Wing Section (Point Loma — > 200 fsw)

Introduction

After we deployed the AUV with UCSD/Scripps, we had a few targets to dive in our quest to find the S-3 Viking. We conducted two dives on 3 October 2025 and this was the second dive (more on the first dive in another post).

This target was actually at the very southwest corner of our search grid so we are very fortunate to have found it. Below is a diagram of our initial search grid which was about 1 square kilometer (yellow pins) and various targets in the grid. The green pin labeled “WING” below is this dive:

On the sonar, we thought that this could be a section of a wing:

We attempted to overlay a schematic of the S-3 Viking to see if matched the size & shape:

Our theory was that it was the outer, front section of the Viking wing. The Viking wings folded for storage on aircraft carriers so we are figuring that maybe the wing broke off at the folding point. The dimensions of the sonar image indicate that the object is about 20 feet long which would be about right for that section of the wing.

There was only one way to find out….

The Dive

I was diving with Cody Cordero and the conditions were nice in the morning but were deteriorating and the wind/swell was picking up. We had had a longer dive in the morning on the first target so this was planned to be a pretty quick dive. As usual. Lora & Chris did a perfect drop of the downline and it was a couple feet from the wing.

When I got on the wing, I immediately noticed that there was a bunch of “stuff” covering it. I’m still not sure what it is, but it looked like a flat firehose and could be material from a strap from trying to salvage the wreck. The accident report indicates that it wasn’t salvaged but maybe afterwards?

The wing looked to be relatively modern (i.e., not the typical WW II type wing we find in this area).

Photos & Photogrammetry Model

Below are a few photos of the wing.

A few things to note: there is something midway down the wing which looks like some kind of folding or rotating mechanism, there is some white paint visible near the end of the wing (which was typical of the Viking that wrecked), the wing tip ends in a rectangular shape, and you can see the “strap” or whatever it is in the upper left photo.

Below is a closeup of the “hinge” like device in the wing:

I built a photogrammetry model of the wing section as well.

We also did some analysis of the shape and relative dimensions based on the photogrammetry model. There are three pretty unique circular holes near the end of the wing tip. Our goal was to make relative measurements to see if they matched a real Viking.

Tyler went to the Midway Museum to look at the S-3 Viking that is on the deck of that aircraft carrier to see if he could get some dimensions of the wing area; however, the wings were folded up. Argh!

If anybody had highly detailed diagrams of the S-3 Viking wing structure, but let us know!

Martha Shaw, who is the Chapter Chair of the San Diego Explorers’ Club, had donated funds to the expedition and we had her along on the trip. We also had a get together after the dive with some other members. Martha took a few pictures which are below:

Next Steps

Obviously, the proverbial million dollar question is: is this a wing from the S-3 Viking?

I believe that it could be. It has a few of the right characteristics:

• it probably has the right paint color
• most importantly it is in the right area according to the accident report diagram
• it has the right shape/characteristics.

We got really lucky with how close it is to the edge search area. Our next step is to take the Iver3 AUV back out on the Marissa to do some more scanning to the south and west of the wing to see if we can find more debris. Fingers crossed…

Thanks To

• My wife for her continued support & encouragement of my “hobby” 🙂
• A big thanks to Chris & Lora at Marissa Charters. It is nice knowing that the downline will be on-target and the boat will be waiting when you get back from a long deco
• As always, thanks to my dive & research partner, Tyler Stalter. We share in all victories and all defeats. Hopefully this one will turn into a big victory.
• Thanks to my dive partner on this dive, Cody Cordero
• A big thanks to Florian & Khoa at UCSD for their teamwork on this project.
• Thanks to Martha Shaw whose contribution helped fund this project and this dive!
• Thanks to Russ Matthews & Idee Mathews-Montijo for their partnership on this project