The Commission and its Results
Several objects thought to originate from the Latham 47 have been found throughout the years. The first discovery dates back to August 31st, 1928, during the original rescue mission for Amundsen and the French crew. A pontoon was found off the North coast of Norway, in Torsvåg. It was later confirmed as the left wing pontoon of the Latham 47. In 1928, it was concluded that the pontoon had been torn from the wing, probably as a result of a crash into the sea.
A second object, that was later determined to be a piece of the plane’s fuel tank, was found a couple of months later, on October 13th, 1928, on Haltenbanken, outside Trondheim. The distance between this second find and the first one were remarkable: roughly 1300 kilometres separate Torsvåg from Trondheim. Visible modification to the tank indicated that the crew might have attempted to use it as a float, perhaps as a substitute for the pontoon that had been torn off. Yet another – and up to then unknown - exciting and promising lead was revealed during the hearing in Tromsø in 2002: A trapper and former hunter in Svalbard (Spitsbergen) named Per Johnson learned about the hearing on the news and was reminded of an incident on the Edge Island (Edgeøya), on the west coast of Svalbard, 40 years earlier.
In 1964, he found a double sheet of plywood that had metal fittings and in some places was insulated with a bakelite-type material. He used the piece of plywood to fix his hunting shack. The flat sheet of plywood was approximately 120 cm x 120 cm and the colour of the wood had faded to grey after spending a prolonged period in the ocean. Forty years later, it occurred to the hunter that the plywood could have originated from the Latham 47, and he contacted the commission.
In 2004, this piece of plywood was dismantled and brought to Tromsø. The expert group studied the plywood and determined that chances were high that the piece had belonged to an airplane. Since no other air plane crashes are known to have happened in this area before 1964, it is extremely probable that the piece belonged to the French plane.
Another discovery of interest had been made as early as 1933 by the trawler „Kvitholmen“. The vessel was on a course through in arctic waters when an object weighing several hundred kilos and measuring 2 - 3 meters in length was caught up in its long lines. Unfortunately, it disappeared into the sea again. The event launched a flood of speculation in the newspapers. One of the crew of the “Kvitholmen” believed that what the sea had revealed for a short time must have been one of the Latham’s engines. In the ongoing research, important factors such as ocean currents and calculations of drift, and comparisons of earlier information with new scientific data in the fields of meteorology and oceanography, have been crucial. The commission presented its results after five months of research, and based on their findings a search expedition for the Latham 47 was launched. Unfortunately, once at sea, this expedition had to be called off due to stormy weather conditions.
During the last five years, Context TV has accompanied all important research steps as well as the preparations for the expedition, and has been working closely with both the Aviation Museum in Bodø and the Defense Research Establishment in Horten, which played an active role on the 2004 Expedition.
On the 2009 Expedition, MARLOG from Bergen has replaced the role of the Defence Research Establishment. And Kongsberg Maritime, supplier of technology to the offshore and shipyard industries, joined the project in autumn 2008.
Another impressive group of participants has teamed up to contribute to the 2009 Expedition.
