Video: Anchoring Incident Damages Historic P-38 Fighter off France
Diving enthusiasts on the French Riviera allege that a brand new sailing cruise ship may have accidentally destroyed the wreck of a historic WWII fighter on the seabed off Saint-Cyr-sur-Mer, a coastal town between Marseille and Toulon.
On January 27, 1944, German forces shot down an American P-38 fighter over the Bay of Les Lecques. It lay undisturbed on the bottom until 1996, when it was rediscovered by Marcel Camilleri, director of the Lecques Aquanaut Center, a local diving club. After some excavation, Camilleri found the aircraft's serial number, 43-2-545. In the years since, the site has become a popular destination for recreational divers and is well-known in the area.
However, the wreck happens to be within a designated anchorage zone. Last Thursday, the newly built cruise ship Orient Express Corinthian - the largest sailing vessel in the world - arrived and dropped anchor in the general area. According to local diver Jean-Michel Blanc, a later inspection of the P-38 site revealed that the aircraft wreck had been badly damaged, potentially because of contact with an anchor.
"This [aircraft wreck], a symbol of divers from the bay, is nothing more than a pile of scrap metal. 80 years of history flying away in smoke," wrote Blanc.
The French Maritime Prefecture has confirmed that Orient Express Corinthian caused the damage to the fighter's wreck, according to news channel France3. However, from a regulatory perspective, it appears that the ship was fully within its rights: the fighter was within an officially-designated anchorage, and the Corinthian's crew communicated their planned anchoring position with the authorities in advance.
For now, the maritime prefecture has banned diving or anchoring at the site as a precautionary measure, with exceptions for law enforcement activity and for state archaeological researchers.
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For the local diving community, the protection should have happened long ago.
"It's absurd; they could have reduced the anchorage zone just a little or moved it so the wreck wouldn't end up inside it," current Lecques Aquanaut diving director Patrick Bell António told France3.
