Airbus to be sunk in Saros Bay as tourism project

EDİRNE – Demirören News Agency

An Airbus A330 will be sunk in the Saros Bay (or Gulf of Saros) in the northern Aegean Sea on June 14 to serve as a reef and attract diving tourists.

The 90-ton weighing airplane was brought to the İbrice Harbor of the Keşan district in the northwestern province of Edirne via six trucks after being dismantled in the Mediterranean province of Antalya in March.

The airplane will be plunged 30 meters deep in the sea about 1 sea mile off the İbrice Harbor.

“Our plane will meet with the sea on June 14. This is a very good opportunity for us. This will be the biggest airplane to be sunk so far [in the world]. Its dimensions are enormous. It has a size of the approximately 60-meter-long body and 60-meter-wide wings,” said one of the divers, who will be responsible for the sinking process.

“It will not probably be possible to have a visit of the plane without doing two dives. We are very excited,” said Serdar Savaşal.

Savaşal said that many foreign and local tourists will come to the area with the addition of this Airbus A330 to diving tourism. “I believe that thanks to this diving tourism, many divers especially from Greece and Bulgaria will come here…There is no other plane [that has been sunk] that is bigger in the world other than this. I think only this is even enough to draw attention,” he said.

According to the professional diver, Turkey would benefit from the increase in the number of such projects. “I hope that this project does not end with this plane. Additions can be made to this project. Vehicles, such as tanks used in the Gallipoli Campaign [during the World War I], can be sunk and this way memories [from the war] can be animated” he said.

The world’s first underwater history museum was established in the waters of Saros Bay as part of a project launched in 2010. 

Since then, many monuments depicting the Gallipoli Campaign and the statutes of soldiers who fought during the war were placed in the bottom of the sea.

Artificial reefs can be created by deliberately sending any number of things to the sea floor – such as planes, ships or even just concrete blocks. The idea is to produce a spectacle for divers as well as to provide a protected habitat for diverse sea life to develop and breed.