Flight 19 disappearance in Bermuda Triangle
The saga of Flight 19 remains as one of the most mysterious disappearances in Bermuda Triangle. Flight-19 was the code name for Five Grumman Avenger bomber planes that took off from the Naval base at Florida on December 5, 1945, but never returned.
U.S Navy's final report mentioned "Reasons Unknown" when citing the cause of the incident. Thus Flight-19 also became known as 'The Lost Patrol'.
So what was actually Flight 19 and what really happened? Flight 19 was a training flight with five TBM Avengers or Torpedo Bombers and was led by Commander Charles Taylor. Each was a 3-seater plane, very robust, safe and US Navy's best bombing planes to destroy enemy submarines. It could carry up to 2,000 pounds of bombing ammunitions and had a range of 1,000 miles.
Grumman TBM Avengers similar to Flight 19
Other than Taylor, there were 13 others in the flight (in different planes) but were all trainees. Taylor was the only experienced pilot. On December 5, 1945 at 2:10 p.m., the five Avengers of Flight 19 took off one after the other from the Naval Air Station (NAS) of Fort Lauderdale at Florida for a routine training session. It was a clear day.
As per plans, the flight's path was to first go towards East into the sea for 56 nautical miles up to Hens and Chicken Shoals to practice bombings. Then they were supposed go further east for another 67 nautical miles towards the Bahamas. At this point they would turn north and go for 73 nautical miles. Then turn back, head south-west and fly 120 nautical miles to get back to the Naval Base in Florida. This way they would cover a triangular area over the sea.
The triangle with the red line on the picture below was the planned route of the flight 19. The weather over the route was reported as excellent, a typical sunny Florida day.
At about 3:30 p.m., Taylor sent a message to the control tower that his compass was malfunctioning and he thought he was somewhere around the Florida Keys, which is a chain of islands south of Florida (i.e. further south of the location where they took off). So instead of heading towards East, he thought that they actually flew southwards due to compass problems.
Immediately an instruction was given from the tower to turn north and fly towards Miami, only if he was sure that they were at the Florida keys. However, Taylor's idea of being close to the Keys was wrong. They had probably gone to the East as originally planned, but for some reason he got confused. As he guided the flight more towards north, further out to the sea the avengers traveled.
At 3.45 p.m., Taylor's voice was heard again at the control towers. This time he sounded worried and confused ... "Cannot see land, we seem to be off course". At this stage there was another transmission that was picked up when one trainee student said to the other "If we would just fly west, we would get home." He was right. But who would care? After all they had to follow a stubborn leader.
While these days the pilots use modern navigational equipment like the GPS, in 1945 a pilot had to rely on his starting point, speed, time of flight and the direction indicated by the compass to know where he would exactly be during the flight. If any of these deviated, there was a high chance that the flight would be lost.
However, let me also state an interesting fact here before we go further into the Flight 19 story. While Taylor was an experienced pilot, he did have a history of getting lost. He was lost thrice during the World War II. And in two of such occasions, he had to ditch his plane into the sea to get rescued. Secondly, he did not have good knowledge about the area around east and south of Florida.
So, an interesting twist to the story?
Yes. In fact, at about 4:45 p.m. on that day, it was quite clear to the men on the Base Station that Taylor was hopelessly lost, and he was still trying to go further North and then East again. He was then instructed to hand over the control to one of the trainee pilots. Apparently he did not.
At 5:50 p.m. the ComGulf Center somehow managed to trace the Flight 19 avengers on its radar. It was apparently at the east of New Smyrna Beach, Florida. By then communications had become so poor that this information could not be passed on to the lost planes. It was getting dark. The weather started to become rough too and the Avengers were very low in fuel. Hope was rapidly fading for the Flight 19 by then.
Officers at the naval base station thought it was enough. At 7:27p.m, two Martin Mariner seaplanes were sent to search for the Flight-19 planes. These mariners were like flying boats that could also land on the sea. The last transmission from Flight-19 was heard at 7:04 p.m.
Search continued all through the night and the next day. There was no sign of the Avengers. The rescue Mariners were supposed to meet at the search zone. But quite strangely the second Mariner never showed up,
it too had apparently disappeared never to return again.
What happened to the Flight-19?
So, what may have finally happened to the flight 19 planes? Over the next 5 days, 250,000 square miles of area in the Atlantic ocean was literally combed by the coast guards, navy ships and aircraft. No trace was found of any oil leakage, life raft, fire or wreckage of any sort. Here is one of the most acceptable explanations of Flight 19 tragedy although the disappearance has actually remained a mystery until date.
It was getting dark. The sea started to foam and was becoming heavy too. Strong breeze further complicated the matter. Many communications took place between the trainees and the flight leader Charles Taylor during this time. This was evident from the transmissions that were intercepted at the tower. There seemed to be a strong difference in opinion between them over the position of the flight.
The trainees were insisting that they should fly west. They were right. If they flew west, they would have reached home. However, in order to keep with the military discipline, the team continued to follow the leader.
Being hopelessly lost and knowing that the planes were running out of fuel, Charles Taylor possibly made up a plan that they would continue to look for the base station until the fuel level came below 10 gallons. And then all would ditch their planes together into the Atlantic with a last hope of survival. And soon it was time to do that...
The planes as they descended in the dark and into the foaming sea, it was very likely that they all would have crashed into the water. Well, you can't expect these heavy iron birds weighing some 14,000 pounds each to survive and to be seen again once they crashed into the sea. And that too during a rough stormy weather when the waves were some 50-foot high. Even if some survived the crash, they would have anyway died in the freezing cold December water of the Atlantic.
In 1986, a wreckage was found off the coast of Florida while a search was going on for the space shuttle Challenger. The wreck was taken out of the ocean by Aviation archaeologist Jon Myhre in 1990. He was convinced that it was one of the Flight 19 planes, but could not provide a definite evidence.
In 1991 a salvaging ship found the wrecks of five Avenger planes 600 feet below at the ocean bottom and off the coast of Florida. But after examination it was confirmed that they were not Flight 19 planes. So the incident has continued to remain as a mystery.
Well in the initial report, the U.S. Navy wanted to show this accident as something caused by confusion on part of commander Charles Taylor. But Taylor's mother was not ready to accept this as this would ruin her son's reputation. She vehemently objected and forced the Navy to produce the final report with the cause shown as Reasons Unknown.
The final report said "We are not able to even make a good guess as to what happened". While this may have spared the sentiment of the woman, but had blurred the facts considerably. And such official report only further cemented the belief among millions of people around the world that Bermuda Triangle is indeed an evil space.
Update May 2014
1) Now here are some interesting findings that point the fingers to a different direction. Two men - John Myhre (an Aviation archaeologist I had already mentioned in earlier section) and Andy Marocco have been trying to track the route of the Flight 19 avenger bomber planes and identify the crash site for over 25 years. Based on several circumstantial evidences, they say that the wreck of the torpedo bomber that was discovered in 1989 at Everglades (in Broward County) was that of Charles Taylor's plane. Taylor was the commander of flight-19 squadron.
2) They collected US Navy's 500 page report of Flight-19, and figured out that the aircraft carrier USS Solomon which was offshore from Daytona Beach in Florida, was actually able to pickup radar signals of few unidentified planes at around 7pm on that same day when the incident took place. They were all flying over north Florida, at an altitude of about 4,000ft and at a speed of 135mph when they took a turn towards south east. Based on speed, time and flight position, Myhre and Maroccco calculated that it was quite possible one of the planes would have crashed near where the torpedo bomber wreckage was found in 1989.
3) They also closely looked at a file picture of the cockpit of torpedo bomber found in 1989 and determined that it was that of a TBM-3 avenger plane identical to which Taylor was flying. They also concluded from the Navy archives that US Navy does not have any record of a TBM-3 avenger plane crashing between 1944 to 1952 other than that of the Flight 19 which went missing in 1945. This further supports the fact that the wreck at Everglades could be that of Flight 19.
4) From an internet picture of a shoe hill found from the 1989 torpedo bomber's crash site, it was determined that the shoe size was 11 which could only fit a man who was minimum 6ft tall. Charles Taylor was 6ft 1-inch tall.
5) So all fingers are now pointing to the wreck at Everglades found in 1989 to be that of Flight 19. But is it confirmed that the 1989 wreck was indeed that of Charles Taylor? Well the problem is, the wreckage itself has now vanished. One imagines that over the years, collectors and others would have taken it away piece by piece. For final conclusion, one needs to look at the Navy bureau identity numbers on the wings of the 1989 wreck and tally that with the plane of Charles Taylor or any other missing plane of flight 19. If they tally, then you can be sure it was that plane. But where can one find the wings now? Nobody knows.... and the mystery is technically still unresolved.
6) But even if the above is conclusive, what could have happened to the remaining planes? Marocco and Myhre say that they would have got scattered and gone into different directions. It was dark and quite possible that they lost each other.
The well known and respected author Larry Kusche had explored the baffling mystery of Flight 19's disappearance by interviewing Commander Charles Taylor's Navy Comrades, friends and relatives and has documented his findings in his book The Disappearance of Flights 19 where he concluded that it was a series of mistakes on part of Commander Taylor that resulted into such a dreaded disappearance.
About the Author
By Raj Bhattacharya
Raj has been writing about Bermuda since 2008, when he launched bermuda-attractions.com — one of the longest-standing independent guides to the island. His work draws on personal visits, local contacts in Bermuda, and questions and trip reports from thousands of readers over the years.
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