Echo River Spring ROV Recovery

On Feb. 21, 2017, a team of re-searchers from Mercy Academy in Louisville had two ROVs (Remote Operated Vehicles, cabled submarines with cameras) they were using to explore Echo River Spring get stuck in the spring. Since then, I have been working with some experienced cave divers, NPS dive safety personnel, and Park staff to develop a plan for cave divers to enter the spring and attempt a rescue of the ROVs. This Saturday, April 1, 2017, weather permitting, cave divers Mark Wenner and Marbry Hardin will be attempting to rescue the ROVs. 

One of the ROVs is in an estimated 20 meters (based on amount of tether out). It is tangled on a 30+ year old dive line placed back in the spring during exploration in the mid-80’s. We suspect it is the historic dive line from the dives that connected the spring to Echo River in the mid-80’s. When that ROV got tangled, they used the second ROV to get a look at the situa-tion with the first ROV and potentially rescue it. The second ROV seems to be stuck only a few meters into the spring. The best guess is that it is stuck between some rocks. We estimate that the ROVs are about three meters underwater. Before getting tangled, they did note that the conduit the first ROV was in was very large; they estimated it was at least four meters high.

See the article

See the full article on page 7 of the Cave Research Foundation’s quarterly newsletter (Vol 47 No 2.)