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Alvin Rising

On October 16, 1968, at the beginning of Dive 308, two steel cables supporting Alvin‘s lowering cage parted. The sub plunged about 15 feet (4.5 meters), then bobbed to the surface where it stayed long enough for pilot Ed Bland, scientific observer Paul Stimson, and pilot-in-training Roger Weaver to scramble to safety. Alvin then sank 5,000 feet (1,515-meter) to the seafloor 120 miles south of Cape Cod, where it rested until the U.S. Navy recovered (pictured) it the following year.(Photo courtesy of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Archives)