AdamCG

Mar 28, 3:13 AM EDT

Group Renews Search for 1950 Air Crash

By JAMES PRICHARD
Associated Press Writer


HOLLAND, Mich. (AP) -- At the time, it was the nation's deadliest commercial airliner crash.

All 58 people on board Northwest Airlines Flight 2501 died when the DC-4 plummeted into Lake Michigan on June 23, 1950, en route from New York to Minneapolis and later, Seattle. The plane went down after encountering strong winds, lightening and turbulence so heavy it convinced three other pilots taking off from Detroit to turn back.

Although they found some debris and human remains, investigators never found the crash site.

Next month, Valerie and Jack van Heest and their nonprofit group, Michigan Shipwreck Research Associates, will resume their nearly 3-year-old search for the site. They hope to find at least one of the plane's four engines intact.

"We have a much greater chance of narrowing down the area this year than we ever have in the past," said Valerie van Heest, 46, who has put her marketing and graphic design career on hold to focus on the search.

The couple began looking for the crash site in the fall, 2004, and resumed each of the past two Mays.

This spring, they will focus on a place about 15 to 20 miles off the coast of South Haven, in the same general area of the lake where the van Heests' group previously located the well-preserved remains of a historic, 208-foot-long steamer, the Hennepin, upright in 230 feet of water.

The group has the financial backing of best-selling adventure novelist Clive Cussler, who founded a nonprofit, the National Underwater Marine Agency, that aids in the discovery of historically significant shipwrecks and preservation of their artifacts.

"It is a good mystery. Nobody's quite sure exactly what happened and it certainly was a significant tragedy in its day," said Cussler's son, Dirk Cussler, who has co-authored a couple of books with his father and runs their shipwreck group.

Valerie van Heest said she's contacted relatives of 20 of the crash victims and hopes to speak to more.

"I don't want anything out of this except the satisfaction of helping them come to grips or closure or whatever you would call it with this accident," she said.

Bill Kaufmann was 6 years old when his mother, Jean, was killed in the crash. Now 63 and an attorney with a law practice in Oakland, Calif., Kaufmann said he doesn't expect much to come from the latest search but he hopes it brings him some answers.

"I'd like to know what happened," Kaufmann said.

He and the relatives of another crash victim took part in a memorial ceremony last May that the van Heests organized on the water near where they believe the crash happened.

Mary Fenimore, 39, of Wilmington, Del., said the crash killed her maternal grandparents, William and Rosa Freng, and her mother's sister, Barbara Freng.

She said she was skeptical of van Heest's motives at first, but quickly grew to understand her intentions and appreciate her efforts.

"I'm eternally grateful for people like her who are willing to put their own time and resources in to give the rest of us a little piece of mind," she said.

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On the Net:

Valerie van Heest's Flight 2501 information site: http://www.northwestflight2501.org/

Michigan Shipwreck Research Associates: http://www.michiganshipwrecks.org/

National Underwater and Marine Agency: http://www.numa.net/