Image: NOVA
Seventy years after it was lost during World War II, amateur divers found the wreckage of a B-24 Liberator bomber in the Adriatic Sea, off the coast of Italy. The U.S. Air Force airplane was badly damaged during an aerial engagement with the Luftwaffe in 1944, and the crew was forced to ditch. Several of the crew members escaped, but three were lost with the airplane. A Nova documentary, scheduled to run on PBS stations next Wednesday, Nov. 7, follows the work of searchers as they attempt to find human remains at the site and return them to the U.S. for DNA analysis.
After the wreck was found, the U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, which is tasked with finding missing service members and bringing them home, formed an expedition team, with the goal to identify the lost airmen. During the search, a local diver tells the Nova team of another nearby airplane wreck, a B-17, which is known to have human remains on board. Extending their search to the second wreck, the team now hopes to identify four lost airmen, providing closure to their families.
