A Boeing 737 aircraft that for years soared high above the clouds will be towed by barge from Comox to Chemainus overnight May 24-25 to a new life below the surface of the sea.
It's been a turbulent journey so far for the 737, once owned by Pacific Western Airlines, then Canadian Pacific Airways, and then Air Canada. The 737 was introduced by Boeing in 1967 as a short-to-medium range commercial passenger jet. An attempt to sink the aircraft off Comox as an artificial reef was grounded last year by objections from the community.
Plans last week to load the plane on a barge and head south to friendlier waters fell through when the tug boat operator had equipment problems.
The scary part of the overnight trip will be squeezing the 737 and its 30-metre wingspan through 55-metre-wide Dodd Narrows, five nautical miles south of Nanaimo. It takes just six hours to sail from Comox to Chemainus, but the tug's trip with the super-sized cargo will take longer as the crew waits for a flood tide to load and the right tide to squeeze through the narrows.
All going as planned, the 737 will be submerged in September, making it the first large aircraft to be used as an artificial reef -- and the novelty is attracting attention worldwide, said Tex Enemark, president of the Artificial Reef Society of B.C.
"It's unprecedented," he said of the project in an telephone interview from Vancouver.
Discovery Channel will film the transfer as part of a documentary. The plane's voyage by barge from Vancouver to Comox in January 2004 was carried by newspapers and magazines in Europe, said Enemark.
"The plan is to pick it up in Comox sometime next week, put it a on barge and move it to Chemainus...then we'll be applying for permits," he said.
The permitting process "is an elaborate game of snakes and ladders," said Enemark. But so far, Chemainus appears to be putting out the welcome mat for the new attraction. Graham Bruce, the area's MLA, is an avid diver and recently presented the ARSBC with a cheque from the province for $15,000. The municipality of North Cowichan came up with another $15,000. Then a private donor gave $5,000.
The plane itself was donated to the society by a Tennessee scrap dealer.
Preparing and sinking the plane as a reef seems expensive at $60,000, but it's nowhere near the cost of submerging a large navy vessel, which has cost the society an average $400,000, said Enemark.
The aircraft will be fixed to a platform, suspending it above the ocean floor near Thetis Island, in deep enough water to keep the top of the tail about 12 metres below the surface.
The aluminum shell of the aircraft has been completely stripped and scrubbed and has received initial approval from government inspectors, said Enemark.
© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2005
