Explorers reveal first glimpses of sunken USA aircraft carrier

Because sunlight can reach them, plants grow and cover them, breaking them down faster than the ships, like the Independence, lost in the icy, pitch-black waters of the deep oceans.

Delgado, Director of NOAA’s Maritime Heritage, is onboard the ship, and said researchers were blown away by how much the USS Independence looked like photos taken years before it was scuttled, or sunk in January 26, 1951. In the end, in 1951 the aircraft carrier was scuttled someplace near the Farallon Islands.

USS Independence received eight battle stars due to the heroic actions of the Sailors, Officers, Pilots and Marines who served onboard.

“When we do these missions we are obtaining hard scientific results, but also these shipwrecks speak to you in a powerful way when you encounter them”, NOAA’s maritime heritage director James Delgado said.

The ship was completely covered with huge white sponges with many orange thornyhead fishes swimming around.

The USS Independence was stationed in the western Pacific during World War II, and was later one of more than 90 vessels in a fleet used for atomic bomb tests in Bikini Atoll in 1946, according to a statement from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

She was towed back to San Francisco and signed over to the new Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, where she was used in the study of the effects of nuclear attacks. After a series of decontamination studies, the Navy scuttled the vessel.

Four decades later, in 1990, the U.S. Geological Survey found the ship while mapping the seafloor. A NOAA mission previous year took sonar images of the ship, and discovered it to be sitting upright, in apparently good condition, with what looked like one airplane visible. The pictures show that the ship is still upright and perfectly preserved.

Despite all the evidence of atomic bomb damage, the researchers believe that the Independence is no longer radioactive. The barrels were filled with concrete and put in a former engine room space that was sealed.

The researchers that soon after took the USS Independence in custody looked for evidence of the impact of the atomic blast in the radioactive hull of the ship. The ship’s radioactivity, however, does not pose any threat to ocean life, as the radioactivity decreases by half every seven years.

Nevertheless, Vetter said, a colleague from his lab was on board the expedition, and the two submersibles planned to take samples of sediments and small creatures from the ship, such as sponges, for testing.

“It was wonderful to see because it’s a plane that should not be there”, Delgado said. Contact him at 408-920-5045.