Deepest salvage

The deepest successful salvage operation is the raising of the wreckage of a US Navy transport aircraft from the floor of the Philippine Sea, some 5,638 m (18,500 ft) below the surface, on 21 May 2019. The operation was carried out by a team from the US Navy Supervisor of Salvage and Diving (SUPSALV) using the deep-sea research ship RV Petrel.

The salvage operation was reportedly carried out using one of the US Navy's Cable-controlled Undersea Recovery Vehicles (CURV-21). The team's base of operations was the RV Petrel, a deep-sea research ship owned by the late Paul G Allen (co-founder of Microsoft), which was leased by the US Navy for this mission.

The aircraft recovered was a C-2A Greyhound that went down with the loss of its pilot and two other crew on 22 November 2017. Eight other passengers and crew survived the water landing. It was flying a logistics mission from Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Japan to the USS Ronald Reagan.