Martin Maryland
A wartime reconnaissance bomber lying inverted on sand at seventy metres off Marsaskala, located by sonar in 2020 and firmly in the realm of permitted technical diving.
Wreck
AircraftDivers rarely, if ever, come here.
We found no record of anyone diving this site. It is charted so the picture of what lies under the water is complete, not because it is a place to go: there is no set route, no local briefing to lean on, and nothing on this page has been proven in the water.
Sea conditions
Stay dry right now
Sea is up (3.1 m WNW) · Fresh W wind (33 km/h)
Done for today. Tomorrow: not looking good. Best it gets is 19 at 17:00: Sea is up (1.3 m NW)
Forecast for the site, updated 19:45 · Models disagree
Measured at Delimara (8.8 km away, 20:29): 25 km/h from W, gusts 40. The next hours lean on it.
- Waves
- 3.1 m
- from WNW, biggest 4.7
- Wind
- 33 km/h
- W, gusts 45
- Swell
- 0.8 m
- 10 s period
- Sea temp
- 22 °C
- air 19 °C
Hour by hour
Next 7 days
0 3.1 m51 W
0 3.1 m49 WNW
48 0.9 m19 WNW
80 0.5 m17 ESE
65 0.6 m16 ESE
65 0.6 m22 NE
70 0.5 m22 ESE
Sunrise 06:24, sunset 17:05
Waves: Copernicus Med-Waves 4 km + MFWAM 8 km + EWAM 5 km + ECMWF WAM 9 km. Wind: ICON-2I 2 km + ECMWF IFS 9 km + ICON-EU 7 km + UKMO 10 km + ARPEGE 11 km. Read a few km out on the side the site is open to, then blended.
Exposed to wind and swell from: N (0°), NE (45°), E (90°), SE (135°), S (180°). Fully offshore and open to the eastern half of the compass. A deep decompression dive here needs a flat, settled sea for the ascent and the recovery, so the weather window matters more than the site itself. Best season: June to October, when the sea settles and the water is warm enough to make long decompression stops bearable..
The dive
This one is a trophy rather than a dive you book on a whim. The aircraft sits upside down at seventy metres on a gravelly sand bottom off the Marsaskala coast, well past any recreational limit and deep enough that a visit means trimix, decompression and a properly run team. It was found in spring 2020 during a side-scan sonar survey run by the University of Malta, which is why it is one of the newest names on Malta's deep wreck list.
What is down there is a broken but readable airframe. The wings have survived well, the nose section is smashed, the fuselage is scattered debris, and the tail assembly and the port engine are identifiable. The starboard engine lies roughly sixty metres away with its three-bladed propeller still attached, most likely thrown clear when the aircraft hit the water. Inside the wreckage a cockpit seat survives, which is the detail every account of the site comes back to, and the bomb bay shows the extra fuel tank fitted to give these machines the range for long reconnaissance runs.
At seventy metres the colour is gone and the light is thin, so this is a torch-and-shadows dive. Bottom times are short, the plan is rigid, and most of the dive is spent hanging in blue water on the way back up. If you want to see it without the gas bill, Underwater Malta's virtual museum has photogrammetry of the site that is genuinely worth an evening.
The legal side matters. Anything older than fifty years in Maltese waters is protected heritage, and visiting the historic wrecks means going through one of the small number of dive centres licensed by Heritage Malta. Turning up with your own boat and a set of twins is not an option.
- A Second World War reconnaissance bomber, inverted and intact enough to read
- Starboard engine and propeller thrown clear and lying alone on the sand
- A surviving cockpit seat, the detail nobody forgets
- Only found in 2020, so still a rarely visited site
- Viewable as photogrammetry through Underwater Malta's virtual museum
Typical plan
A permitted technical dive. Descend a shot to the debris field at seventy metres on trimix, spend fifteen to twenty minutes covering the wings, cockpit area and tail, and decide in advance whether the detached starboard engine sixty metres away is in or out of the plan, because it costs real bottom time. Ascend the line on a staged plan with decompression gases, typically an intermediate nitrox and oxygen from six metres, for something in the region of forty five to sixty minutes of stops. Surface support with spare gas and oxygen is mandatory practice. Nothing about this dive is casual, and it goes through a Heritage Malta approved centre or it does not happen.
What the bottom looks like
- 1Inverted main wing section70 m deep · under the boat
- 2Broken nose and cockpit area with surviving seat70 m deep · 10 m from the boat
- 3Bomb bay with long-range fuel tank70 m deep · 23 m from the boat
- 4Tail assembly70 m deep · 37 m from the boat
- 5Port engine70 m deep · 45 m from the boat
- 6Gravelly sand with scattered debris70 m deep · 65 m from the boat
- 7Starboard engine and propeller, about 60 m away70 m deep · 95 m from the boat
Flat gravelly sand at seventy metres, with aircraft debris spread across it.
Who you might meet
Almost always
Sometimes
Marked ones can hurt you. What they do and what to do about it is under Getting in and staying safe.
Getting in and staying safe
Only for serious professionals who know exactly what they are doing. With no record of anyone diving here there is no one to ask and no set route, so treat every line below as the start of your own planning, not a briefing. Plan it as an expedition, not a dive.
Boat only, and not a boat you organise yourself. Malta's historic wreck sites are protected under the Cultural Heritage Act, and dives on them must be arranged through one of the handful of dive centres holding Heritage Malta permission, with a licensed boat. Expect a briefing on what you may and may not touch, a strict no-souvenir rule, and a run out from Marsaskala or the Grand Harbour area. Surface support with oxygen and a deco station is standard practice for this depth.
Where the boat stops
Permit only. Dived only through a centre registered with Heritage Malta, from a boat with AIS and clearance from Valletta or Marsaxlokk VTS. Nobody else may stop inside the protected area around it.
Positions as charted (WGS84) in Transport Malta Notice to Mariners 02 of 2024, archaeological zones at sea . Check the latest notice before you rely on them.
- Seventy metres: trimix, decompression and full technical training required
- Serious oxygen toxicity and narcosis exposure at depth
- Very short bottom time for a long, committing ascent
- Low light and no colour, torches essential
- Fragile debris field that damages easily and should not be entered
- Offshore with no shelter and a long surface interval on the boat
- Protected heritage site, unauthorised diving is an offence
- Possible current at depth over open sand
Marine life to respect
Conger eel · Gringu Can hurt you
Crushing bite if a hand goes into its hole. Look in from a distance and keep fingers out.
Red scorpionfish · Ċippullazza Can hurt you
Venomous spines, and it sits still on the rock. Look before you kneel or hold on; hot water if stung.
A bit of history
The Martin Model 167 was designed by the Glenn L. Martin Company for a 1938 United States Army Air Corps light bomber requirement. The Americans passed on it, but France ordered it in quantity and Britain inherited and expanded those orders, naming it the Maryland. Marylands reached Malta in September 1940 with No. 431 Flight, flying the long-range photographic reconnaissance sorties that made the island so valuable to the Mediterranean campaign. It was a Maryland from Malta that brought back the photographs of the damage done to the Italian fleet at Taranto in November 1940 after Operation Judgement. This particular aircraft carried a crew of three and went into the sea off Marsaskala; it lay undisturbed and unknown until a University of Malta side-scan sonar survey picked it up in the spring of 2020.
Divers say
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Further reading: Underwater Malta: Martin Maryland · Underwater Malta: shipwrecks and the law · Heritage Malta: Underwater Cultural Heritage Unit