Click image for enlargement. Graphic by Mike Johnson.

Deep-water divers have another destination to explore in Lake Mead where an airplane crashed in the late-1940s, a National Park Service archaeologist said Friday.

"For those who are able to make the dive, it will be a rewarding, recreational opportunity," said Dave Conlin, archaeologist for the agency's Submerged Resources Center in Santa Fe, N.M.

He was referring to a privately owned Navy PBY-5A Catalina flying boat that crashed in Boulder Basin about a mile east-southeast of Lake Mead Marina on Oct. 24, 1949, killing four out of five on board. The wreckage sits in about 190 feet of water, said Conlin, who explored it in a dive before Christmas.

"It's cold and dark and very silty, and it's a very challenging dive," he said.

This type of flying boat was one of the most widely used ocean patrol planes for long-range missions during World War II, Conlin said. The patrol bomber could be armed with depth charges, torpedoes and machine guns in addition to bombs.

After the war, "a lot were converted to civilian use for toys for rich people. This one was being converted as a sportsmen aircraft to land on a lake to fish or hunt," he said.

National Park Service officials said they will divulge the exact location to qualified divers who can dive at their own risk.

"We are providing the coordinates to the diving community. Then it's up to them to get there and back. It's a resource here in the park that we're managing," Conlin said.

The plane crashed about a year after an unarmed B-29 Superfortress bomber clipped the mirror-smooth surface of the lake's Overton Arm on July 21, 1948, during a low-flying atmospheric research mission. The pilot, a scientist and three others escaped through cockpit hatches before the B-29 sank to the bottom, where it remains in about 170 feet of water.

Both crash sites are unmarked. Because they are archaeological sites, removing any material from them would violate federal law, National Park Service officials said.

The Catalina flying boat had been converted for civilian use by the Charles Babb Co. of Los Angeles before it departed Boulder City Airport for a test flight. During an attempt to make a water landing, the plane had its landing gear in the down position instead of being retracted for a water landing. As a result, it flipped upside down and burned, according to a National Park Service statement.

Pilot Russell Rogers and mechanic Charmen Correa of Southern California went down with the plane. The National Park Service still is conducting research to determine whether their bodies ever were recovered, Conlin said.

John True of Las Vegas attempted to retrieve the bodies shortly after the crash but researchers have been unable to confirm whether he succeeded before his contract with the Babb Co. expired.

The others on board were Boulder City Airport operator Tom Swift; his associate, George Davis; and Clarence Masters of Southern California. Davis, the only one strapped into his seat, suffered a broken leg but survived.

Swift and Masters were ejected from the plane but never regained consciousness and died at a hospital.

The Boulder City News described the sorrow felt in the city for the loss of Swift in its Oct. 29, 1949, edition. "As the community stirred from its stunned shock at the tragedy on Lake Mead ... the pain of personal grief at the loss of their beloved fellow citizen, Ted Swift, was keenly felt by all who knew him," the story begins.

Unlike the Catalina flying boat wreckage, the crash site of the B-29 is closed to diving.

"We expect to open it under a permit system this spring where qualified divers can go down with a permitted guide outfit," said Roxanne Dey, National Park Service spokeswoman for Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

Conlin said the reason that a guide service must lead dives to the B-29 site is to protect the "excellent condition" of the 99-foot-long bomber. When it skipped across the surface at 250 mph, the impact ripped three engines off their mounts. The fourth caught fire. The rest of the plane is basically intact, unlike the condition of the Catalina flying boat.

"The decision comes out of the condition of the resource itself," Conlin said.

As for diving to the flying boat wreckage, Conlin emphasized the dangers involved for inexperienced divers. "People need to assess the known and potential risks and ask themselves if they are capable of making that dive," he said.

Coordinates and additional information about the flying boat site can be obtained by sending an e-mail to Dey at the National Park Service at Roxanne_Dey@nps.gov.