QUARANTINE BLOG # 278

January 2, 2021

Many theories have been proposed to solve the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle. Time warps and reverse gravity fields. Atmospheric aberrations. Magnetic and gravitational anomalies. Death rays from the lost world of Atlantis. Black holes. Underwater signaling devices to guide invaders from other planets. UFOs collecting earthlings and their vehicles for study in other galaxies. Even witchcraft – as explained by The Chairman of the Board.

The loss of Flight 19, on December 5, 1945, was the linchpin of a modern Legend of the Bermuda Triangle. It may be the greatest aviation mystery in history.

The Bermuda Triangle was named because of Flight 19, but not until several years after it disappeared. Articles came out in the 1950s about missing ships and planes in the area, but it was Vincent Gaddis in Argosy magazine who defined the points. Logically they were Bermuda and Puerto Rico – both islands – but why Miami? Because Vincent Gaddis lived there.

At 2:10 pm, December 5, 1945, five Avenger torpedo bombers roared down the runway of the Fort Lauderdale Naval Air Station and into the greatest aviation mystery of all time. Flight 19 was scheduled for a routine navigational exercise.

The Flight and Maintenance members of Flight 19

Flight 18 took off from NAS, Ft. Lauderdale 25 minutes earlier, flying the same navigation problem. They completed their mission without incident.

The Navy investigation of the incident took several months, and produced a 500 page report.

The “cast” of the drama of Flight 19, is as follows:

Lt. Charles C. Taylor, a flight instructor and the leader of Flight 19 with almost 2500 hours of flying time. FT-28 was the call sign of his plane.

Lt. Charles C. Taylor

Ensign Joseph T. Bossi – FT-3

Capt. Edward J. Powers, Jr. – FT-36

2nd Lt. Forrest Gerber – FT-81

Captain Bill Stivers – FT-117

Lt. Robert F. Cox, not a member of Flight 19, but a senior flight instructor at Fort Lauderdale Naval Air Station, was in radio contact with Flight 19 for a short time. He flew FT-74.

Lt. Robert F. Cox

Flight 19 was assigned a navigation problem: Fly 091 degrees [east] distance 56 miles to conduct low level bombing, then continue on course 091 degrees for 67 miles. Fly 346 degrees [north] distance 73 miles and fly 241 degrees [west-southwest], distance 120 miles, returning to Fort Lauderdale.

Ninety minutes after Flight 19 took off, Lieutenant Cox overheard a disturbing radio call. Flying near Ft. Lauderdale in FT-74, the Navy instructor pilot heard a transmission from Lt. Taylor: “I don’t know where we are. We must have got lost after that last turn.” At the same time Taylor said his compasses were not trustworthy.

For approximately 30 minutes, Cox talked intermittently to Lt. Taylor. Taylor said he was in the Florida Keys. Cox said he would fly south, meet Taylor, and lead him back to Fort Lauderdale. Taylor answered, “I know where I am now. I’m at 2300 feet. Don’t come after me.” 

Many authors who perpetuate the Legend of the Bermuda Triangle as some supernatural occurrence have used only a portion of this radio exchange in to add drama to the saga. They write that the lost pilot cries out “Don’t come after me!”, when Cox told him he was going to fly down to meet him, because the lost pilot was trying to warn Cox of danger. What those writers fail to mention is the rest of that radio message: “I know where I am now.  I’m at 2300 feet.”

Cox said he was coming anyway, but before he could reach Taylor, the radio transmitter in Cox’s plane failed and he was forced to land.

At 5:00 Lt. Commander Donald Poole, the Flight Operations Officer at NAS Ft. Lauderdale heard two different pilots from Flight. 

The first said, “If we would just fly west we would get home.” 

The second agreed, “Dammit, if we would just fly west we would get home.” 

Instead, the Flight apparently flew a zig zag course until they ran out of fuel.

Incredibly, at 5:15 p.m. Taylor broadcast, “We are now flying 270 degrees” (due west). Based on their calculated heading at the time of that broadcast (determined by the subsequent Navy investigation), the planes would have made landfall in about an hour.

Tragically, fate intervened. At 6:06 pm Taylor told his pilots: “Turn around and fly due east until we run out of gas. I think we would have a better chance of being picked up closer to shore.”

Lt. Charles Taylor, after flying due west for almost an hour, was convinced he had to be over the Gulf of Mexico. Flight 19 then turned in an easterly direction and flew away from Florida.

Approximately 10 minutes before Taylor turned the Flight to the east, a fix was obtained on FT-28 using HF/DF.  The High Frequency Directional Finder – known as a Huff Duff – placed FT-28 within a 100 mile radius north of the Bahamas and east of New Smyrna, Florida. 

The Huff Duff

Because of equipment failure on the ground, the position was not transmitted either by teletype to other stations or by radio to the planes. The fix was only approximate, but if Taylor could be informed of it, he had only to head west and Flight 19 would have reached the coast.

By the time the position was teletyped to the rescue unit at Port Everglades they had been out of two-way communication for approximately one hour. Lacking two-way communications, there was no way to get the information to Lt. Taylor.

The fuel supply of the aircraft in Flight 19 should have permitted them to remain airborne until approximately 8:00 p.m. At 8:37 the Coast Guard sent out a message: “All ships in the area east of the Florida coast be on alert for five planes considered to be down.”

Two search planes were launched an hour apart, the first at 6:30 p.m., and assigned to search the 5:50 p.m. fix of Flight 19, and then conduct an expanding square search. They were to send reports every hour, and were also to guard 4805 kilocycles – the voice frequency of Flight 19.

Martin Mariner 49 launched at 7:27 p.m. His first position report was due at 8:30 p.m. When he failed to call the base at 8:35 p.m., the operator attempted to contact him. The operator called him continually for an hour and still failed to get an answer.

Martin Mariner 49

An explosion was observed by the SS Gaines Mills at sea in a position close to the Mariner’s assigned patrol at 7:50 p.m. Martin Mariner 49 was the 6th plane to be lost that night.

Over 300 aircraft, thousands of military personnel, and hundreds of civilian volunteers, scoured nearly 400,000 square miles of the Atlantic, Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico and the Florida peninsula. According to military officials, nothing sighted or picked up during the five-day hunt could be linked to the ill-fated flight. 

Those are the facts.  Now let’s challenge The Legend.

The Legend says that Martin Mariner 49 vanished within a few minutes after Flight 19 was last heard from. The Flight was actually last heard from at 6:30 p.m. and 49 did not take off until 7:27 p.m.

In The Legend the impression is given that the Mariner was the only rescue plane on the way to aid the missing flight. In actuality, it was not even the first one to take off.

The Legend says that Lieutenant Taylor had been physically or emotionally impaired. On the contrary, a page was added to the report on October 14, 1947, in which the Navy absolved Taylor of all blame for the loss.

Many factors prevented Flight 19 from being saved: the failure of Lieutenant Taylor’s compasses; bad radio reception; the delay in sending out rescue planes; the approach of night and the invasion of bad weather; the inability to locate the flight promptly; the failure to broadcast the position of the fix as soon as it was known; the military discipline that kept the group together even though several of the pilots knew they were headed the wrong way. 

Had any one of these factors not prevailed, the flight might have ended differently. One or more of the planes might have made it back, and the event would never have become the strangest flight in the history of aviation.

But when you know the facts of Flight 19, the biggest mystery is how the Bermuda Triangle mystery ever started!

More from the Bermuda Triangle next week.

👉  Today’s close is from Praying with the Psalms, by Eugene H. Peterson.

“When they were few in number, of little account and strangers in it ... he allowed no one to oppress them; he rebuked kings on their account” (Psalm 105:12, 14).

God’s people can look back to a time when, though they were a mere handful of wandering refugees, they were absolutely safe in God’s protection.  We do not find our security by joining a strong and successful group, but by being servants to a strong and competent Savior.  If we are “of little account” in the world’s eyes, we are “chosen and precious in God’s sight” (1 Peter 2:4).

Prayer: “Through each perplexing path of life, our wandering footsteps guide; give us each day our daily bread, and raiment fit provide. O spread Thy wings around till all our wanderings cease, and our Father’s loved abode our souls arrive in peace” (Philip Doddridge, “O God lf Bethel, by Whose Hand”). Amen.

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