B-29 at Lake Mead

[Wookie]

@Bronco
I have only minimal intest in the B 29 dive but
Wasn't the fellow from Brooklyn Joel Silverstein running tours for several years ?
Did he fold his operation?
Did new operator acquire the rights and now attempting to create interest ?

Samuel Miller.III

No, Joel is still running trips from his shop in Lake Havasu, Sam.

 

[Sam Miller III]

@Wookie

Thanks Hombre
I owe you one..

Two permits to dive the B 29 -- interesting

As a Kalifornian anything past the California border is considered a strange and foreign land
(and Kalifornia has become as strange and foreign as can be found on this earth or outer space )

Sam

 

[Rose Robinson]

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.

 

[Wookie]

That still does not excuse the unprofessional attitude of the current, permit holding dive operator.

There seem to be 2 permit holders for 2021...

 

[Gene]

I had the privilege of diving the B-29 in 2009 while out west filming Piranha 3D, which Joel and his wife also worked on. (They handled all the dive safety ops.)
As I remember, Joel wasn't available then to take me out there, so I went with the other group, who were nice guys I think from Nevada. It made me smile when I got on their boat and saw some familiar cave country stickers from back home.
The wreck's depth was 120ffw to the sand and I dove my doubles with my deco bottle. I believe three of us descended and had around a half-hour or so on the site. It was beautiful and cool. My first plane wreck and i shot some photos too. A great day on the water. (By the way, water temp was 55 degrees, and it was so freakin' hot out there that I did the dive in my 3mm wetsuit!)
Driving back to Lake Havasu later that afternoon proved interesting when I decided to take a dirt trail, mountain pass and had a rock cut one of my Rover's tires. All in all, an adventurous day!

 

[broncobowsher]

Two permits, I learned something new today as well. I just remember the one operation and for years it was the same old website. As close as I am I still have not reached out for it. I've made day trips to Vegas in the past it's so close.

 

[Perryed]

And when you get down there if you inflate the airbags under the wings the Boomers will get it to shore and get that baby in the air eventually!

 

[las vegas scuba]

With the water level in the lake dropping, sounds like it is now a recreational dive, barely. Depth on July 2nd was 35.6 meters. No price listed, and only 50 pairs per year. The list of requirements is the longest I've ever seen for a non-tech dive: Advanced Open Water, Deep Specialty, Advanced Nitrox, 50 dives in the last 20 months, and "In the winter months dry suite [sic]". The operators sound like barely-literate schmucks, but if people are interested, there you go. To save you the trouble, at 1.6 PPO2 that's 28% nitrox.

Hi this is the owner of the dive operation at lake mead doing the B-29 if you have any questions please feel free to ask away?

 

[las vegas scuba]

Hi everyone I am the owner of the dive operation doing the B-29 if anyone on here has any real questions and would like the actual answers please feel free to contact me and I will give you actual answers.

 

[Esprise Me]

I chuckled at their "threat." But then, it's pretty standard around here for dive boats to "threaten" their customers not to put TP in the toilets by telling them the cook is also the plumber and they don't wash their hands. Our local boats are also pretty liberal about taking folks who merely hold an "advanced" card to some legitimately advanced sites, which results in some pretty regular near-misses. It's kinda nice to see some standards being enforced. Maybe if I get to do this someday, I could hope for an instabuddy who wouldn't scare the daylights out of me.