Flight 19

Flight 19 was a squadron of five US Naval torpedo bombers that mysteriously disappeared during a training mission on December 5, 1945. The group of five planes carrying fourteen men had taken off from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on what was supposed to be a routine three-hour mission. However, after accomplishing their first task without incident, the commander of the mission, a seasoned World War II pilot, reported becoming disoriented and believed they were heading in the wrong direction. After radioing back that the planes may have to ditch in the ocean, all contact with Flight 19 was lost. Despite an extensive search, no trace of the planes has ever been found. Decades later, the incident was used by writers and believers in the supernatural to enhance the legend of the Bermuda Triangle, a region in the Atlantic Ocean supposedly responsible for strange disappearances of planes and seagoing vessels.

Overview

Flight 19 was the operations name given to a US Naval flight that left Fort Lauderdale, Florida, just after 2 p.m. on December 5, 1945. The mission consisted of five TBM Avenger torpedo bombers commanded by Naval Lieutenant Charles Taylor. Taylor had about 2,500 flying hours under his belt and served in combat missions in the Pacific during World War II (1939–1945). Four of the planes had a crew of three and one had a crew of two, for a total of fourteenth people.

Flight 19 was on a routine training mission. The squadron was supposed to head east into the Atlantic Ocean to a place called Hens and Chickens Shoals in the Bahamas, where they were supposed to conduct a low-level bombing exercise. They were then to turn north and pass over Grand Bahama Island before heading back to Fort Lauderdale.

The planes took off in good weather and performed their bombing run without incident. However, on their turn north, the base at Fort Lauderdale intercepted a radio conversation in which one of the pilots reported being lost. Lieutenant Taylor responded that both of his compasses were malfunctioning, and he was flying over broken land that he believed to be the Florida Keys. However, the Keys were hundreds of miles too far south to be the land Taylor had sighted.

Operators at Fort Lauderdale contacted the flight and tried to help bring the men home. They suggested several measures including telling Taylor to turn on his in-flight identification frequency. However, Taylor seemed to ignore the request. As time went on, another pilot radioed back to Fort Lauderdale that they were unable to figure out their location and said that the ocean looked “strange.” The pilot’s voice became increasingly agitated, telling the base that he thought they were 225 miles off course to the northeast, out in the Atlantic. Another pilot was heard saying that if they had only turned west, they may be able to get home. However, Taylor continued to order the flight northeast, possibly because he thought they were over the Keys and the Florida Peninsula was northeast of there.

By late afternoon, the sun had gone down, and the weather had turned rainy and windy. Several land-based Naval stations were able to triangulate Flight 19’s position as north of the Bahamas and far away from the Florida coast. At about 7:20 p.m., Taylor’s voice was heard saying that the planes were running out of fuel and would ditch in the ocean together when the first plane fell below 10 gallons. That was the last message ever heard from Flight 19.

Knowing the planes were running out of fuel, the Navy sent out a search-and-rescue mission at about 8:30 p.m. One of the planes on that mission, a PBM Mariner flying boat with a crew of thirteen, disappeared shortly after takeoff and was believed to have exploded. The next morning, the Navy launched an even larger search-and-rescue mission, flying over 300,000 square miles (777,000 square kilometers) of ocean. However, no trace of Flight 19 was ever found.

Topic Today

In the 1950s and 1960s, authors began connecting the fate of Flight 19 with the supposed disappearances of other ships and planes in the region. In a 1964 story on the subject, author Vincent Gaddis first used the term Bermuda Triangle to refer to the area in which the ships and planes vanished. The boundary of the triangle was anchored by points on Florida, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico. In the 1970s, a growing cultural interest in the paranormal led to new theories about the disappearances that involved everything from aliens to time travel to the underwater city of Atlantis. Flight 19 was often cited in books on the subject as the most famous disappearance to occur in the Triangle. The flight was even featured in the 1977 Steven Spielberg film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, in which aliens contact humanity and return the planes and the crew unharmed.

However, for all the otherworldly theories on what happened to Flight 19, investigators believe the truth is much simpler. Several plausible theories have been posited over the years, including that the planes turned southeast and crashed in the Everglades. However, the majority opinion is that the pilots simply took a wrong turn, became disoriented, and crashed into the ocean.

The most likely scenario, and one included in the initial Naval report on the incident, is that Lieutenant Taylor confused several small islands in the Bahamas for the Florida Keys and headed off northeast when he should have turned west. The planes’ final recorded location would seem to back up the extreme northeastern turn. Taylor was originally from Miami, which is closer to the Keys than Fort Lauderdale, so some experts speculate this may have led him to make the mistake. In a later amended report, the Navy officially listed the cause of Flight 19’s disappearance as “unknown” to avoid blaming Taylor.

Bibliography

Andrews, Evan. “The Mysterious Disappearance of Flight 19.” History.com, 1 Dec. 2018, www.history.com/news/the-mysterious-disappearance-of-flight-19. Accessed 23 Apr. 2023.

Irvine, Amy. “The Mysterious Disappearance of Flight 19.” History Hit, 7 Feb. 2023, www.historyhit.com/the-mysterious-disappearance-of-flight-19/. Accessed 23 Apr. 2023.

Kaye, Ken. “Flight 19: Has Mystery of Lost Patrol Been Solved?” Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel, 7 Apr. 2014, www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/fl-flight-19-sleuths-20140406-story.html. Accessed 23 Apr. 2023.

“The Loss of Flight 19.” Naval History and Heritage Command, 3 Dec. 2021, www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/disasters-and-phenomena/flight-19.html. Accessed 23 Apr. 2023.

Myhre, Jon F. Discovery of Flight 19. Paragon Agency, 2012.

“The Mystery of Flight 19.” Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale Museum, 3 Aug. 2010, www.nasflmuseum.com/flight-19.html. Accessed 23 Apr. 2023.

Willsey, Marie. “10 Disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle.” How Stuff Works, adventure.howstuffworks.com/7-disappearances-in-the-bermuda-triangle.htm. Accessed 23 Apr. 2023.

Witzenburg, Frankie. “The Mysterious Disappearance of Flight 19.” Naval History Magazine, October 2021, www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2021/october/mysterious-disappearance-flight-19. Accessed 23 Apr. 2023.