Crashed in 1959: RCMP to begin dive to float plane wreckage in Saskatchewan lake
BUFFALO NARROWS, Sask. — An RCMP dive on a remote northern Saskatchewan lake this week will attempt to recover a pilot and a conservation officer whose remains could still be inside the wreckage of a float plane that vanished almost 60 years ago.
The location of the wreckage in Peter Pond Lake had been a mystery until last month when a private search effort, launched by the pilot’s daughter and son-in-law, used sonar to find the single-engine Cessna 180 about 16 metres under water.
RCMP initially said they would not be diving to the wreckage, but now say a team will attempt to get inside the fuselage and gather whatever may be left of pilot Ray Gran and Saskatchewan conservation officer Harold Thompson.
“I don’t want people’s expectations to be too high. We’re going there to see what we can get, what we can retrieve,” Cpl. Rob King said in an interview.