Gardline Locater

HMS Blackburn was the lead ship of the Blackburn-class aircraft transports built for the Royal Navy in World War II. She was launched on 25 March 1944 at Blyth Shipbuilding & Dry Docks Company in Blyth, Northumberland, England. With a length of 172 feet (52 metres) and a beam of 30 feet (9 metres), she displaced 990 tons. Her propulsion consisted of two 8-cylinder diesel engines. The ship's purpose was to transport aircraft and spare parts along the coasts of the British Isles. In 1950 she became a RNVR training ship. In July 1968 the ship was sold to Pounds Shipowners and Shipbreakers Ltd in Portsmouth, but was subsequently sold again to Gardline Shipping in Great Yarmouth, a company founded in 1969 to provide offshore services to the oil and gas industry in the North Sea. Gardline Shipping had the ship converted into a deep sea research vessel and renamed her Gardline Locater (IMO number 7048063, 747 GRT). In July 1985 the ship played a key role in the recovery of the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and the flight data recorder (FDR) of Air India Flight 182 that disintegrated in mid air after a bomb explosion on 23 June 1985 with 329 people on board off the southwest coast of Ireland. Gardline Locater, equipped with sophisticated sonar, and the French cable-laying vessel Léon Thévenin, with her robot submarine Scarab 1, were dispatched to locate the CVR and FDR boxes.