BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – Families who lost loved ones in a 1971 plane crash in Lake Champlain now have some closure after the wreckage from the crash was recently believed to have been discovered.
The private jet took from Burlington to Providence during a snowstorm and went missing soon after takeoff after crashing into the lake near Juniper Island. All five people on board died. Search efforts for the wreck have continued over the years, including one in 2014.
Undersea search specialist Gary Koza, with assistance from the Champlain Maritime Museum and a Middlebury College professor, discovered the wreckage using sonar data from the bottom of the lake. Photos show parts of the plane and a comparison to the original jet.
Kozak says the search may have taken so long because jets break up into many pieces that aren’t easy to spot. “A jet, it looks like a pile of rocks, literally. So, to most people looking at sonar data, they can overlook it because they’ll go, ‘Oh, that looks like geology,” Kozak said.
The exact location of the site will remain confidential out of respect for the victims.