Diver dies at submerged wreck site in Lake Mead

By Mary Manning

Monday, Feb. 11, 2008 | 12:27 p.m.

The National Park Service is investigating the death of 40-year-old Michael Lawrence Anderson of Las Vegas,, who died on a dive to the wreckage of a Navy PBY Catalina flying boat that crashed into Lake Mead in 1949.

At 1:52 p.m. Sunday the National Park Service emergency dispatch center received a 911 call and rangers arrived at Boulder Basin by 2:09 p.m.

Park rangers performed CPR on the diver for about 45 minutes. Mercy Air ambulance also responded, but the victim was pronounced dead at 3 p.m.

Anderson was diving with three other Las Vegas men when he apparently had a problem with his air supply. Assistant park superintendent Gary Warshefski said the divers were working about 150 feet beneath Lake Mead's surface at the time of the accident.

"Divers need special gases when it is so deep," Warshefski said, noting that regular scuba gear is used to a depth of 100 feet.

The Catalina flying boat crashed into Lake Mead on Oct. 24, 1949. The aircraft, converted for civilian use by the Charles Babb Company of Los Angeles, took off from Boulder City Airport for a test flight and attempted a water landing in the Boulder Basin area of Lake Mead. But the landing gear was still down, causing the plane to flip and catch fire.

Four of the five men on board died. Pilot Russell Rogers and mechanic Charmen Correa, both from Southern California, went down with the wreckage. Fellow Californian Clarence Masters and Boulder City Airport Operator Ted Swift were thrown clear of the plane but never regained consciousness.

George Davis, the only member of the group strapped to his seat, survived with a broken leg, cuts and bruises.

The Patrol Bomber, built for the U.S. Navy in the 1930s and 1940s, was used in World War II. The aircraft that went down at Lake Mead is is two pieces, resting at a depth of 190 feet below the surface.