Gangwon Province to Host Multi‑Nation Recovery Mission

The Gangwon Province coastal districts of Gangneung and Yangyang will serve as the operational base for a four‑week underwater recovery mission launched by South Korea and the United States. With a team of roughly forty specialists, the project will search for two separate wartime aircraft wrecks: the February 1952 F4U Corsair and the later Curtiss C‑46 Commando transport that crashed in October and November of the same year.

The Korean Ministry’s Agency for KIA Recovery and Identification together with the U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency are overseeing the effort. Teams consist of navy personnel, air‑force crew, U.S. dive experts and technical operators of autonomous underwater vehicles.

Both crash sites are believed to lie within 200 kilometres of the Korean shoreline, a region known for strong currents and variable bathymetry. The mission will apply side‑scan sonar, magnetometers and visual inspection by divers to pinpoint debris fields.

The discoveries will be catalogued for historical research, and any recovered human remains will be handled according to international protocols for war dead identification.