The Great Unsolved Mystery of ‘Flight 19’

The bizarre disappearance of ‘Flight 19’

In December 1945, one of the most perplexing mysteries in aviation history took place just off the coast of Florida, USA – the disappearance of Flight 19!

A Routine Exercise

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At 2:10 pm on 5 December 1945, five TBF Avenger torpedo bombers took off from the Naval Air Station in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. The planes were collectively known as “Flight 19’’ and were scheduled to fulfil a simple two-hour routine flying exercise. The flight plan called for the planes to head about 125 miles (200 km) east from the Florida coast. They were then to conduct a bombing practice, then proceed north for about 25 miles (40 km) to Grand Bahama Island. Then they were to make a final change of course on to a southwest path, which would take them back to base.

The Avengers normally had a crew of three but one of the team members failed to show up on the day. Thus, Flight 19 consisted of a total of fourteen men. The flight leader was Lieutenant Charles C. Taylor, an experienced pilot and a World War II veteran. The other four pilots were all experienced, each having at least 300 flying hours under their belt. On take-off, the weather was described as mostly fair, with good visibility.

Lost Over the Sea

Initially, Flight 19’s sortie proceeded smoothly, as had the previous eighteen flights of that day. By around 2:30 pm, all the planes were known to have made it to the target practice area and proceeded to drop their practice bombs without incident. The first voice message from the patrol to the control tower came around 3.45 pm when they were fully expected to be seeking landing instructions.

Instead, control received a worrying message from one of the pilots that the flight had strayed off course and had lost sight of land. The Patrol Leader, Lt. Taylor, then stated in a voice communication ‘’We can’t be sure where we are. We seem to be lost.’’ The instruction from the tower for the Flight was to “head due west”. After a long pause, Taylor replied “We don’t know which way is west. Everything is wrong!”. Around 4 pm, Lt Taylor, in a state of panic, handed over command of the Flight to one of the other pilots. At 4.25 pm, the new leader contacted the tower, saying “We’re not certain where we are. We must be about 225 miles northeast of the base. It looks like we are…………”. This was followed by total radio silence.

The Rescue Mission

Around 7.30 pm, the US Navy scrambled two of its specialised search planes, Martin Mariner flying boats, from Ft. Lauderdale to hunt for the five missing planes. The Mariners initially made several routine radio reports. They the tower know they were approaching the search area but had so far not seen anything. However, after just 20 minutes into the flight time one of the search planes suddenly vanished off the control tower’s radar. There was then an ominous silence as the controllers waited anxiously for further advice from the missing search plane. The tower tried frantically to re-establish communications with the Mariner. However, contact never came!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At first light the next day, the Navy began the search in earnest for the 6 planes and 27 men that had been seemingly lost. The search lasted weeks and utilised more than 300 planes and 21 ships in the quest. The search area covered more than 300,000 sq miles and included the Florida coast, the Keys, and the Bahamas. It was checked and re-checked several times, but not a trace of the planes or their contents were found.

Military experts were completely puzzled as to how six planes and their crew could totally disappear in a relatively small area. The fate of the Mariner on the face of it would seem similar to that of Flight 19. However, the flying boats had a poor safety record and were nicknamed “flying gas tanks”, due to their tendency to catch fire. It was later supposed that the Mariner had probably exploded in flight. This was largely based on the testament of a merchant ship’s crew, who had reported the sighting of a fireball in the sky in the area.

The Aftermath

The military’s report could not come up with any clear explanation for the mystifying disappearance. Why had the five experienced pilots of Flight 19 become so disoriented on a routine flight in good weather? One of the main theories suggested the planes must have ran out of fuel. However, if so, why had none of the pilots managed to launch the Avengers self-inflating life raft? The Avengers were designed to float for a while on ditching and crews were all well-trained in sea survival techniques. Moreover, running out of fuel did not explain the apparent confusion of the Flight members. Nor, did it explicate the strange voice messages that had come from the pilots.

Furthermore, why did the Mariner seemingly disappear in the same area? All planes were well equipped with the latest radio apparatus, so why were no SOS messages received? Some suggested the planes might have been pushed much further south than the searched area by strong winds. However, this would mean the planes would have either come down on land or in a vast region of shallows. Such a scenario would have resulted in their crash sites being easily detectable. The unlikely event of all five planes colliding was also ruled out on much the same grounds. The thinking was that debris would be so widespread, it would have almost certainly been found by the extensive search.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Theories and Speculation

The disappearance of Flight 19 on that fateful day of 5 December 1945, has since become subject to all manner of madcap theories and speculation. In the 1960s and 70s, the narrative of the enigmatic story was published in a number of pulp magazines. This helped to popularise the theory that Flight 19 had simply fallen foul of the dark forces that exist in the Bermuda Triangle. The infamous area, just of the coast of Florida, is renowned for the high incident of ship and aircraft disappearences that have occurred there, in the last two centuries.

Since the incident occurred more than 75 years ago, a number of books have tried to explain the disappearence of Flight 19. Magnetic anomalies, parallel dimensions and alien abductions are some of the thories that have been mooted in such books. In 1977, the film “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, famously depicted Flight 19 as having been whisked away by flying saucers and later dumped in the deserts of Mexico.

In the highly likely event that the “Lost Patrol” didn’t fall victim to the supernatural, its disappearance has left many oddities and unanswered questions. One of these concerns surrounds the patrol leader, Lt. Taylor. Witnesses at the hearing, claimed Taylor arrived at Flight 19’s pre-exercise briefing several minutes late and had requested to be excused from the mission. He had reportedly said, “I just don’t want to take this one out”.

The Prognosis

Why Taylor tried to get out of flying that day remains a mystery. However, it would perhaps seem obvious that he must have felt sufficiently unwell as to have not been properly fit for duty. Another major unexplained mystery is why none of the Flight 19 aircrews made use of the rescue radio frequency or the planes’ ZBX receivers. These could have helped steer them towards the Navy radio towers on land. All five pilots had been instructed to switch the devices on. However, either none of them heard the message or they didn’t bother to follow it through.

In 1991, it seemed that a group of treasure hunters had finally solved the puzzle of the doomed Flight 19. This is when they came across some sunken World War II Avengers off the coast of Fort Lauderdale. However, on further exploration it was found that the serial numbers of the relics didn’t match those of the fabled “Lost Patrol”. And, in fact, the numbers were found to match those of other known missing planes.

So, just what did happen to Flight 19? The most likely scenario seems to be that the planes once lost, eventually ran out of fuel and ditched in the open ocean. Any survivors, and their aircraft, were simply swallowed up by heavy seas. Thus, it’s a widely held belief that the wrecks of Flight 19 and its ill-fated rescue plane are probably slowly decaying somewhere in the depths of the Bermuda Triangle. Privateers still continue to search for evidence to this day in order to solve one of the greatest mysteries in aviation history. However, not a single remnant of the six aircraft or their 27 crewmen have ever been recovered to date.