Aviation: Found: the Lost Dirigible

On Feb. 12, 1935, a sudden squall lashed into the U.S. Navy dirigible Macon as it plied the skies off Northern California. The storm ripped off the upper tail fin of the 785-ft. craft, which plunged slowly toward the waters of the Pacific “like a big old hen settling down on a nest,” in the words of one officer. All but two of the Macon’s 83-man crew managed to survive by climbing onto life rafts. The Macon’s demise abruptly ended the Navy’s interest in huge rigid airships.

Last week a 32-ft. Navy submarine, the Sea Cliff, found the Macon’s collapsed frame in sand 1,450 ft. beneath the surface off Point Sur, 100 miles south of San Francisco. A fisherman, Dave Canepa, had netted scraps of wreckage from the site in the late 1970s. They had hung for years in Jeanne B’s restaurant in Moss Landing. Several years ago, the alert wife of oceanographer Christopher Grech saw the relics and told her husband. He found Canepa, who recalled where he had snagged the pieces. The Navy’s sub crew located the Macon on its first dive. Several museums have proposed joint recovery operations with the Navy so that the Macon can rise again and not be forgotten.