LONDON \u2014 The famed jet boat\u00a0Bluebird\u00a0returned to the water Saturday for the first time since a 1967 crash that killed pilot Donald Campbell during a world speed-record attempt.<\/p>\n
Watched by well-wishers including Campbell’s daughter Gina Campbell, the sleek blue hydroplane was lowered into Loch Fad on Scotland’s Isle of Bute, where it will undergo low-speed tests.<\/p>\n
Campbell had already set eight land and water speed records when he attempted to break his own 276.3 mph (445 kph) water-speed record on Jan. 4, 1967 on Coniston Water in northwest England’s Lake District.<\/p>\n
The jet-powered\u00a0Bluebird\u00a0roared past 300 mph (482 kph) before it vaulted into the air, flipped and crashed into the lake, breaking in two and killing the 45-year-old Campbell.<\/p>\n
It was 34 years before divers managed to raise the\u00a0Bluebird’s wreckage from the bottom of 150-foot (45-meter) deep lake in March 2001.<\/p>\n
Human remains were found near the boat and confirmed by DNA testing as belonging to Campbell. In September 2001, his body was taken on a final boat trip around the lake where he died before being buried in a nearby churchyard.<\/p>\n
A team has been working for 17 years to restore the vessel and hopes to return it to the Lake District next year.<\/p>\n
The plans to rebuild the\u00a0Bluebird\u00a0faced some opposition, but gained support from Gina Campbell, who was 17 when her father died. On Saturday, she held her father’s mascot \u2014 a stuffed bear named Mr. Whoppit that was recovered from Coniston Water after the crash.<\/p>\n
She said she was \u201coverwhelmed\u201d by the occasion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope my dad’s looking down from above and telling everybody what a good job was done,\u201d she told the BBC.<\/p>\n
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