[Ray Allan]

It's a shame Paul Allen or someone can't at least salvage some of the Lex's aircraft, especially the ones in the video footage that are located in the debris field a distance away from the ship. There are no surviving examples of the Douglas TBD Devastator torpedo bomber in museums, and only a few Grumman F4F Wildcat fighters. Lexington herself is considered a war grave, since 216 of her crew went down with the ship. The navy still considers its ships, even sunken ones its property, so there are a number of legal barriers to any kind of salvage operations, unless the navy approves it. Also it may be impossible with today's technology to retrieve a damaged, fragile 76-year-old airplane from 10,000 feet at the bottom of the ocean without totally destroying it. So they will probably remain there as museum pieces on the sea floor for the foreseeable future.