$20 Million in Expedition Gear Lost Off Ecuador
A sea-going barge bearing about $20 million in scientific equipment for explorer Robert Ballard’s Jason Project expedition sank Friday off the coast of Ecuador while being towed to the Galapagos Islands.
There were no injuries, but foundering with the barge may have been all prospects for the $4-million project, which would have telecast a multipurpose scientific research expedition live to 500,000 students in the United States and Canada beginning Dec. 2.
“We’re devastated,” said Ballard, who was in the Galapagos for pre-production filming with Turner Broadcasting System. “There’s just no other word to describe it.”
Lost with the barge were three containers of equipment from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, a production van from Turner Broadcasting in Atlanta, EDS Corp.’s satellite communications van from Houston and the underwater robotic vehicle Jason Jr., which Ballard used five years ago in exploring the wreck of the Titanic.
A statement from the Project Jason office in Waltham, Mass., said the barge was being towed by the Ecuadorian Navy from Guayaquil 600 miles west to Isla Baltra in the Galapagos when it sank about 140 miles from Puerto Ayora in water 9,000 feet deep. There is apparently little hope of salvage.
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