A 70-year-old man found dead in Lake Erie last week has been identified as Dave VanZandt, an underwater explorer who went missing while diving a recently discovered shipwreck, authorities and his nonprofit said.
VanZandt was the founder, director and chief archaeologist of Cleveland Underwater Explorers, which studies and documents shipwrecks and other sunken artifacts in the Great Lakes. The team of researchers, archaeologists and divers focuses primarily on Lake Erie, with the organization based in the area around the southern shore of the lake, according to its website.
Although VanZandt’s employee bio lists him as “semi-retired” from his positions with Cleveland Underwater Explorers, he still participated in some of their projects and had embarked on his first trip of the year on Saturday, the organization wrote in a Facebook post message detailing his death. While “diving a newly found shipwreck,” Cleveland Underwater Explorers said VanZandt “did not return to the boat and suffered a fatal diving accident.” Neither the organization nor the authorities who recovered his body have shared details about what exactly happened to him during the dive.
“Our condolences to his wife and family,” the nonprofit’s Facebook post read.
The United States Coast Guard initially confirmed that a 70-year-old man went missing in Lake Erie on Saturday afternoon around 4:00 PM ET. The agency said crews were searching for a recreational diver in the lake about 6 miles off the coast of Cleveland. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources and a dive team from Erie County eventually joined the search, but local divers from nearby Lake County were the ones who ultimately found VanZandt.
“At 7:45 p.m. local, Lake County divers recovered a body and confirmed it as the missing man,” USCG Great Lakes said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on Saturday evening.
The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the body as VanZandt, of Lakewood, after it was pulled from the water near Cleveland’s East 9th Street pier, Fox affiliate WJW reported, citing the medical examiner. CBS News reached out to the medical examiner’s office but did not immediately receive a response.
