In 1928, renowned Norwegian explorer, Roald Amundsen, was on a Latham 47 flying boat which disappeared on its way to Spitzbergen. He was attempting an expedition to rescue Umberto Nobile, an Italian, whose airship had crashed on a return journey from the North Pole. He and the surviving crew were marooned on pack ice. No-one knows exactly what had happened, although the plane had flown into foggy conditions, and it’s possible they had to put down on the water, which may have been too rough for the flying boat.
Now an expedition is going to try and find the plane. They believe that the last radio message was received while the Latham 47 was 19 miles south of Bear Island. Two ships are going to search 45 square miles of seabed using state of the art technology. They hope to find the engines, as the rest of the plane was made mainly of perishable materials.
You can read more in this BBC article, from which the above photo was taken.
