Wednesday 27 August 2003 Norwegians to search for Amundsen  | The Norwegian government is considering sending a submarine to search the Arctic seabed for evidence of the wreck of a seaplane in which the explorer Roald Amundsen - the first man to reach the South Pole - is believed to have died in 1928. This report from Bruce Whitehead: |
 Listen to the story A slab of driftwood and a fisherman's chart may be the crucial pieces of evidence which finally help to put to rest the mystery of what happened to Roald Amundsen - who beat the British explorer Captain Robert Scott in a race to the South Pole in 1911. Roald Amundsen went missing in June 1928 while searching for a fellow explorer, an Italian member of an airship crew which had itself disappeared in the Arctic. Amundsen's French-built seaplane is believed to have crashed near Bear Island in about 100 metres of water. Earlier this year, a chart was discovered from a Norwegian fishing boat, marking the spot where in 1933 it had snared a 3 metre object - possibly from the plane's wing. Tantalisingly, the object slipped away and disappeared into the sea.
Now the Norwegian Fisheries Minister Svein Ludvigsen, says Norway has a national responsibility to discover the fate of one of its famous sons. He said he'd personally bring pressure to carry out a search with a mini submarine as soon as possible.
Bruce Whitehead, BBC News
Listen to the words A slab of driftwood a piece of wood found floating in the sea chart map crucial very important to put to rest the mystery to find out the unknown facts explorer a person who travels to new places to discover what is there went missing disappeared a fellow (explorer) someone who, like him, was (an explorer) snared caught Tantalisingly The feeling when something you want is so close, but you can’t reach it to discover the fate of to find out what happened to | |  | | | SEARCH IN LEARNING ENGLISH | | | |
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