WASHINGTON: A US Navy ship that went missing 95 years ago with 56 aboard has been found off San Francisco, ending one of the biggest mysteries in US naval history, authorities said Wednesday.
The USS Conestoga tug boat, which disappeared on March 25, 1921 after departing San Francisco on its way to Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, was the last US Navy ship to be lost in peacetime, the Navy and National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration said in a joint statement.
“After nearly a century of ambiguity and a profound sense of loss, the Conestoga’s disappearance no longer is a mystery,” said Manson Brown, assistant secretary of commerce for environmental observation and prediction and deputy NOAA administrator.
The wreckage was initially detected in 2009 at a depth of 189 feet (58 meters) by a NOAA survey team working near the Farallon Islands, about 30 miles west of San Francisco.
The Conestoga wreckage, located three miles off Southeast Farallon Island in the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, was positively identified in October 2015.
Experts believe the ship sank as its crew tried to reach a protected cove amid stormy weather.
