Hunt for lost Avro Arrow models in Lake Ontario gets underway

The search to find nine missing Avro Arrow prototypes, which were launched over Lake Ontario in the early 1950s, gets underway Friday.

An autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) will begin to explore the waters off of Point Petre in Prince Edward County, an area thought to contain missing Avro Arrow test models.

WATCH: Search for lost Avro Arrow models in Lake Ontario begins

1:52 Search begins for lost Avro Arrow models in Lake Ontario

The expedition dubbed Raise the Arrow is a search-and-recovery project in connection to celebrating Canada’s 150th anniversary and is a collaborative effort with a handful of Canadian mining companies.

READ MORE: 55 years later, biggest question surrounding Avro Arrow remains “what if?”

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“Today’s launch of the search marks an important milestone in bringing back a lost piece of Canadian history to the public,” John Burzynski, CEO of Osisko Mining and leader of the expedition, said in a statement. “The Arrow was meant to be the future of aviation – by finding and retrieving these marvelous examples of Canadian advanced technological design, this project is a proud reminder of what we as Canadians have done, and what we Canadians can do.”

The test models used in the early ‘50s were about an eighth of the size of the full CF-105 Arrow, and have been lost ever since. On March 25, 1958, the Avro Arrow made its first test flight. The program was scrapped a few months later. The CF-105 was originally designed as a long-range interceptor, meant to meet and destroy Soviet bombers.

READ MORE: Avro Arrow replica travels the streets of Toronto and Mississauga

If the expedition is successful and the test models are recovered, the prototypes will be housed at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa and the National Air Force Museum of Canada in Trenton, Ontario.

–With a file from Elton Hobson.