![]() Their disappearance launched one of the largest air and sea searches in history, and began the legend of the Bermuda Triangle. A massive search was launched for 5 lost planes, with units of the Navy, Army and Coast Guard to scour the sea for the lost NASFL Aircraft. That was on December 5, 1945, several months after the end of World War II. Taylor mistakenly led Flight 19 far out to sea, where the planes apparently ran out of fuel and crashed. ![]() By this time, the weather and sea conditions got worse, as the evening wore on. Flight 19 completed their assigned exercise and on their way back about 90 minutes after takeoff, the squadron commander Lt. It was their last practice before graduation, and they had done this before (it was simply called Flight 19 as there were Flight 17, Flight 18, etc, training squadrons on that particular day). It was supposed to be a routine navigation exercise and mock bombing run: a squadron of five TBM Avenger torpedo bombers carrying 14 men were to fly to the Hen and Chickens shoals in the Bahamas, to practice dropping their torpedoes and then return to the Fort Lauderdale Naval Air Station. The temperature was 67 degrees. The general weather conditions were considered average for training flights of this nature, except within showers.įlight 19 is mistakenly called "The Lost Patrol." It was not a patrol flight, it was a training flight. 27.Flight 19 Disappearance: 5 December 1945, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.Ī warm day with billowing clouds soaring overhead in the current of a gusting southwest trade wind. The Sci-Fi channel will broadcast a new documentary Nov. Several ocean expeditions, documentaries and books offer varying theories, ranging from paranormal activities to sightings of alien activity. The Navy Board of Inquiry report concluded, “We are not able to even make a good guess as to what happened.”ĭid Flight 19 turn east? Was landfall ever reached? Where was the debris? “Five all qualified pilots missing at one time? I couldn’t believe it.”Įven the official review offered little explanation. “In all the times I remember we never had one plane missing,” White said. Civilian vessels and units of the Coast Guard, Army and Navy scoured an area of more than 250,000 square miles, but no wreckage was ever found. The next morning, White became part of one of the largest rescue missions in American naval history. Though a passing ship reported seeing bright lights in the sky indicating what could be an in-air explosion, no evidence of the Mariner was ever found either. The mystery deepened when a few hours later a Navy rescue airplane, a Martin Mariner with 13 crewmen, also vanished. “You stay with the leader, that’s the Navy way,” McElhiney said. Radio messages show that some of the students wanted to fly east, said Allan McElhiney, president of the Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale Historical Association. ![]() Just about the time the squadron was to have landed back at Fort Lauderdale, a last radio message from Taylor was received: They would keep flying “until we hit the beach or run out of gas.” Due to weakening radio signals, no reading could be made on the direct location of the planes. The entire flight, which Air Station pilots took three or four times a day, should have lasted three hours. They were then to turn north to practice mapping and then southwest to home. Charles Taylor, were to practice bombing and low-level strafing on small coral shoals 60 miles east of the naval station. The five pilots and nine crewmen, led by instructor Lt. Navy Avenger airplanes left the Fort Lauderdale Naval Air Station on a routine training mission over the Bahamas. “There’s just so many weird things here that experienced pilots would have not acted this way,” Shaw said. What happened is the question that has befuddled, entertained and tormented both skeptics and believers in the Bermuda Triangle, a stretch of ocean between Puerto Rico, Bermuda and Miami that many believe is an area of supernatural phenomena. Clay Shaw, R-Fla., said he hoped the gesture would help bring closure for surviving families. 5, 1945, were honored in a House resolution yesterday. The 27 Navy airmen who disappeared somewhere off Florida’s coast on Dec. The disappearance of Flight 19, a Navy mission that began the myth of the Bermuda Triangle, is still unexplained but not forgotten 60 years later.
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