After failing to return to the site in 1953, Navarra resolved to return in 1955. For his next attempt, he sought to avoid potential delays caused by securing permission from the Turkish authorities to climb Ararat. To that end, he disguised the mission as a family vacation, bringing his wife and three sons to Turkey and scaling the mountain with eleven-year-old Raphael Navarra. The father and son filmed their recovery of a beam of hand-hewn wood, which Fernand said was cut from the structure he located in 1952. To make the wood easier to carry without arousing suspicion from the Turks, they cut the beam into smaller pieces.