Summary
- The disappearance of Flight 19 remains a significant mystery, with no conclusive evidence of what occurred.
- Despite extensive searches, no wreckage or bodies of the missing airmen have ever been found.
- Multiple disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle region led to various theories, including aliens and magnetic interference.
While aviation is the safest form of mass transit and aircraft accident investigations are usually adorned in science to identify the causes of aircraft seemingly vanish, their disappearances are often shrouded in mystery with large cultural impacts and speculation on what could have happened — MH370 and Amelia Earheart are just two examples.
Of famous aviation mysteries with significant cultural impacts, the disappearance of Flight 19 is unique.
The disappearance of Flight 19 is an essential piece of folklore for an entire region of the globe: the loss of the five Fruman TBM Avenger Torpedo bombers would be iconic in the legacy of the Bermuda Triangle. The following are the details of that flight.
The flight plan
The date is December 5th, 1945; it is early afternoon when the group of five TBM Avenger Torpedo bombers are preparing to depart Naval Air Station, Fort Lauderdale, on a training flight. The five aircraft involved were built by General Motors months earlier for World War II. While the war had ended in September, the US Navy was still busy training pilots who were drafted during the war.
While the infamous December 5th flight would be a training exercise, the aviators involved would have spent the previous months flying on various primary training aircraft. Even prior to flight school, the airmen involved had spent months of training.
Fourteen pilots crewed the group of five aircraft, led by Lieutenant Charles Taylor, an experienced naval aviator turned training officer. Lt. Taylor had around 2,500 flying hours and multiple World War II combat tours in the Pacific theatre, according to the Navy.
Navigation training
On December 5th, the goal of the training flight was to practice navigation. The Navy says the group that day was to practice “Navigation Problem No. 1,” which involved a flight to the East of Florida to conduct a simulated bombing run at a known practice area called “Hens.”
After reaching Hens, the flight was to turn North and proceed over Grand Bahama Island before returning to NAS Fort Lauderdale. The weather for the flight that day was reported as favorable, with a few scattered showers.
The flight of five Torpedo Bombers departed NAS Fort Lauderdale shortly after 14:00. The flight proceeded as planned, and the group had successfully dropped their practice bombs at Hens. Trouble began after turning North. At 15:45 local time, Lt. Taylor radioed NAS Fort Lauderdale.
“Cannot see land,” Taylor said. “We seem to be off course.”
The US Navy recounts that Lt. Taylor’s voice seemed to convey he was confused and worried. What would follow was a few moments of silence, followed by a different, unidentified radio transmission that reported, “We can’t find West. Everything is wrong. We can’t be sure of any direction. Everything looks strange, even the ocean.”
From first contact with the tower to the last contact, 30 minutes had gone by with increasingly panicked and confused voices over the radio. During their last radio contact with NAS Fort Lauderdale, the aircrews reported they were unable to find west, and the aircraft were entering “white water.”
Loss of search plane
By now, alerted to the problem, personnel in the tower had scrambled two PBM-5 Mariner seaplanes. Like the more famous PBY Catalina, these seaplanes were to be utilized for search and rescue operations. The two aircraft checked in with the tower at NAS Fort Lauderdale after the search was underway. Both aircraft were heading to Flight 19’s last known position, but only one would return.
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Separately, Boston-Vancouver is back and will finally launch.PBM-5, under Navy registration BuNO 59225, would disappear with Flight 19. The aircraft was crewed by 13 aviators, who were assumed to have the aircraft.
By 22:00 on December 5th, the Navy couldn’t account for six aircraft and 27 service members. In the days that would follow, the Navy, the Coast Guard, and more aircraft would search more than 250,000 square miles of the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico for the aircraft. No wreckage or traces of oil from any of the airmen were ever found.
Without wreckage and with unclear radio transmissions, there wasn’t much evidence for investigators to work with. At 21:45, a civilian merchant vessel reported that it had spotted an explosion near the water, about two hours after the missing PBM-5 Mariner had lost contact.
The missing PBM-5 could be attributed to an explosion with an unknown cause. However, given the radio reports of Flight 19, investigators were uncertain. While speculation originally blamed Lt. Taylor for mistaking islands near the Florida Keys after the failure of a compass, thus explaining the disorientation. Reports were amended.
At the time, the disappearance was widely covered by local and national media alike. Given the massive search efforts, the event was the center of attention. When Flight 19 disappeared, it was a mystery. Still, when another aircraft, a British South American Airways star, disappeared in the same area two years and one month later, in 1948, the mysteries turned into coincidence.
In 1948, two aircraft and one fishing boat disappeared in the area between South Florida, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico. The disappearances would culminate in the 1949 disappearance of another British South American Airways aircraft.
Without finding these aircraft, nearly 80 years later, a variety of explanations ranging from aliens to magnetic interference have been offered to account for the failure of guidance systems. There is only one thing known for certain about Flight 19: that its disappearance was the beginning of a trend that has never been answered.
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