Published June 4, 2008 03:10PM
On January 27, 1984, a Beechcraft plane containing 25-year-old pilot Steven Lampe and passenger Larry Lucas disappeared somewhere over Texas. A jacket and a plane floating in the Texas panhandle’s Lake Meredith seemed to point to a crash location, but lengthy search dives never discovered anything, and the fate of the aviators seemed consigned to mystery. Until now: This past Friday, two teens canoeing on the receding Lake Meredith spotted a partially submerged plane buried in the sand nearby.
“I didn’t know about it when it went down in 1984, but if the bodies are still in there, it’s kind of weird, kind of a creepy feeling,” said Greg Daly who found the plane.
Lake Meredith National Recreation Area, located about 30 miles from Amarillo, supplies drinking water to Amarillo and Lubbock, but because of an ongoing drought, water levels have shrunk to just 8 percent of capacity, revealing the wreckage. National Park Service investigators have confirmed that the found plane is indeed the same as the one that disappeared in 1984. Investigators are in the process of cutting open the plane, but it’s been an arduous process since much of it is filled with heavy sand. So far, no human remains have been discovered.
The area around the plane crash remains closed, as the National Park Service investigation is ongoing.
— Ted Alvarez
Plane missing since 1984 found in Texas lake (AP)
Men on missing plane found in drying lake identified (AP)