Bomber dives to get trial run

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After 59 lonesome years in the cold depths of Lake Mead, one of Southern Nevada’s most unusual attractions is about to receive its first tourists.

Guided dives will begin Sunday at the site where a World War II-era bomber crashed and sank in 1948.

The National Park Service selected Sin City Scuba of Las Vegas and Scuba Training and Technology Inc. of Lake Havasu City, Ariz., to lead the tours.

"We’re really excited about it," said Geo Hirst, who launched Sin City Scuba two years ago. "We’d like to get more people out there diving it and diving Lake Mead in general. It really is a spectacular place to dive."

During a six-month trial period that starts Sunday, tours of the B-29 Superfortress will be limited to one guide and two clients on a dive team and no more than four dive teams per week.

A total of 208 visitors, split evenly between the two dive companies, will be allowed to go down to the aircraft over the six months.

Few tourist attractions are as difficult to reach.

The wreckage rests beneath roughly 145 feet of open water, about 25 feet beyond the reach of recreational divers.

Only divers with advanced certification will be allowed to make the descent, and they can do so only through one of the two tour companies. The site remains closed to the general public.

"We want qualified divers to be able to explore the site, but they must do it responsibly," Lake Mead National Recreation Area Superintendent William K. Dickinson said in a written statement.

The park service will monitor the condition of the B-29 over the next six months. Should evidence of harm appear, the guided dive program could be halted early.

Hirst described the wreckage as "fragile," with plenty of opportunities for damage, accidental or otherwise. "All of the control surfaces are fabric, and the plane’s been under water for almost 60 years now," he said.

In the past five years alone, the aircraft has been hit by looters and scarred by errant anchors.

Hirst made his first visit to the sunken bomber in June, when a team from the park service’s Submerged Resources Center in Sante Fe, N.M., took representatives from the two dive companies on a tour of the site.

"It’s a very big airplane," Hirst said after spending about 30 minutes swimming around the wreckage. "That was the thing that impressed me the most: the size."

The California-based Superfortress crashed July 21, 1948, while on a top secret atmospheric research mission.

All five crew members escaped through cockpit hatches before the 99-foot aircraft sank. They were rescued about five hours later, after floating in the hot sun in a pair of inflatable rafts.

The aircraft was lost until 2001, when a private group of local divers found it mostly intact at the bottom of Lake Mead’s Overton Arm, about 12 miles southeast of Echo Bay Marina.

That triggered a custody fight between the park service and a private company that wanted to salvage the wreckage. In 2005, a court ruled that the bomber was the property of the federal government.

Depending on the level of interest in the B-29, guides from the two dive companies could be forced to turn people away.

"Boy, that would be a nice problem to have," Hirst said. "We’ve already had quite a bit of interest."

Sin City Scuba’s tour costs $465 and includes lunch and a second dive at Lake Mead.

Scuba Training and Technology offers a similar package for $450 that also comes with a commemorative "I Dived The B-29" shirt.

Hirst said several groups of technical divers have contacted him about booking tours in November, December and January, when conditions should be ideal. "Most diving in fresh water is better in the winter," he said.

A few divers also have expressed interest in the first tour slots available this Sunday, but no one had confirmed a trip as of Tuesday afternoon.

Hirst, who has been diving for almost 10 years, said he will serve as guide on some the trips and as captain of the boat on others.

He said the ride out to the site from Hemenway Harbor, just down the hill from Boulder City, takes about an hour and 15 minutes on his 26-foot, custom-built dive boat.

The dive itself lasts about 90 minutes "surface to surface," including no more than 40 minutes of "bottom time" with the bomber, he said. "It’s a very long day."

Because of the level of technical certification required, there may be fewer than 50,000 people in the country who are qualified to dive the site.

Eventually, though, Lake Mead could shrink enough to bring the bomber into the range of recreational divers.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation expects the surface of the reservoir to drop another 16 feet by May 2009, thus "raising" the B-29 to a depth of less than 130 feet. Hirst said that could allow a few brave recreational divers to reach the wreckage, albeit only for about 10 minutes of "bottom time."

"That is not enough time to swim around this airplane," he said. "It’s pretty awesome."