The search for the mysteriously missing ship in 1969 became one of the most famous search and rescue operations in Australian history.
Australian scientists have discovered a sunken ship that mysteriously disappeared 55 years ago. In 1969, the MV Noongah, a ship carrying steel, was en route from England to Australia when it was caught in a violent storm off the coast of New South Wales and disappeared without a trace.
The Lad Bible writes about this.
The search for the ship became one of the largest and most famous search operations in Australian history. However, the 71-meter vessel, along with most of the crew, was never found.
At the time of the tragedy, there were 26 crew members on board the MV Noongah. During the search, rescuers found only one body. However, hope of finding the sailors alive did not fade, so the Royal Australian Navy called in aircraft and rescue boats. After that, five people were found alive in the open sea – two of them managed to escape on two separate rafts, and three more clung to a wooden board and survived simply by miracle.
Despite the fact that there were living witnesses to the tragedy, the place where the ship sank remained a mystery. It took more than half a century and the development of the necessary technology to find it.
Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has finally managed to find out where the MV Noongah and its twenty crew members found their final resting place using high-resolution seabed mapping.
The sunken ship was discovered about 460 km north of Sydney. Scientists were able to identify the vessel by its size and contours. The identification was made easier by the ship being largely intact and upright on the seabed.
“We were fortunate to have favourable sea conditions to carry out the survey, and our CSIRO technical teams were able to obtain excellent bathymetry data and survey the wreck using surveillance cameras,” said CSIRO expedition leader Margot Hind.
The bathymetry data showed the wreck to be at a depth of 170 metres, is approximately 71 metres long and the dimensions, profile and configuration are consistent with the MV Noongah.
“We hope that finding the ship's final resting place will bring relief to the survivors of this tragedy and the families of the lost crew,” said Tim Smith, Director of Assessments at the Registry New South Wales State Heritage.
Recall that a ship carrying Russians sank in the Atlantic. Half of the crew died. The rescued fishermen spent 15 hours on a raft in the middle of the ocean at a water temperature of 4 degrees.
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