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- <text id=90TT1794>
- <title>
- July 09, 1990: American Notes:Aviation
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990
- July 09, 1990 Abortion's Most Wrenching Questions
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 31
- American Notes
- AVIATION
- Found: the Lost Dirigible
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p> On Feb. 12, 1935, a sudden squall lashed into the U.S. Navy
- dirigible Macon as it plied the skies off Northern California.
- The storm ripped off the upper tail fin of the 785-ft. craft,
- which plunged slowly toward the waters of the Pacific "like a
- big old hen settling down on a nest," in the words of one
- officer. All but two of the Macon's 83-man crew managed to
- survive by climbing onto life rafts. The Macon's demise
- abruptly ended the Navy's interest in huge rigid airships.
- </p>
- <p> Last week a 32-ft. Navy submarine, the Sea Cliff, found the
- Macon's collapsed frame in sand 1,450 ft. beneath the surface
- off Point Sur, 100 miles south of San Francisco. A fisherman,
- Dave Canepa, had netted scraps of wreckage from the site in the
- late 1970s. They had hung for years in Jeanne B's restaurant
- in Moss Landing. Several years ago, the alert wife of
- oceanographer Christopher Grech saw the relics and told her
- husband. He found Canepa, who recalled where he had snagged the
- pieces. The Navy's sub crew located the Macon on its first
- dive. Several museums have proposed joint recovery operations
- with the Navy so that the Macon can rise again and not be
- forgotten.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
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