Group ends search for missing airliner that crashed into Lake Michigan in 1950, killing all 58 people on board

Source: CBS/Associated Press

Group ends search for missing airliner that crashed into Lake Michigan in 1950, killing all 58 people on board

June 25, 2025 / 3:25 PM EDT / CBS/AP

A group is ending a 20-year search for a plane that crashed into Lake Michigan in 1950, killing all 58 people on board, after sweeping the vast body of water using sonar technology and even getting support from an acclaimed adventure writer. ... When Northwest Orient Flight 2501 crashed, it was the worst aviation disaster in U.S. history.

Valerie van Heest, executive director of the Michigan Shipwreck Association, said she has mixed feelings about ending the search, which began in 2004. ... "It's a hard thing to have to say because part of me feels like we have failed," van Heest told The Detroit News, "but we have done so much to keep memory of this accident and these victims at forefront that I feel like we've done better for them than if we'd found the wreckage."

After covering 700 square miles of Lake Michigan, Van Heest said scientists believe the plane broke up into pieces too small to be detected by side-scan sonar and likely "sunk into the muck" on the bottom.

While searching for the wreckage from 2005 to 2013, the nonprofit found nine shipwrecks, but not Flight 2501.

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