The Mysterious Disappearance of Flight 19
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are my assumptions. You may or may not agree with it.
Can science and logic explain everything?
The imaginary line connecting Bermuda, Florida and Puerto Rico has seen a significant number of disappearances under mysterious circumstances. Even today, the mysterious occurrences continue to be reported. The disappearances at Bermuda triangle or the Devil’s triangle became a subject of interest and garnered attention from all over the world starting long back from the times of Christopher Columbus. The scientists and research enthusiasts have come up with various theories explaining the reason behind the disappearances of fights and ships without a trace. Though, the period prior to 1945 reported many mysterious disappearances, it is the disappearance of Flight 19 in December 1945 that brought this place into limelight.
The Mission
Flight 19 was a group of five U.S. Navy Grumman TBF Avenger warplanes that disappeared while they were on their usual training with an estimated time of 2 hrs. The Avengers normally carried a crew of three each, including the pilot. But one man failed to show up that day. The plane was fully equipped with necessary devices and held a full load of fuel. The Pilots and crew men were well experienced with nearly 300 logged hours in air. It was headed by Lieutenant Charles C. Taylor, an experienced pilot and veteran of several combat missions during World War II.
The Unfortunate Event
The flight took off at 2:10 p.m. on December 5, 1945. They were to fly to the Hen and Chickens shoals in the Bahamas, to practice dropping the torpedoes and land at Fort Lauder dale Naval Air station. Everything seemed fine. Even the weather was good. They completed their assignment successfully and would be landing anytime soon. Just then, at 3:45 the operating tower received a strange message from the patrol. The voice said that they were off the course and couldn’t see the land. They weren’t sure of their position. They were given the instructions to head west. The patrol leader alarmingly said that they don’t know which way is west and that everything was strange. “We can’t be sure of any direction…… Even the ocean doesn’t look as it should”.
This puzzled the tower operators. Even if the compasses were damaged, they should still be able to find their way home by flying towards the setting sun. It appeared as if the sun was invisible to them. As time passed, the signals between the tower and flight gradually weakened. At 4:25, the new leader called the tower and said that they must be about 225 miles northeast of base. These were the last words from the flight.
The Futile Rescue
A giant Martin Mariner flying boat with a crew of 13 was immediately sent to rescue. The Mariner sent several routine radio reports signalling its approach to the Avengers, but could not see anything. As the tower operators waited for further messages from the rescue plane, none ever came. The constant efforts to re-establish the connection proved to be futile. The plane had gone the same route as those it was supposed to rescue.
Hundreds of ships and planes were launched to unearth what actually happened. It was one of the largest air and sea rescue efforts ever made in history. The ships covered almost 2,00,000 miles of the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. They tried to solve the puzzle of “the lost patrol”. The search continued for weeks. All areas were searched again and again. Nothing ever was found, not even a wreck. The Military was baffled. They tried to investigate what really must have gone wrong. Even if they ran out of fuel, they were well equipped to land safely on water and survive in the open sea. The members of the Naval Board of inquiry, after an extensive investigation concluded that they were unable to even venture a good guess as to what had happened.
The Unsatisfactory Report
The Navy Investigation took several months and the subsequent report was more than 400 pages long. They left no stone unturned during investigation. So many possible theories came up from the scientists. The investigation revealed that there were two instances earlier, where Lieutenant Charles got lost in the Pacific Ocean and had to be rescued. They assumed that the same must have happened, and he miscalculated the directions and led the patrol in the wrong way.
The Mystery Unanswered
The theories have not answered what led to the disappearance of the rescue plane and why there weren’t any debris found. This isn’t the first time something disappeared. What happened to all the earlier disappeared ships and flights ? What must have been the cause of their disappearances ? Is it the Aliens? Is it the UFOs? Is it some sea monsters? Or is it the weird electro-magnetic fields? Or did they get teleported to somewhere else? There were instances where ghosted ships were found intact without any crew on them. No reasons explained their abandoning. The theories of Pirates were ruled out as the valuable goods remained well within the ships. What made Christopher Columbus give the place an air of mystery? What must have changed the weather all of a sudden? The unusual events occur even today. Science may not have answers to most of the happenings in the universe. Or maybe we only know much about the land of the earth and nothing about its waters. We never really know what’s underneath them. The mysteries may or may not be uncovered in the future. Till then, the Bermuda triangle remains spooky, garnering attention from all over the world.
Picture Credits-
*https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/disasters-and-phenomena/flight-19.html
