>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomar_Explorer
As K-129 had sunk in very deep water, at a depth of 16,500 feet (3.125 miles or 5.029 kilometres), located 1,560 miles (2,510 km) NW of Hawaii,[6] a large ship was required for the recovery operation. Such a vessel would be detected easily by Soviet vessels, which might then interfere with the operation, so an elaborate cover story was developed. The CIA contacted Hughes, who agreed to assist.[7]
While the ship did recover a portion of K-129 in 1974, a mechanical failure in the grapple caused two-thirds of the recovered section to break off during recovery.[8] This lost section is said to have held many of the most sought items, including the code book and nuclear missiles. It was subsequently reported two nuclear-tipped torpedoes and some cryptographic machines were recovered, along with the bodies of six Soviet submariners, who were given a formal, filmed burial at sea.[9]
The operation became public during February 1975 when the Los Angeles Times published a story about "Project Jennifer", followed by news stories with additional details in other publications, including The New York Times. The CIA, wanting neither to confirm nor deny the story, issued the Glomar response, which set the precedent for subsequent responses to Freedom of Information Act requests.[10] The true name of the project was not known publicly to be Project Azorian until 2010.
The publication Red Star Rogue (2005) by Kenneth Sewell makes the claim "Project Jennifer" recovered virtually all of K-129 from the ocean floor.[11][12] Sewell states, "[D]espite an elaborate cover-up and the eventual claim that Project Jennifer had been a failure, most of K-129 and the remains of the crew were, in fact, raised from the bottom of the Pacific and brought into the Glomar Explorer".[N 1] A subsequent movie and book by Michael White and Norman Polmar revealed testimony from on-site crewmen as well as B&W video of the actual recovery operation. These sources indicate that only the forward 38 ft (12 m) of the submarine were recovered.
The vessel was reflagged from Houston, US to Port Vila, Vanuatu during the third quarter of 2013.[18]
Transocean announced during April 2015 that the ship would be scrapped.[19]
The World Ship Society's November 2015 magazine stated that the ship arrived at the Chinese ship breakers at Zhoushan on 5 June 2015.[20]