The Lucona Affair

The Lucona was a ship sunk in the Indian Ocean in 1977 by a bomb planted by Austrian businessman Udo Proksch, as part of an insurance fraud. The author describes how the Eastport Search and Sea Floor Mapping System, named EXPLORER 6000 (for its 20,000 foot search capability), and its companion ROV, named MAGELLAN 725 (a 25,000 foot depth capability), provided evidence the Austrian Court had sought to prove that the ship was sunk as part of the insurance fraud. The ship was precisely located and imaged with high frequency side scan sonar. Video tape and 35mm still photographs documented the ship in its final resting place. The mystery of how the ship sank was solved. The author narrates how a murder and insurance fraud was successfully uncovered utilizing the state-of-the-art in deep ocean sea floor search and work equipment.