Family of Roberto Clemente hopeful to learn new information surrounding his death
By: Lauren Linder/KDKA-TV
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - In the 50 years since Roberto Clemente's death, his body and the plane wreckage have never been found. As family and fans commemorated the anniversary, loved ones shared that they hope to get more answers about his passing.
Clemente was just 38 when he died on Dec. 31, 1972, after the plane he was traveling on crashed off the coast of Puerto Rico. He was on a humanitarian mission to help earthquake victims in Nicaragua.
One of his three sons, Roberto Clemente Jr. said researchers have located the area where the plane went into the Atlantic Ocean.
He and his brothers know there is new technology out there and are discussing how they would like to proceed in the future.
"There's some studies that if we try to bring the fuselage up, the air will hit it, it will disintegrate immediately, so now it becomes a national gravesite where it lays, and that's how we need to keep it," Clemente Jr. said.
These are very early studies. At this time, no one has physically seen the wreckage, and the family doesn't have any plans to send divers to the site.