In 2004 nationally acclaimed novelist Clive Cussler become interested in the loss of Flight 2501.  The author of more than two dozen best sellers, Cussler began writing in 1965 and published his first fiction novel featuring Dirk Pitt ® in 1973. Cussler's books are published in more than 40 languages in over 100 countries with a readership of 125 million avid fans. 

    With the proceeds from his books, Cussler formed a non-profit organization, the National Underwater Marine Agency (NUMA), and mounts expeditions around the world to find lost shipwrecks and solve other historical mysteries.  Cussler has discovered over 80 shipwrecks around the world.  Many of these adventures are detailed in his non-fiction books, The Sea Hunters I and II, including the famed Civil War submarine, the CSS Hunley.  But up until 2004, Cussler had never attempted a project in the Great Lakes. 

    In 2004 Cussler learned that the non profit Holland, Michigan based Michigan Shipwreck Research Associates (MSRA), had a similar interest in this disaster.   Like Cussler, though on a smaller and more local scale, the five-member team of West Michigan based MSRA is engaged in locating lost vessels and solving historical mysteries in the waters of Lake Michigan.  
    In August 2004, Cussler contacted MSRA and proposed a joint venture project to search for the remains of Flight 2501 in Lake Michigan.  MSRA held responsibility for the research and  Cussler  provided the services of side scan sonar expert Ralph Wilbanks, a marine archaeologist and owner of Diversified Wilbanks, Inc.
    MSRA quickly compiled research on the crash and developed an initial search grid in preparation for a September 2004 search effort. WIlbanks and associate Steve Howard traveled to South Haven, Michigan and installed search equipment on board MSRA Directors Jack and Valerie van Heest’s boat.  Then the team plotted the initial search grid.
    Day by day the team ran search lanes off South Haven.  The highly sophisticated side scan sonar operates with a torpedo-like towfish that rides underwater behind the boat and is connected via cable to a topside computer.  The sonar sends sound waves out to each side and the sounds reverberations are translated into images recorded on the computer. Running at a high frequency, the sonar is able to pick up rocks, changes in the sand topography, and any manmade objects laying on the lake bottom.          
    The weather did not cooperate in the fall of 2004 and search operations were curtailed after a week. Cussler sent the team back in the spring of 2005 to continue the operation when lake conditions are more conducive to searching. In May 2005, Wilbanks and Howard again installed the equipment on the van Heest’s vessel, and the search continued.  Over the winter of 2004/2005, MSRA was able to obtain more detailed records of the1950 weather and location of floating airplane debris and refined the search area.  The May 2005 search operation covered about 20 square miles and located a submerged tree, a small scuttled pleasure boat and a large shipwreck.  MSRA later identified the ship as the aft half of the car ferry Ann Arbor No. 5, converted in its last years to a barge, and accidentally lost, but never recorded, off South Haven in 160 feet of water.
    In May 2006, Wilbanks and Howard returned to West Michigan.  Working this time from Wilbank’s vessel, the team covered an additional 20 square miles, uncovering a 32 foot bulwark section of a large steamer, but no airplane.  The discovery of the ship’s bulwark, helped lead MSRA, one month later, to the ship from which it broke off--- the Hennepin, a freighter sunk in 1927, and one in which MSRA had a particular interest.
    Cussler’s team returned in the spring of 2007 to continue the search for Northwest Flight 2501, but once again the airliner remained elusive.
    In 2008, the team returned yet again, this time Clive Cussler joined the crew for several days searching. During Cussler's time on board, his crew  located two wrecks, one identified by MSRA as the Joseph P. Farnan, a victim of fire in 1889 and the a 60-foot schooner, likely the A.P. Dunton lost in 1869.

    In 2009, the team continued the quest for Flight 2501 and discovered three wrecks identified that summer by MSRA as a 40 foot work barge, the schooner William Tell lost in 1869 and the schooner Hattie Wells lost in 1912. Again the airplane did not reveal itself. By then Cussler wondered whether the plane would ever be found and considered curtailing the search.
    But by the fall of 2009, Cussler decided he could not give up. Wilbanks and his team arrived in West Michigan in mid-April 2010. Within a few weeks they uncovered a small vessel that  has yet to be identified. The search will continue until the end of May 2010.