Very wrong on that part. The guy that found it, had his gear confiscated for I want to say over a year. I don't know him, but have a friend who does know him. The park service got all kinds of ugly about it when it was found.
The consolation was instead of 100% ban (what the park service wants) they allowed permits, and by permits I mean a single permit to a single operator, to run a charter out to it. That permit had all kinds of restrictions based on it being a deep technical wreck. The 40% O2 is for a deco gas because when the wreck was found and when the permit was issues it was a deep deco wreck.
You may not be paying attention to the water levels in Lake Mead (or its upstream neighbor Lake Powell) but the water levels in the past decade+ have dropped tremendously. 100' down from full. There is a serious long term drought in the American Southwest. Lake Mead is right at the edge of emergency water levels. Las Vegas that gets its water from Lake Mead went so far as to tunnel out a new water intake deeper in the lake since the old intake was threatening to go dry.
How this has impacted the B29 is the dive is now shallow. Yes, within recreational limits now. But it is still under the control of the Park Service which would still love to keep a 100% ban on anyone actually diving it. So much easier for a government agency to simply say no, stay away, our idea of management it to just ban everyone and that makes there life easier sine management is simply keeping everyone away. But there is this one permit (that a couple of times did not get renewed for a year) that allows a single operator access. There concession to actually allow the public into government lands. The permit was issued with the technical considerations of how the wreck was found. Nobody has successfully received a new permit to dive the wreck with the current water levels and only the need for recreational profiles.
So unless you can successfully get the park service to issue another permit without the technical dive requirements, you are stuck diving with the restrictions of the permit.
Good luck dealing with the United States Federal government on getting that permit. The park service would be much happier if the wreck was never found.
BB,
I am fully familiar with the Government Park Service as it relates to the wreck site, the low level of Lake Mead, which has been getting progressively lower for years, primarily due to annual decreasing levels of mountain snow and the growing local population infrastructure as well as the current state, and historical significance of the wreck.
When I fist took an interest in the possibility of diving the B-29, the wreck site was well over 150 deep, and for one reason or another, the very limited site diving had been suspended, some thought permanently.
That still does not excuse the unprofessional attitude of the current, permit holding dive operator.
If I'm being literally threatened with physical harm on the operators web-site, their dive boat is the last place I want to be, and I don't care what's lying at the bottom of Lake Mead.
I'm more than qualified to dive the wreck, as are 1000's of others, and if it wasn't for all the nonsense over nothing, these 1000's including me, would have dove the B-29 a long time ago.
Wrecks of a significantly higher profile/importance in both age and historical significance are visited daily, all around the world.
Either dive it, or place it under permanent ''no diving'' moratorium, instead of this ''half pregnant'' foolishness.
It's a wreck-period. If the plane hadn't of crashed it would have been scrapped a long time ago. The aluminium would have found its way into some auto owners water pump, and that car would have been scrapped years ago as well. there are still B-29's in existence, that will be in existence forever, this isn't the last surviving ''Panda''.
Let the divers enjoy it. One day it will be gone, but that ''one day'' isn't going to be any time soon, certainly not in the lifetime of any existing SB member.
I fully respect your opinion, but I'll stick by my previous post.
Rose.