YS-11 PLANE WRECK OAHU
| Type of Dive | Visibility | Max Depth | Average Depth | Bottom Time | Difficulty 1-10 |
| Plane Wreck | 70-100ft. | 115ft. | 105ft. | 15 Minutes | 9.5 |
The YS-11 is a cool plane wreck for scuba diving in Hawaii that sits about 115 feet
down on smooth Hawaiian sand. The area which is close to Diamondhead
state park is prone to strong currents which actually keeps this
Oahu diving location very clean and in tact. Hardly any dive
companies or even dive instructors know this diving location, due to
its lack of direct approach- there is no mooring line or markers
this dive can be a tricky adventure.
Atlantis Submarines Hawaii bought this plane from Mid Pacific airlines with out the engines when it went out
of business. Atlantis consequently bought 2 of these planes. These
planes were painstakingly striped of any toxic debris, cleaned
thoroughly and prepared for their final resting location.
With
engines removed these planes were gently laid in waters no deeper
than 115 feet.
Atlantis Submarine Hawaii could have put these planes
in shallower areas however knowing that storms and strong swells
would gradually tear these planes apart they agreed on laying them
in the deeper parts of their tour location. The planes became the icon of the Oahu Atlantis
Submarine adventure, providing excellent protection for smaller fish
thus bringing in the larger jacks and reef sharks such as the whitetip reef shark. A Hurricane back in the 90s
which struck the island back damaged both planes ripping the
fuselage in three pieces. Over the years the plane parts
we gradually broken up now leaving the center fuselage and wings. Although much smaller
this plane wreck is still interesting and leaves divers wanting to
explore this plane wreck of Oahu once more.
| Wing span | Cruising Speed | Cost when purchased | Capacity | Empty weight | Engines |
| 105 feet | 282 mph | $ 2,400,000 | 52-64 | 32,187 lb | 2× Rolls-Royce turboprop engines |
Getting to this Oahu plane wreck is easy. We get to it from the Yo-257 shipwreck. Since there is no mooring line we will use the Yo-257's line. Using the Yo-257's mooring line we descend down to around 50 feet where this huge mooring line ball is located. The mooring ball located on the stern of the yo-257 is where we will start our 5 minute swim to the YS-11 aircraft. Looking down from the ball, right behind the stern of the Yo-257 you will see square bricks used as a pathway to help guide the submarine that uses this area in low visibility. (Don't worry, the visibility is hardly bad here).
Start your swim out, keeping an eye on the bricks and soon you will be greeted with the wing of the YS-11 plane wreck. At that point start your descent down to the plane. The plane lays in deep water as I mentioned so staying at 60 feet for the swim over is a very good idea to keep you from using much air. Watching you air consumption is a must here on this wreck dive of Hawaii. Again, sitting at 115 feet you only really have around 15 minutes on this wreck so what we recommend is spend around 7 minutes then head back and ride out the rest of the dive on the Yo-257 shipwreck.