Writing History Today: The Search for Amundsen



 

 The desire to find the Latham 47 has been alive throughout the decades. Soon after the disappearance of the plane and its men, France and Norway - along with several other countries - initiated an extensive search effort. The French sent a warship, and Norway sent four naval vessels which searched continuously until September 1928.  Yet only a pontoon and one single fuel tank from the Latham 47 were ever found.

In 2002, a series of speculations about the Latham 47 disappearance was published in the Norwegian press. The Norwegian Aviation Museum decided to arrange an open hearing in conjunction with the Polar Museum. It took place on September 30th, 2002, in Tromsø. France was represented at the hearing by the French consul in Tromsø, and the Norwegian authorities were represented by Fisheries Minister Svein Ludvigsen.

On the basis of the hearing, the Aviation Museum appointed a commission of special experts to research the circumstances of the Latham 47 disappearance more thoroughly. The commission consisted of Professor Roald Berg, Dr. Bjørg Evjen, rear admiral Kjell Prytz, meteorologist Helge Tangen, museum director Kjell Lutnes, journalist Knut Hoff and navigator Per Arvid Tellemann. Lutnes, Hoff and Tellemann acted as the group’s executive committee and secretariat.

The project’s main goal was to collect and analyze background material in order to hypothesize about what really happened and to draw conclusions regarding the cause of the accident. The team of experts would also submit recommendations about a possible search operation for the remains of the Latham 47.

Context TV approached the commission with a strong interest in participating in the search for Amundsen. The Berlin based production company was enthusiastic about combining a historical documentary about the Norwegian explorer with modern footage from the underwater expedition. Finding the Latham 47 would solve an 80 year-old mystery – a challenge, that Context TV recognized as worth the tremendous effort involved.