Yet another mysterious sunken car has been recovered…
After a fisherman using sonar on Lake Wylie in York County, South Carolina discovered something large and strange under the water back in August, he called the local sheriff’s office. Upon reviewing the sonar data, it was decided to call in a dive team a month later, which discovered a silt-covered BMW in the murky depths of the lake.
Learn how a teenager with a GoPro solved a 27-year mystery here.
Using tow ropes and specialized airbags which inflate underwater, divers were able to lift up and pull out the worse-for-wear Bimmer. It was located about 50 feet off the shore and was about 20 feet below the water’s surface. Since vehicles will be buoyant for at least a few minutes after they’re driven into water, it likely floated to that spot before finally sinking.
Running the VIN tags, authorities were able to quickly determine the BMW was reported stolen from Charlotte back in 2017. Everyone will have their theories about how and why it ended up in the lake, but an investigation is ongoing. According to spokesman from the York County Sheriff’s Office, finding cars in Lake Wylie is rare, so it’s not a common dumping ground for criminals.
Thanks to ever-increasing technologies, cars which have sat underwater even in busy lakes are being discovered by everyday people. We’ve covered quite a few of these water extractions, including a team pulling dozens of vehicles out of bodies of water in one metropolitan area.
While these submerged cars are likely worth very little, recovering them can serve multiple purposes. For one, they might help provide closure for those who never found out what happened to a loved one. Occasionally, there will be a body discovered in these underwater cars. Pulling them out of waterways also cuts down on the threat of continued pollution. Sure, they have already contributed to that, so there’s no extracting what they’ve already leeched into the water, but removing these vehicles at least puts a stop to that.
Photo credit: York County Sheriff’s Office
Source: Charlotte Observer
