CLIPPER ENDEAVOR HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
On Good Friday, 11 April 1952, Clipper Endeavor (NC88899), a large commercial airliner, took off from Aeropuerto de Isla Grande, San Juan, Puerto Rico bound for New York’s Idlewild (later JFK) Airport. On board were 64 passengers, mostly Puerto Rican residents, headed to the US mainland in search of work or to celebrate the Easter holiday with family. Captain John C. Burn, a PAA veteran who started his career in flying boats, led the crew of five. Burn was perhaps best known to the public as the husband of glamorous singer-actress, Jane Froman. Ironically, the two had met and fallen in love as the result of a wartime crash nine years earlier.
Mission Endeavor Project Overview
MISSION ENDEAVOR is the culmination of a three year long collaborative effort by Air/Sea Heritage Foundation and NOAA Ocean Exploration to find and document the wreckage of Pan Am Flight 526A, characterizing this important cultural heritage resource while bringing closure to the families of the victims and ensuring future protection of the site.
Visit NOAA Ocean Exploration’s Voyage to the Ridge 2022 (EX2206 Expedition 3 Dive 5) page featuring search highlights of our first two underwater target sites conducted on Thursday, 25 August 2022!
Spoiler alert – this search confirms that Clipper Endeavor is not at either location, though we did find a few interesting biologic and anthropogenic items.