80 years later, in 2008, an expedition community was founded consisting of the Maritime Combat Service & Support in The Royal Norwegian Navy (MARLOG), the Aviation Museum in Bodø, Kongsberg Maritime AS and Context TV GmbH. In August 2009, this group of experts will embark on a large-scale naval expedition in search of Latham 47.


Both the Norwegian Navy and the Norwegian Coast Guard contribute one of their finest ships to the mission. Together, they will search for the wreck of Amundsen’s plane with a fully automatic sonar system in order to uncover the truth behind the disappearance of the legendary polar explorer Roald Amundsen.

 

Roald Amundsen - Lost in the Arctic

Roald Amundsen was the world’s greatest polar explorer. The Norwegian was the first to cross the Northwest Passage, he won the spectacular race to the South Pole against his rival, Robert F. Scott, and he led a pioneering expedition across the Arctic Ocean. But in the end, a revolutionary method of transport became his nemesis – the airplane. On June 18th, 1928, Amundsen boarded the Latham 47, a sea-plane bound for Spitsbergen, Norway. He was accompanied by a crack team of French Air Force pilots. Extraordinarily, Roald Amundsen wanted to save his fiercest rival: Umberto Nobile. The Italian general and aviator had crashed his airship Italia on a return voyage from the North Pole. Nobile and his surviving crew members found themselves drifting helplessly on the pack ice of the Arctic Circle.


Amundsen was asked to join the rescue operation. It would be the final mission of his epic and controversial life: At 6 p.m. on that day in June, one last radio message was picked up from Amundsen’s aircraft – then, there was silence…

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LATHAM 47, 1928 in Bergen

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