Disappearance of Flight 19, Five Navy Avenger Bombers (Bermuda Triangle)

Description

Flight 19: A Timeline of the Lost Patrol

Timeline of Flight 19 Disappearance:

• December 5, 1945, 2:10 p.m.: Five U.S. Navy Avenger torpedo bombers, known as Flight 19, depart from the U.S. Naval Air Station in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. They are on a routine navigation exercise over the Atlantic Ocean.
• December 5, 1945, Approximately 4:00 p.m.: A radio message is received from Flight 19 indicating they are lost and uncertain of their direction relative to the Florida coast. There are also reports of compass malfunctions on the aircraft. Communication is difficult due to radio traffic.
• December 5, 1945, Afternoon/Evening: Attempts are made to guide Flight 19 back to safety via radio. Contact is eventually lost, and Flight 19 is never heard from again.
• December 5, 1945: A massive search operation is launched, involving over 200 airplanes per day, to look for the missing squadron and crew.
• December 5, 1945: One of the PBM patrol planes involved in the search for Flight 19 also vanishes.
• December 10, 1945: The extensive search for Flight 19 and the missing search plane is called off. A total of 27 men and six airplanes are missing.
• December 10, 1945: A Board of Investigation is convened at the U.S. Naval Air Station to investigate the disappearance of Flight 19.
• Post-Investigation: The Navy Board of Investigation releases its Findings of Fact, suggesting factors that may have contributed to the loss, ultimately concluding that pilot error, specifically Lieutenant Taylor’s uncertainty about the location of the Florida Peninsula, led to the flight ditching in poor conditions.
• June 1973: The “Naval Aviation News” publishes a cover story titled, “Six Planes and 27 Men Disappeared on the Famous Lost Patrol What Really Happened?” reflecting ongoing interest in the incident.
• 1977: The disappearance of Flight 19 gains further notoriety with a fictionalized reappearance of the unharmed aircraft in the movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” contributing to the Bermuda Triangle mystery narrative.

Cast of Characters:

• Lieutenant Taylor: The lead pilot of Flight 19. The Navy investigation concluded that his uncertainty regarding the position of the Florida Peninsula and subsequent decision to ditch in poor weather were primary factors in the loss of the flight.
• Crew Members of the Four Instructor Aircraft: Four other Avenger bombers were part of Flight 19, each with their own crew. These individuals are not named specifically in the provided source but were part of the training mission.
• Crew of the Missing PBM Patrol Plane: The crew of the search plane that also vanished on December 5, 1945. Their identities are not specified in the provided source.

Disappearance of Flight 19, Five Navy Avenger Bombers (Bermuda Triangle)

611 pages of documents related to the Disappearance of Flight 19, Five Navy avenger torpedo bombers, over the Bermuda Triangle, on December 5, 1945

At 2:10 p.m. on December 5, 1945, five Navy Avenger Torpedo Bombers disappeared while on a training mission in an area often referred to as the “Bermuda Triangle.” The Bermuda Triangle is an area that covers 440,000 square miles between the Bermuda Islands, the coast of Southern Florida, and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The airplanes departed that afternoon from the U.S. Naval Air Station in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on what has become known as Flight 19. The airplanes were on a routine navigation exercise over the Atlantic Ocean. At about 4 p.m. a radio message was received from Flight 19. The message stated that they were lost and uncertain of the direction to the Florida coast. There was also some indication that the compasses on the airplanes were malfunctioning. Due to radio traffic, communication with Flight 19 was difficult. After several attempts to lead the ill-fated flight to safety, radio contact was lost, and the flight was never heard from again.

A massive search was launched over the next five days for the squadron. Over 200 airplanes a day searched for the missing crews. Despite this enormous search effort, no trace of the airplanes or the crew was ever found. In fact, one of the PBM patrol planes involved in the search for Flight 19 also vanished on December 5, 1945.

On December 10, 1945, the search was called off with a total of 27 men and six airplanes still missing. A Board of Investigation convened at the U.S. Naval Air Station on December 10, 1945, and subsequently released their Findings of Fact. The Findings of Fact point to factors that may have contributed to the loss of the airplanes. However, to some the disappearance of Flight 19 remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the “Bermuda Triangle.”

Numerous luridly titled books, articles, and movies have posited strange magnetic disturbances, whirlpools, sea monsters, and extraterrestrial aliens as the cause of the tragic but all too explainable maritime losses in the Bermuda Triangle. Perhaps the most famous of these was the reappearance of Flight 19, neither aged nor damaged, in the 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

The Navy concluded in their investigation that Flight 19 got lost through pilot error, so much so that Lieutenant Taylor was “uncertain as to in what position lay the Peninsula of Florida,” and therefore had to ditch in darkness and poor weather, resulting in the loss of all aircraft and crew.

This collection includes:

Records of the Naval Air Advanced Training Command in Jacksonville, Florida

545 pages of records related to this incident and include weather observations, the history of the aircraft and engine logs, a rough crash log, radio station logs, preflight forms, communication logs, incident reports, air/sea rescue plans, maps of the search area, and the Board of investigation’s Findings of Fact. These records are located at the National Archives-Southwest Region in Fort Worth, Texas. They are part of the Records of Naval Districts and Shore Establishments, Record Group 181

Naval Aviation News

The June 1973 issue with the cover story, “Six Planes and 27 Men Disappeared on the Famous Lost Patrol What Really Happened?”

Aircraft Accident Cards

Six Aircraft Accident Cards (NAVAIR339C) for the lead pilot, four instructors, and the search aircraft pilot.