SPICER, Minn. — For nearly 46 years, the murky depths of Green Lake in west-central Minnesota kept hidden a small military airplane that had crashed into its frigid waters after midnight on Oct. 15, 1958.

It became the stuff of local lore. For all of those years, some hunted for the Cessna L-19 “Birddog” piloted by Capt. Richard P. Carey of the Minnesota Army National Guard. Carey, 36 at the time, lost his life. His body was recovered from the lake 13 days later, about one-half mile north of the city of Spicer, Minnesota.

The plane remained hidden. One man had searched with a mini-submarine in 1988.

A Burnsville, Minnesota, man claimed in 1996 that he found the plane on his 12th scuba dive into the waters where he believed radar from the night of the crash showed it to be. Greg Olson

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