Crews to prepare recovery site for WWII plane

Sign On San Diego: Crews to prepare recovery site for WWII plane

SAN DIEGO — City of San Diego ranger-divers on Tuesday will begin preparing the recovery site to lift a vintage World War II fighter plane that has been at the bottom of Lower Otay Lake since it crashed there in 1945.

Capt. Bob Rasmussen, director of the Florida-based National Naval Aviation Museum, said he should have an exact date for the recovery operation by the end of the week.

“We’re going to give it a shot, and we’re looking at the middle of August right now,” Rasmussen said.

That news set off a chain reaction in San Diego, where the city, which owns the reservoir and water, will prepare a triangular boom that will be used to collect any fuel, oil or other toxins that may leak from the plane when it’s being recovered. A&T Recovery, based in Chicago, will conduct the complex operation of cleaning debris from inside and around the plane. Divers and engineers will then work off a plan drawn up by Taras Lyssenko and his engineers from A&T Recovery.

“The first thing we have to do is pull all the mud back and from inside the plane and around it,” Lyssenko said. “We have to see what the structure and integrity of the plane is like before we attempt to lift it. We have to see if there is any fuel or toxins there.”

Lyssenko said the salvage could be done in stages. For instance, if the engine is off the plane or not secure, it may come up separately. If it can be secured, then divers will do that and raise it with the plane.

“We won’t know anything until we pull the mud back,” he said. “We need to make sure everything on the plane is attached and secure. It’s not a simple thing.”

Nelson Manville, assistant city lakes manager in charge of the ranger-diver team, said that on Tuesday his divers will set three large anchors that will hold a triangular boom on buoys in place for the recovery operation.

“These are the standard anchors we place off our docks to hold them in place,” Manville said. “They are 55-gallon drums, filled with concrete, and have a large piece of pipe in them.”

Manville said two of the anchors will be set near the plane and one will be placed closer to shore to form a triangular boom to catch potential toxins. Manville said the boom itself absorbs oil, fuel and toxins, and there is a giant pad available that will serve as a backup absorbent.

It’s been nearly a year and a half since two bass fishermen, Duane Johnson and Curtis Howard, discovered the SB2C-4 Helldiver on their Humminbird Fish Finder in 85 feet of water southwest of the boat dock at Lower Otay Lake.

The plane had sat unnoticed and undisturbed since May 28, 1945. On that date, pilot E.D. Frazar was forced to ditch in the lake when the big plane’s engine failed. Frazar and his passenger, Army gunner Joseph Metz of Ohio, survived the water landing and swam a couple hundred yards to shore.

When Johnson and Howard found the plane, they alerted Bryan Norris, reservoir keeper at Otay, who then summoned Manville and his ranger-diver crew. Divers Mark Miller and Kevin Kidd-Tackaberry made the initial dive, but when they saw the Navy’s insignia on the plane, they alerted military officials. Soon, the National Naval Aviation Museum was brought in, and it hired A&T Recovery to dive and see whether the historic plane could be recovered. There are fewer than five of the Helldivers left from the estimated 7,000 that were made during World War II. The Navy doesn’t have one in its collection and covets this plane.