A SCUBA diver who has spent years unravelling the mystery surrounding an iconic sea plane lost off the coast of Hampshire more than 60 years ago, has been honoured for his work.

John Greenwood, of Hythe, has been appointed one of Britain’s first Wreck Champions, by the British Sub-Aqua Club (BSAC).

The accolade is in recognition of his work diving on, photographing, and attempting to identify the wreck of a Sunderland Flying Boat, which lies 25 metres beneath the waves off Calshot.

John and other members of Calshot Sub-Aqua Club, have been researching the wreck since discovering there were three Sunderlands which sank in the area between 1944 and 1953.

After years of painstaking work and even tracking down and re-uniting the relatives of two crew members who survived the burning wreckage of one of the lost seaplanes, John says the team is close to cracking the mystery.

He now believes the wreck is that of Royal Canadian Air Force aircraft, stationed in Ireland, which may have been delivering Christmas post to UK military bases, in December 1944, when it sank.

Now John and the team at Calshot Divers are preparing for their next dive on the wreck to attempt to film it and identify it once and for all.

Thanks to his dedication to the Sunderland Flying Boat wreck project, John has been named as one of BSAC’s first Wreck Champions, a network of ambassadors appointed to help raise awareness of the UK’s underwater heritage.

They will also help spread the word about how people can get training and advice through BSAC to safely and responsibly dive wrecks for themselves.

There are around 40,000 wrecks lying in UK waters, including around 100 that have special protection and so permission must be sought to dive on them.

Jane Maddocks, BSAC’s Wrecks and Underwater Cultural Heritage advisor and a national diving instructor, from Gosport, said: “John’s dedication to identifying the Calshot Flying Boat has produced an important body of research into Britain’s underwater heritage, which will provide an educational legacy for generations to come.

“It is important that this history is not lost, and we owe John and the whole team at Calshot Sub-Aqua Club a debt of gratitude for all their hard work.”

Until two years ago, it was thought the wreck of the Sunderland was that of PP118, built in 1945 at the Short Brothers factory in Rochester and sunk while moored at Calshot in February 1950 during a storm.

PP118 burst into flames after flares ignited while it was being salvaged three weeks later, and Leading Aircraftsman Peter Anderson, known as Andy Anderson, received the George Medal for his bravery after rescuing two crew members from the burning wreck.

The Calshot team’s investigation discovered that one of the engines had fallen off during the fire and this did not match up with what the divers knew about the Calshot wreck, in that it still has four engines.

Then when the Calshot lifeboat snagged and lifted one of the wreck’s propellers while moving their moorings, it was found to be of a different design to that which would have been used on the PP118s John and the Calshot Divers team returned to their research, and have managed to rule out a second possibility that the wreck is the G-AGKY, built in Rochester in 1943 and was converted into a civilian passenger aircraft which went into service with Aquila Airways.

That aircraft was reportedly written off following an accident off Cowes and sank off Calshot on January 28th 1953 while it was under tow. However subsequently discussions with ex-Aquila Airways staff and various paperwork have shown it was beached and scrapped.

John who is Calshot Divers’ Training Officer and a BSAC advanced instructor is now convinced the wreck must be last of the three Sunderlands which records show sank in the area.

ML883 sank slowly, and although it was during choppy seas in the middle of the night, there was no loss of life.

John, who has given several talks about Calshot SAC’s research, said: “I’m delighted to be named as a BSAC Wreck Champion.”

“We have an incredible number of wrecks lying around the UK’s coast. There is so much history there still waiting to be discovered.”

He added: “I’m sure when we do finally identify which aircraft is our wreck there will be research to do to find out the human stories connected to that aircraft.”

John and the team at Calshot SAC are now trying to find a suitable day when the tides, weather and visibility are favourable, so they can return to the wreck site to look for more clues.

Their next aim is to try to locate the aircraft’s fourth engine which was accidentally damaged by the RNLI anchor chain.

John, who took up diving in 1987, said: “The aircraft wreck lies upside down with one wing buried in the silt and the other slightly raised.

“The task now is to search for and locate that exposed engine as the other three are partly buried in silt. Once we do that we should be able to find the serial numbers and that will help us positively identify, once and for all, which Sunderland Flying Boat it actually is.”

“Despite the wreck being only 25m down, the main issue is visibility and tidal currents close to the shipping lane. It’s not a dive for inexperienced or novice divers as the currents can be surprisingly strong at most states of the tide.”