On December 5, 1945, a flight of five U.S. Navy Avenger torpedo bombers took off from their base in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, on a training mission that was to include practice bombing runs and aerial navigation over open sea. The weather was clear and the sea moderate to choppy. The afternoon flight left the Ft. Lauderdale Naval Air Station (NAS) and headed east over the Atlantic Ocean, but they never made it back.
About the Bermuda Triangle: The Bermuda Triangle (also known as the Devil’s Triangle) consists of a loosely defined area of the Atlantic Ocean stretching from Miami in South Florida northeast to the Island of Bermuda, and southeast to Puerto Rico. There have been eleven incidents involving aircraft, and fourteen incidents involving ships that reportedly disappeared in this triangular area of the ocean. In the early 1950’s written articles appeared in the media suggesting that mysterious and/or supernatural forces were to blame for the incidents. In 1952 an article in Fate magazine, “Sea Mystery at Our Back Door,” by George Sand made the first reference to this triangular area and to a Flight of Navy planes disappearing on a training mission in the middle of it. The Sand article insinuated that the planes encountered some supernatural element that condemned them not to return to base. In April, 1962, Allan W. Eckert wrote in American Legion Magazine that Flight 19’s flight leader said over the radio that, “We are entering white water, nothing seems right. We don’t know where we are, the water is green, no white.” In the next decade other writers were expounding upon the theory that supernatural forces could be responsible for the list of incidents in the Bermuda Triangle.
The Flight Plan and Bombing Exercise: After takeoff Flight 19 was to fly due east 56 nautical miles and perform a bomb drop on Hens and Chickens shoals, a practice bombing range. Upon completion they were to continue east another 67 nautical miles before turning north and flying 73 nautical miles crossing over the Bahamas. At that point they were to turn southwest and fly 120 nautical miles back to their base in Ft. Lauderdale. The flight leader, Navy Lieutenant Charles C. Taylor, had over 2,500 flight hours, mostly in the Avenger, and he was a veteran of the Pacific War. Before taking off he reported that none of the planes had clocks installed which would be needed for ocean arial navigation as an accurate elapsed time from course changes would be necessary.
Radio Transmissions: One of the major reasons for the mystery surrounding their disappearance is owing to the scattered and intermittent radio reception that was picked up back at Ft. Lauderdale NAS and other aircraft flying in the vicinity. What is known is that they did reach the practice bombing range, as NAS heard a pilot request permission to drop his remaining bomb about 3PM. About 3:40 PM another flight instructor, Lieutenant Robert F. Cox, queuing up at NAS to take off with another training group, received a transmission from an unidentified source requesting a compass reading from one of the student pilots. The pilot, Marine Corps Captain E.J. Powers, replied, “I don’t know where we are. We must have got lost after that last turn.” Cox then transmitted, “Powers, please identify yourself so that someone can help you.” A few minutes later, Cox picked up another transmission where one of the pilots was asking the others in the group for suggestions. Cox tried again, and this time Taylor transmitted back explaining that both his compasses were inoperable and he was trying to find Ft. Lauderdale. He further said, “I am over land, but it’s broken. I am sure I’m in the (Florida) Keys, but I don’t know how far down and I don’t know how to get to Ft Lauderdale.” Cox radioed to NAS headquarters that Flight 19 was lost. He then told Taylor to put the sun on his port (left) side and fly up the coast of Florida until he could see Ft. Lauderdale.
NAS then asked Taylor if he had his YG transmitter on that would enable radio signal triangulation which would tell the base where they were. There was no acknowledgement by Taylor of that transmission. A few minutes later, Taylor radioed back saying, “We are bearing 030 degrees (northeast) for 45 minutes, then we will fly north to make sure we are not over the Gulf of Mexico.” Taylor was then ordered to switch to a different radio frequency by NAS so that they could triangulate the flight’s bearings. The order was not acknowledged, so NAS then asked Taylor to switch to the search and rescue frequency. To this Taylor said, “I cannot switch frequencies. I must keep my planes intact.” About 10 minutes later, NAS asked again if Taylor had switched on his YG transmitter. Again, he did not acknowledge the transmission, but a few minutes later he said to his group, “Change course to 090 degrees (due east) for 10 minutes.” Someone else in the flight made an unidentified transmission saying, “Dammit, if we could just fly west, we could get home; head west, dammit.” Half an hour later, Taylor transmitted, “We’ll fly 270 degrees west until landfall or running out of gas.”
Taylor actually did activate his YG transmitter. Later that afternoon at 5:50 PM radio signal triangulation determined that their position was north of the Bahamas and well east of the coast of Central Florida, or halfway up the Florida Peninsula. Fifteen minutes later Taylor transmitted, “Holding on 270. We didn’t fly far enough east; we may as well just turn around and fly east again.” However, by that time the sun had set and darkness hampered their vision. Further, the weather was deteriorating with a local storm building up. Twenty minutes later came Taylor’s last transmission saying, “All planes close up tight…we’ll have to ditch unless landfall…when the first plane drops below 10 gallons, we all go down together.”
The Aftermath: NAS notified all air bases, aircraft, and ships in the area north of the Bahamas that Flight 19 was lost and would likely run out of fuel off the coast of Central Florida. A PBY Catalina Flying boat took off to search about 6 PM. Two more PBM Martin Flying Boats were diverted from training flights to join the search. One of them took off from the Banana River Naval Air Station, just south of present-day Cape Canaveral Space Center at 7:27 PM. Three minutes later it transmitted a routine message and was never heard from again. At 9:15 PM, the SS Gaines Mills, a nearby tanker, reported that it saw flames leaping 100 feet high and burning for about 10 minutes near the horizon in what was an apparent explosion in the area that coincided with where the PBM should have been. The Gaines Mills searched for survivors, but found no one. The explosion was confirmed by the escort carrier, USS Solomons, that reported the plane disappearing from its radar at the same position and time.
Further Analysis: None of the planes from Flight 19 nor crew members were ever found. It is hard to understand how a flight leader with the experience of Taylor could think that he was hopelessly lost when he was likely very close to the original course laid out in the flight plan. After the bombing practice he should have understood that the bombing course was due east leaving the flight about 56 nautical miles off the coast of Florida on the same latitude as NAS in Ft. Lauderdale. It was not quite an hour later when he reported that he thought they were over the Florida Keys. The closest part of the Florida Keys is Key Largo which would be about 120 nautical miles or so from the bombing range, but in the nearly opposite direction, southwest. If they had wound up heading in that direction, they would have surely noticed the position of the afternoon sun being in front of them instead of behind them meaning that they were traveling west, not east or north. Depending on their altitude the Keys should be visibly identifiable as some of the land masses were connected over water by bridges, and a highway ran down the middle. The lower keys had an old railroad causeway that was not in use, but could still be seen and identified. Had they been over the Keys as he thought, flying for no more than half an hour or so north by northeast should have put him over mainland Florida.
Even though Taylor’s compasses were both inoperable, the other planes had compasses that were okay, and he must have used the headings of one or more of those compasses to provide their final westerly course. The lack of clocks in the planes would have been unimportant if all the pilots were to synchronize their wrist watches. The communication between Taylor and NAS was often incomplete as transmissions were not always acknowledged by the flight members, and in some cases, NAS could not determine who was speaking. There was apparently no further communication attempt after the flight was forced to ditch into the water.
Conclusions: The Navy conducted an investigation into the disappearance of Flight 19 and exonerated Taylor since his compasses were inoperative. Training accidents involving planes from NAS Ft. Lauderdale claimed the lives of 95 aviation personnel from 1942 to 1945. The World Wide Fund for Nature published research in 2013 that identified the 10 most dangerous waterways in the world for shipping, but those 10 in the report do not include the Bermuda Triangle. The probable cause of most of the incidents in the Bermuda Triangle may have been the unpredictable and suddenly stormy weather that can drum up in a short time, hampering navigation and interfering with radio communications. It may well be that Flight 19 stumbled into one of those storms and couldn’t find their way out. Further, in trying to fly back to NAS, they may actually have flown over the Keys, but headed back east over the ocean missing the opportunity to follow the Florida coast up to Ft. Lauderdale. We’ll probably never know the answer.
Sources: History.com, Aircraft Squadron Disappears in the Bermuda Triangle.
Wikipedia, Flight 19.
Wikipedia, List of Bermuda Triangle Incidents.
Wikipedia, Bermuda Triangle.