am actually piloting an airplane from World War II.
And John wasn't kidding about the heavy stick.
This bird could use some power steering.
Unbelievable! What a thrill!
Okay, she's all yours.
That's something that is really interesting, right?
Because, I guess, every design advantage is also a disadvantage.
And one of the disadvantages of these big beautiful wings
is they really hurt your sight lines underneath you.
It's easy to see how the plane's design
may have contributed to the accident.
We know from declassified reports
that a squadron of pilots
were practicing a newly devised attack
called The Anvil Torpedo maneuver.
Suddenly one of the planes being flown by Dennis Ruehle
did something unexpected.
We know that Ruehle's plane,
the Avenger that's lost, dipped out of the formation.
I was thinking the same thing.
Maybe he was already struggling with some sort of problem
with the plane and that's why he dipped down.
Whatever the cause,
the aircraft suddenly disappeared from the view of the nearest plane,
flown by John Buckley.
So when Ruehle's plane dipped out of formation,
Buckley would have had almost no ability to see where he was underneath him.
Then Ruehle pulls back up,
smashing his plane into Buckley's tail section.
He collides with Buckley's plane, that's what causes the accident.
It's strange that he would have done that,
because he must have had a clear view
coming up on Buckley's tail.
How bad would the damage had to have been to the tail section
to just take this thing out completely?
Unable to recover, both Avengers crash into the Pacific.
Buckley manages to escape,
but Dennis Ruehle and his crew
Ernest Williams and Russel Goosetta disappear.
Never to be seen again.
I really have a whole different view
on this accident,
now that I'm up here.
We're searching for a lost Avenger,
but we're also searching for these three individuals.
To sit where they sat,
in what is effectively an identical aircraft,
it really brings it home.
I now have a better sense
of how the accident happened.
After all, finding a wingman suddenly lost below you
is nearly impossible.
As for what happened inside Rules' cockpit,
that I'm less certain of.
To dive deeper into this cold case,
I get back on the road
and drive 200 miles north up the Pacific coast.
From San Diego to Ventura, California.
There, I take a ferry to Anacapa Island
and paddle-out to the scene of the accident.
Welcome to the Channel Islands.
These eight lonely spits-of-land
are perched just off the coast
of Southern California.
They're absolutely stunning.
But this can also be a place of wild oceans
and terrible storms,
which is why these islands are home
to more than 300 reported shipwrecks,
and airplane crashes.
I'm out here to meet Project Recover historian
Colin Colbourn, who's asked me to meet him
up there at the old lighthouse.
Now all I need to do, is figure out how to get up there.
There's probably an elevator out here. Right?
Surrounded on all sides by 200-foot cliffs,
the only way on or off the island
is a steep and seemingly endless staircase.
You got this. You got this.
[panting] Okay.
[exhaling] Okay, where's the lighthouse?
[squawking birds] Ahh! Come on!
Aside from tens of thousands of birds and a lonely ranger station,
no permanent residents have called Anacapa home
since the lighthouse was automated in 1966.
Project Recover historian Colin Colbourn has asked me to meet him here
to reveal new intel that could make or break our search.
- Hey Josh, how's it going? - Good to see you.
- Good to see you, as well. - You're a hard man to find.
I know. I dragged you all the way up here to Anacapa Island
because this is where the accident actually happened.
- Right here, in this air space? - Absolutely.
And I'm guessing that Anacapa today probably looks a lot like it looked in '45.
It absolutely does.
Most of these structures are exactly the same,
including this lighthouse up here,
which was the Coast Guard lookout station.
Having had a chance now to fly in one of these planes,
I have a sense of the way they were maneuvering up there.
You're the historian, though.
How does history help us unlock this case?
I've made a pretty big break.
Were able to actually locate the accident report.
This is it, right here.
So where was this?
- These are actually held at the National Archives. - Wow!
So the report actually reveals what happened to the two aircraft in the collision...
from Ensign Buckley.
- His own statement? - That's right.
You don't get more eye-witness
than a statement from the guy that was hit by the missing plane.
Absolutely.
Buckley's statement confirms the second-hand accounts of the crash.
Ruehle's propeller hit the tail of his plane,
critically damaging both aircraft.
But there's an even bigger revelation in the accident report.
There were eye-witnesses.
Coast Guard officers on duty in the lighthouse
watched as the stricken Avengers collided
and went down on either side of the island.
[suspenseful music playing]
The other incredible thing that we get from this accident report
are the actual compass bearings and distances off shore
where these Avengers crashed
from the perspective of the Coast Guard in the lighthouse.
- That's huge. - It's absolutely huge.
Ensign Buckley's plane crashed 300 degrees from the lighthouse,
about 100 yards offshore.
- And so where is that? - So that's actually right out that way.
- Right that way? - Yes.
[bells ringing] Okay, so Buckley's plane goes down over there.
That's a known wreck somewhere out there.
[dramatic music playing] But when it comes to the lost Avenger,
the accident report says, "Ensign Ruehle's plane did not recover in any manner
and made a glide straight into the water about 400 yards,
bearing 170 degrees true from Anacapa Island Lighthouse.
- That's actually right out that way. - That way.
[dramatic music playing] This is kind of a smoking gun.
If this is accurate, then 400 yards out, on that bearing,
there should be a lost World War II plane.
Right out there, 400 yards offshore.
[dramatic music playing]
I'm searching for an Avenger Torpedo Bomber
that collided with its wingman
and disappeared off of Anacapa Island.
[exciting music playing] Historian Colin Colbourn just made a huge break in the case,
unearthing an eye-witness account of where the lost Avenger went down.
[dramatic music playing] This is kind of a smoking gun.
If this is accurate, then 400 yards out, on that bearing,
there should be a lost World War II plane.
Right out there, 400 yards offshore.
[symphonic final note]
So...
Where does that leave us?
Well, from here we can actually test accuracy of these eye-witness reports.
And we can do that because we know where Buckley's plane is.
- Right. We have a baseline sitting out there. - Absolutely.
[dramatic music playing]
Diving the known wreck may help us solve the mystery of the lost Avenger.
Does the distance from shore and bearing off the lighthouse match the Coast Guard account.
And is the damage to the tail of the plane
consistent with Buckley's description of the collision
[dramatic music playing]
Okay, so we start with the known wreck,
and then take that data...
- and hopefully find the lost wreck. - That's the hope.
All right.
And to help with that,
Project Recover has arranged a vessel to take you out there.
- Bigger than my kayak? - Slightly bigger than your kayak.
[dramatic music playing]
[Josh] Colin wasn't kidding.
Project Recover is working off of the research vessel Shearwater.
[exciting music] This 62-foot catamaran
was custom-built by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration
to conduct mapping and research in the Channel Islands.
We motor out to the coordinates of the known Avenger wreck,
where I link back up with Project Recover co-founder Eric Terrill
and his team on the top deck.
[music rising and stopping]
Hey Josh, let me introduce you to Heidi,
- Hey! - Our lead analyst
- Nice to meet you. Pleasure. - Nice to meet you.
- Andrew, our lead archaeologist. - Nice to meet you, as well.
So, okay, directly underneath us should be an Avenger.
That's correct.
[adventurous music playing]
Accidentally discovered by divers,
the location of the wreck was officially catalogued by the National Park Service,
in 1996.
Let's start by talking about where we are.
You've got Anacapa Island right here.
And there's our lighthouse. [birds chirping]
So the report puts the wreck at 300 degree bearing.
You can kinda take a look at where we are right here.
We see that the bearing lines up almost perfectly
to what the historical report is telling us.
And the distance from the lighthouse?
The distance in the record says 100 yards.
Now, I'm no expert,
but we are way more than 100 yards from that lighthouse.
- That's more. - Way more.
[cymbals resonating] We're sitting at about 1,800 yards from the lighthouse.
- Okay. So it's off by a factor of 18. - Yes.
- So that's hugely inaccurate. - Big time.
This is really common,
fog of war, chaos... The angles are often very accurate...
distances are generally horribly wrong.
So, what does this data tell us about the lost Avenger
on the other side of this island?
He's probably gonna be on...
an accurate bearing on that side,
but we probably want to think about moving a greater distance from shore
than the one the historical record's telling us.
Right. Because that distance may be just as inaccurate
- over there. - Exactly.
So, in terms of the known wreck underneath us, what's the plan?
[wind blowing] Well, we'd love to get some imagery.
And if we can get a lot of very high-resolution photographs
that overlap in all directions,
then we can use photogrammetry,
which is a technique which will allow us to align those photos
and give us a 3D representation,
- a model of what the wreck looks like today. - Got it.
So, get lots of photos of the wreck, use that to build a 3D model.
Exactly. And that information will allow us to be able to understand if the crash site
really is consistent with the wreck reports.
So, Heidi, you're diving down, or...
-The water's a little cold. I think it's your turn. -Yup.
We've only just met, Heidi,
but you're really catching on to how this always goes for me.
[cymbals echoing]
[exciting music playing]
I gear up... and dive in.
[water splashing]
[water bubbles sounding]
[ominous music] [SCUBA breathing]
The frigid water bites through my thick wetsuit.
But the real danger of this dive is depth.
The plane rests at nearly 120 feet,
which means I only have a limited amount of bottom time
before I have to surface to avoid Decompression Sickness.
I've got to make every second count.
[adventurous music playing]
Josh, do you copy?
Yes, I copy and I am following the anchor line down.
How's the vis? How's the water temp?
Water's freezing. Visibility's not great, maybe 10 or 15 feet tops.
Not able to see the bottom at this point.
Keep heading down the anchor line.
We're really close to the wreck. You should see it right away.
[exciting music] Topside, this is Josh.
I am approaching the bottom.
No sign of the wreck.
Josh, we're about 10 yards from the wreck, uh, to the west.
Just keep coming in that direction and you should find it.
Copy that. I'll leave the anchor line and head over that way,
Stand by. [exciting music playing]
Besides a lone crab, who is definitely not happy to see me,
this place is a desert.
Did we anchor too far off the target?
The clock is ticking.
I have to find this plane.
I got it. I see the wreck.
[exciting music playing]
[Josh speaking]
[Eric speaking]
[Josh speaking]
All right. Good copy. Go ahead and take your photographs,
we've got limited time at the bottom.
[Josh] The thousands of photographs I take will be digitally stitched together.
To create a 3-D model for detailed, forensic study, topside.
[Josh speaking]
Not surprising given it's a lot of aluminum
and just natural degradation down there.
[Josh speaking]
[Heidi speaking]
[Josh speaking]
Copy that. Be sure to focus on the tail section if you can, that's where it was hit.
[Josh speaking]
[Josh] As I move in close,
I'm struck that this is more than just a wreck.
It's a memorial.
The pilot and radio man survived the crash.
But tail gunner Lawrence Works didn't make it.
The round impression of the rear of the cockpit
is all that's left of the turret where he sat.
[Josh speaking]
Copy that.
[Josh] After a brief decompression stop on the anchor line.
I make my way to the surface.
Hey, Josh. How'd the dive go?
[Josh] Oh, man.
Spectacular.
All these talk about these two Avengers,
where they were, the men that were in them.
To go down there and see one of them...
Takes the whole thing from story to a piece of history, really.
No, I get it, Josh.
Seeing those wrecks in person just really connects you into the site.
Really powerful to see it down there.
Great, let's get you on board and let's start data processing.
[Josh] While I dry off, Heidi begins rendering the photos of Buckley's Avenger.
A few hours later, we head inside the cabin to take a look.
Okay. Heidi. What have we got?
Well you collected a whole bunch of data and they look amazing.
We got good data?
-We did. It looks really good. You wanna see it? -Yes. I'm dying to see it.
[Josh] Okay, here we go.
After nearly eight decades of silence,
the known wreck has a knew story to tell.
Revealing clues that could lead us to the lost Avenger.
- [Eric] Oh, this is incredible. - Look at that!
[Josh] I've joined forces with Project Recover.
To hunt for a World War II Avenger Torpedo Bomber.
[Josh speaking]
After photographing the known wreck of the plane it crashed into.
A forensic 3-D model has been constructed that might lead us to the missing plane.
We got good data?
-We did. It looks really good. You wanna see it? -Yes. I'm dying to see it.
[Josh] That is amazing!
Look how much detail we have here.
Like CSI World War II,
this model allows Eric to reconstruct a play by play of the moment of impact.
[Eric] Now take a look at the wing and we can see the damage where it hit the water.
It's lost some of the aluminum skin along here,
that might have been torn away during the accident.
Probably cartwheeled in, probably hit...
- port wing. - [Josh] Right.
[Eric] And the plane's right side up.
If you look at the action report, it calls out how
it was an immediate water landing
- and then called a water crash. - That's right.
[Josh] And that's not the only new intel we gather
that will aid our search for the lost avenger.
The one thing that jumped out at me when I was down there is
the tail section which is in a much worse shape.
It's just almost completely gone.
Because Ruehle's plane came up and his propellor
- actually connected with that horizontal stabilizer. - Yep.
[Josh] So that might have been destroyed in flight even.
If the tail section of the known wreck was shredded in flight,
one can only imagine the damage done to the
propellor and canopy of the plane that hit it.
There's a good chance that Pilot Dennis Ruehle was killed instantly.
It's amazing to see this because it won't really be around forever.
You know, I mean the actual wreck is eventually gonna be consumed by the ocean.
Sure, I mean, we're seeing that hue, and it's very rapidly degrading now.
If you look around the site, you see how the sediment
has a really different texture to it.
That's because lot of these sites have become artificial reefs.
Life has sort of taken hold in this area. I call it the Halo effect.
So let's talk about how this helps us moving forward looking for the lost Avenger.
[Andrew] Look how flat this is to the sea floor,
it's not very proud, so we need to keep that in mind when
we're looking for different sonar targets.
- Right, it's not really raised up. - Yeah.
It's got a really, really--
[Eric] It's low elevation, it might be maybe at most three feet off the sea bed.
So that's gonna tell us on the acoustic data
how big of a shadow it might be throwing down on the sea floor when we're
trying to discriminate rocks other debris from the airplane crash.
[Josh] The lost Avenger which sustained heavy damage
maybe in far worse shape.
If all that's left is scattered debris
the wreckage will blend in with the natural rock formations
making it nearly impossible to find.
- Now we've got another one to find. - Yeah. Absolutely.
[Josh] Armed with intel from the known wreck.
We reposition the Shearwater on the southside of Anacapa Island.
The coast guard eye witnesses
stated that the lost Avenger made a glide straight into the water
at a bearing of 170 degrees
and crashed roughly 400 yards from the lighthouse.
This will be the center of our search grid.
- Time to scan. - Yep.
We're now on the opposite side of the island.
And we're roughly on that 170 degree bearing.
We're about that bearing right now, so we really need to set up
a scan area to look at that whole region
- Okay. - South of the lighthouse.
So we got a lot of ocean to cover here.
So the way to do that is we use the underwater robots.
These are AUV's. Autonomous Underwater Vehicle.
Our scans today, they're gonna be a four hour mission each.
So if we get them all in the water, four hours later
they come back with data and hopefully--
Hopefully our target's in there.
- Hopefully we've got a plane. - Yes.
Okay. Let's do it.
[Josh] Eric and I break out the big guns
or more accurately torpedoes.
- [Eric] Lower down. - [Josh] Okay.
[Josh] In the water.
We gingerly lower Enzo and Magnum into the drink.
Followed by Scout.
Scout cost roughly half a million dollars to build.
Godspeed!
But according to her track record, she's worth every penny.
Scout holds a record for the most number of aircraft found.
- Which is how many? - Eight.
Wow. Okay. Hopefully today nine.
- I've sided him up. - All right, it's up to you Scout.
[Josh] The distance in the accident report for the known wreck was widely inaccurate.
So Eric's team has programmed the sonar equipped drones to cast a wide net.
The AUV's will run four mile long tracks on the southside of the island
and scan more than two miles offshore.
Covering eight and a half square miles of ocean on this mission.
Diving a search zone this size would take months.
But the robots can do it in a day.
Depth rated up to 2,000 feet and fully automated to avoid obstacles.
The bots glide through the water blasting out sonar pings to map the bottom.
Meanwhile we hunker down for the hardest part of this hunt, waiting.
[serene music playing]
[Josh] Four tedious hours later.
We pull the AUV's back on deck
and gather at Heidi's monitor to review the data.
So, okay. How'd we do?
[Eric] We can see the lands here as the vehicles mow the lawn
and those vertical stripes are the vehicles driving back and forth underwater.
Okay. So, what's in the data?
- There's a couple of very interesting targets. Yes. - Really? Okay.
What do we got?
So here's one of the particular targets that's very high interest to us.
You see very sharp sonar returns,
very sharp angles return to the geometry of the target.
[Josh] Yeah, I mean it's particularly interesting
because if its sitting by itself
in an otherwise barren place, right?
- [Heidi] Yeah. - That's definitely something to check out.
[Josh] We put a pin in our first target and run through more promising hits.
I mean that looks a little more rock like, don't you think?
[Andrew] Yeah, it does.
But it's still sitting by itself out on an open plane,
it's got some relief to it.
[Eric] This certainly wouldn't be an entire aircraft.
But if this airplane broke up, inflight this could be some portion of aviation debris.
[Josh] Okay. Sure. Yeah.
I mean anything that's out there, that's isolated like
this feels like it's worth looking at, right?
[Josh] Nothing screams, "I'm an airplane"
with unmistakable features like wings or a tail.
But to the trained eye, these sonar targets tell a story.
[Heidi] We can see this really bright returns that looks almost white on the screen,
that usually indicates, a certain kind of rock or metal.
You got a nice, long linear feature that could be something like the fuselage.
You have two smaller things just to the south of that.
Maybe that's something like the engine that just--
That came apart off of the fuselage.
- [Gates] Mm-hmm. - And we see fish around it.
- So, which means it's been colonized by marine life. - [Gates] That's a good sign.
Well, it reminds me of the existing wreck in that it's sort of low profile.
- Yeah. - [Gates] There's not a lot showing.
- Not a big shadow. - Lot of scatter there,
[Gates] so it could be a debris field.
I mean, that's huge.
I think it's definitely worth taking a look.
How deep are these targets?
So, these targets range anywhere from 180 feet to about 220 feet.
Okay, so too deep for us to dive.
- We're gonna have to send the ROV down. - [Gates] Sure.
Okay. Let's send a robot.
[dramatic music playing]
[Gates] Back on deck, Eric and I ready a remote underwater vehicle
to take a closer look at the first target.
Eric, I can't help but notice if this ROV is named Barry.
Yeah, one of our favorite singers is Barry Manilow.
So, in honor of Barry, we've, uh, named our robot.
[comical music playing]
[Gates] Why is it really named Barry?
You know, we wanted, like, a really, like, kick-ass name. Barracuda...
[Gates] Yeah, I could see that.
Barry kind of was...
- Oh, Barry-cuda. - Short for barracuda.
How about, uh... ya know, I don't wanna tell your business,
but how about just barracuda?
- Well... - Which is a way cooler name than Barry.
To be honest, I've lost all control of, uh, naming of these robots.
- [Gates] Somebody else did this. Okay, fair enough. - Yes.
Is Barry ready to go?
I think Barry's ready to go.
[exciting music playing]
[Gates] To make sure Barry's voyage into the depths
is as smooth as his crooner namesake,
we rig a drop-weight to a cable.
Winch down.
[intense music playing]
[Gates] This will help the ROV hold position against the currents on the bottom.
Okay, weight's in the water.
[Gates] Barry follows.
All right. Lower your sound.
Hey, our ROV is in.
[Gates] And we carefully lower the ROV tether
and weighted cable, securing the lines together as we go.
- Here you go. - Okay.
What's your depth, Bob?
- 90. - You said 90?
- Does he have bottom lock? - Yes.
- He's on the bottom? - [Gates] Yeah.
Let's go see with tether.
[Gates] Once again, we gather around the monitor
as ROV pilot Bob Hess closes in on the target nearly 200 ft below us.
- I see something right there. - Yeah.
[Bob] Yeah, let's go towards that.
[Gates] A large man made object looms into view.
Is this the lost avenger?
Something there.
[Bob] It's 10 meters in front of us, whatever it is.
We got something, we got structure.
Yeah. What are you?
Look at that.
[Gates] At the USS Midway aircraft carrier in San Diego,
I got a chance to kick the tires and light the fires.
Mustang, this is Maverick.
I gotta bogey on my tail.
I can't shake him.
Goose, I can't shake him.
Woah, we're caught in the jet wash!
Ah, Goose, I'm losing control.
I'm losing control.
Ah! Ah!
Sir, I apologize. But the museum is closing.
Sorry, Goose. It's time to buzz the tower.
Sir, that's a mannequin.
- Talk to me, Goose. - Sir?
[screaming and crying]
Goose, no!
[Gates] We're searching for a missing Avenger and its three man crew
lost in the waters off of Anacapa Island
during a World War 2 training mission.
We've sent an ROV named Barry
200 feet beneath the waves
to lay eyes on a promising SONAR target.
We got something, we got structure.
Yeah.
What are you?
[speaking]
Look at that!
[Gates] With the lights cranked up, we can see our target
in stunning detail.
It's a boat.
[Gates] It is not an airplane,
but that looks like a shipwreck.
Okay, so what are we looking at here?
It's fiber glass, yeah?
- Yeah? - Okay.
10 meters in length.
[Gates] And so what do you think?
Not new new, it's got a lot of growth on it,
- lot of corrosion. - How long do you think that's been down there?
Uh, I'd say probably about 20 or 30 years.
[Gates] An old fishing boat? Yeah?
- Is that the engine? - Yeah.
That might have been a window,
might have been like a forward cabin that's collapsed in.
- Is there a writing on there? - There is.
See, it's upside down.
That's awesome, guys. We have a $30,00030 megapixels stills camera
and you just play with your cell phone.
- J-e-f-f-r-i-e-s. - Jeffries.
The great sailing vessel Jeffries.
Well, it's being looked at by Barry the ROV.
That's true. Fair.
- So don't be hard on Jeffries. - [all laughing]
[Gates] It turns out, Jeffries boat company
built custom sport fishers.
And if you're interested in a gently used model,
I've got one for you just off of Anacapa Island.
One target down, a half a dozen more to go.
We pull up the ROV,
motor to our second site,
release Barry back into the briny depths...
Okay, ROV is in.
...and glue our faces to the monitor
as we approach the next object of interest.
Oh, oh. Something there.
- What is it? - Something coming out of the darkness there.
All right, looks like the target is to the left here.
- Well, there it is. - [Gates] Yeah.
Finally, we home in on something man made.
- It's long, whatever it is. - Yeah.
That could be a fuselage.
[Gates] It's hard to tell because it does look like whatever's here
just encrusted and buried, but you would expect to see some debris
- that jumps out. - Typically, especially with the aluminum on the aircraft.
They don't have a full encrustation like this.
God, you think there should be one thing poking through somewhere.
To give you a hint as to what it is.
If this was a fuselage, it's like, where are the wings, where's...
I mean, it feels like there could be more of a debris field around it.
- Agreed. - Is that just rope?
[Gates] If that's rope, that's probably not a good sign.
Agreed.
I think this is a ghost net sunken area.
And we're seeing structure to it as it's all just clumped up
in the bottom, you think?
I don't think this is our airplane, guys.
I don't either. I'd just love to see one piece of manmade something
other than that piece of line down there, you know?
- Do we want to move on to the next target? - Yeah.
All right, It's do this.
[Gates] We repeat the same process all afternoon.
All right, let's go to target four.
[Gates] Reposition boat. ROV is going in.
Drop ROV and anxiously watch the monitor.
- Should be comin' up on it. - Oh, there's some fish on it.
[Gates] But ultimately, the results are the same.
If the avenger broke up on impact,
finding bits of debris in these rocks is like finding
a needle in a haystack.
To rule out every possibility,
we even run the AUVs on the north side of the Island,
near the known avenger wreck site.
All told, we scan more than eight sq. miles of ocean,
investigating targets everywhere we go.
- It's a lot like rocks. - Very similar to the other rock.
Yup.
[Gates] But the lost plane remains a phantom.
Exhausted and frustrated,
e have run out of places to look.
All right, we've scanned the south and we've scanned the north.
No sign of an avenger.
- This is the way it goes sometimes. - Yeah.
You exhaust all your options,
you do a thorough job and you still don't turn up the target you're looking for.
We have one example where, after a large
survey, much just like what we've done here,
a year later we found some anomalies in the data
- and ended up finding an aircraft in it. - [Gates] Really?
Missing aircraft could actually be in our data set right now,
and we just haven't exhausted it.
- We never give up. - Right.
We're gonna keep going back, we're gonna keep looking
at the data,
and if we have to come back with more vehicles
and different technology, then that's what we'll do.
It's easy to think about these as airplanes,
- but this is really a story about people. - Yeah.
And there are three guys that are somewhere
out off of this island waiting to be brought home.
Guys, it's been an absolute pleasure, really has.
Thank you so much for letting us come out here and see what you do.
It's a ton of work and it's really important work, though, so...
- I appreciate it. - Yeah.
Unfinished business, we gotta keep at it.
Absolutely.
[Gates] Dennis Rule, Ernest Williams and Russel Gusetta
are still missing. But they are no longer forgotten.
In depth research and cutting edge forensics
revealed the details of what happened that fateful day
in1945.
And with Project Recover working the case,
the lost avenger may take flight again soon.
But this story is bigger than the crew of just one plane.
It is estimated that more than 18000 souls
were lost in training accidents during World War 2.
Because they never saw combat, they are not officially considered MIAs.
And an effort to find them is long overdue.
It is my hope that more searches will be carried out
So that the soldiers who gave their lives for this country
will no longer be left behind.