In-Person Lecture: The Search for a Queen

Join us for our 2025 Spring Lecture Series presented by Larry & Karen Bettcher. Offered as a hybrid event, participants can choose when registering to take part in-person at the museum or online via Zoom.

The Search for a Queen: Using State of the Art Technology to Locate a Missing Scientific Research Aircraft in Lake Superior

📅 Date: Tuesday, April 15, 2025

🕖 Time: 7:00 PM

📍 Location: Join in-person at the museum or online via Zoom

💵 Cost: Free (Registration required)

For more than 50 years, the mystery of a missing Beechcraft Queen Air has lingered over Lake Superior. On October 23, 1968, the aircraft and its three occupants vanished while conducting atmospheric research west of the Keweenaw Peninsula. Operated by the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the plane was expected to return to Madison, Wisconsin—but it never arrived. Despite a search by the U.S. Coast Guard that uncovered only seat cushions and fragments of aluminum, the aircraft and its crew were never found. Over the decades, pieces of debris have surfaced in fishing nets and along the shoreline, yet the wreck itself remains undiscovered.

Now, in 2024, a state-of-the-art search is underway, bringing new technology and fresh hope to solving this decades-old aviation mystery.

Join Wayne Lusardi, Michigan’s State Maritime Archaeologist, as he delves into the history, disappearance, and latest search efforts for the lost Beechcraft Queen Air.

This lecture is free, but registration is required. Donations are always happily accepted.

Wayne Lusardi has been Michigan’s State Maritime Archaeologist for over two decades. He researches, surveys and documents hundreds of shipwrecks and dozens of aircraft wrecks located in the state. Wayne has been leading expeditions to recover a Bell P39 Airacobra flown by Tuskegee Airman Lieutenant Frank Moody that crashed into Lake Huron during a World War II training mission. Before coming to Michigan, Wayne was previously employed as an archaeological conservator for the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia and excavated the USS Monitor’s turret after its recovery in 2002. He also spent four years on the Blackbeard shipwreck project in North Carolina. Wayne received his MA degree in Maritime History and Nautical Archaeology from East Carolina University in 1998, and a BS in Anthropology from Illinois State University.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

National Museum of the Great Lakes, 1701 Front Street, Toledo, United States