Chief Navy Diver Kevin Chinn performs a training dive off the pier of the Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit 1 compound. MDSU-1 deploys combat-ready, expeditionary warfare capable, specialized dive teams to conduct harbor and waterway clearance, emergent underwater repairs, and salvage operations in all environments.
The Navy is investing time and money in the hunt for lost aircraft in far off waters to save a piece of history and remember the aviators left behind.
Sailors from Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit (MDSU) 1 Company 1-5, embarked USNS Safeguard (T-ARS-50) and began an 80-day mission Jan. 31 to document World War II aircraft crash sites in waters around Papua New Guinea.
The Navy divers and Safeguard’s crew of civilian mariners are conducting dive operations using a side-scan sonar system to gather information for a potential excavation of a B-24 Liberator that crashed off the coast of Kawa Island.
Additionally, the MDSU team is using their capabilities to search for remains of U.S. airmen at a separate Grumman TBF Avenger crash site in the area. The operations are in support of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA).
“The sites are very remote and access to the dive sites is challenging,” said Lt. Mark Snyder, MDSU 1 Company 1-5 officer in charge. “A dive and salvage platform like Safeguard provides us the capability to access sites like these.”
