Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory Archive
IN THE SCHOOL OF OCEAN AND EARTH SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI'I AT MANOA
AIR-10a: JRM-1 Marshall Mars Seaplane
| HURL Artifact No. | AIR-10a | *Denotes approximations and speculations | |||
| Name: | JRM-1 Marshall Mars Seaplane | Lost: | 5-May-1950 | ||
| Artifact Type: | Seaplane (nose, keel & fuselage) | Found: | 23-Aug-2004 | ||
| Nationality: | USA | Dive No: | PV-557 | ||
| Class or Make: | Martin | Location: | Kewalo | ||
| Model: | JRM-1 | Depth (m): | 338m | ||
| Purpose: | Utility Transport | HURL crew: | Kerby, Cremer, Van Tilburg | ||
| Serial Number: | 76822 | Additional Dives: | PIV-124, PIV-128/PV-603 | ||
| Built/Launched: | February 1946 (5) | ||||
| Length: | 120' 3" | ||||
| Width: | 200' | ||||
| Height: | 44' 7" | ||||
| Circumstance of Loss: | Plane caught fire, landed on water, exploded, and sunk. | Crew Personnel/Position: | Simmons (Pilot), Jennings (Co-Pilot), Rolando, Hughes, Tingler, Taylor, & Upton | ||
| Reason of Loss: | Fire in #3 Engine. (engine had just been replaced and was on a test flight) | Crew Survivals/Fatalities: | All 7 crewmen escaped to crash boat. | ||
| Artifact History: | On it's second flight set a cargo record of 27,427lbs. Followed in 1949 with a passenger load-carrying record of 301 passengers plus it's 7 crewmen from Alameda to San Diego. Served in "Operation Hayride" delivering hay and worms to the SS Warthmore Victory for food to 6 elephants and a variety of tropical birds which had eaten all the ships stores. | ||||
| Artifact Condition: | Plane nose section is in one piece, but inverted. It has heavy damage from fire. "MARSHAL" can be clearly seen on the side. A loading winch is on the seabed on one side. The nose section is 16m long & has a NW-SE orientation. 20m to the SE lies the plane's keel. It is severely burned and is a mesh of metal framing. Keel lies at 340m and is 4.5m in width. Nearby the wreckage are a number of debris items from the plane including a corner mounted urinal. | ||||
| Additional Information: | The first Mars aircraft was an experimental called the "Old Lady". 20 Mars planes were planned, but the war ended and so only 6 were completed. 4 perished in accidents, but 2 remained in service fighting forest fires as water tankers in British Columbia and were fighting fires in California in 2009. The JRM's were the largest "truly operational" aircraft ever built. | ||||
School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology | Hawaii Undersea Research Lab |
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Revised March 18, 2019 by Meagan Putts
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Revised March 18, 2019 by Meagan Putts