The Bermuda Triangle – Beneath The Waves

The flight they found was just a freaky coincidence of individual losses ending up in the same area.
They think [according to the program] the lead pilot of flight 19 lost “spatial awareness” and got into a tunnel mind set where his original thoughts over rode all he other information being given to him.
Apparently he got the islands mixed up,added 2 + 2 and got 5 and thought he was somewhere else.
The sad thing is from seeing the program was he was given help from both the radio stations at Fort Lauderdale and another one who tried to “talk” the lead pilot into the course changes he needed to make.They realised the wind had altered the flightpath and flight 19 was off course.
It also seemed to show that the leading pilot found it hard to accept any other advice or information and ideas from any of the other pilots and crew in the flight.
The dramatisation of the end of the flight was heart rendering,watching the crew attempting to get out of their sinking plane and watching them drown,very sad.

The group were on a navigational and bombing exercise out of Fort Lauderdale on December 5th 1945,the ‘target’ area being a place called Hen and Chickens islands about 50 miles off shore to the East. They apparently made it to Hen and Chickens and performed thier bombing run,but it’s thought they overshot thier next waypoint and flew further east. After this the lead crew appear to have become disoriented and begun to believe that they had been blown over the Florida Keys,the other side of Florida. Atmospheric conditions meant that ground stations couldn’t obtain a radio-fix on thier position,and contact was completely lost when they made a turn to the East and flew out to sea (believing they would actually be flying towards land) It’s thought they would’ve run out of fuel and ditched many miles to the East out in the open ocean,in the dark. No trace was ever found despite a massive search. To add to the tragedy, a Martin Mariner flying boat blew up in mid-air during the search,killing all on board.
The guys in the programme the other night had first found these wrecks with primitave equipment in the 1980’s,and the aim this time was to take a submersable down to try and identify the wrecks conclusively. It was thought almost impossible that it could be co-incidence that 5 Avengers should ditch independantly in the same area,but that apparently is the case.
The wrecks appeared to bear the early blue and white star of 1942-43 and were painted in the earlier lighter blue camouflage (the preservation of the paint work was incredible,as Mark says). IIRC,those in Flight 19 were painted in later Midnight Blue with the modern star & bar markings. The one Beuro No. they did discover was of an aircraft that had ditched after engine failure in 1943.

The first thing I thought when I saw the show was that the markings were all wrong for a Flight 19 bird. As mentioned above, it was early camo and the star without the bar.

Still kinda spooky to see them all down there though

Dan

Thought the description sounded familiar:
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=22615&highlight=flight

Flood

one thing that i heard that was freaky is that on average 30 light aircraft vanish each year and about 2 boats every week!! it happens so often they dont make a fuss.

That is rather a disturbing thought to be quite honest SJ!

What gets me though, if that is a true statement regarding how often aircraft and ships disappear, surely they should know by now roughly where most of the craft disappear on the charts and if that were so, why don’t they just put a no go over that area! Is it so hard to fly or sail around the area of spookyness?

one thing that i heard that was freaky is that on average 30 light aircraft vanish each year and about 2 boats every week!! it happens so often they dont make a fuss.

The group were on a navigational and bombing exercise out of Fort Lauderdale on December 5th 1945,the ‘target’ area being a place called Hen and Chickens islands about 50 miles off shore to the East. They apparently made it to Hen and Chickens and performed thier bombing run,but it’s thought they overshot thier next waypoint and flew further east. After this the lead crew appear to have become disoriented and begun to believe that they had been blown over the Florida Keys,the other side of Florida. Atmospheric conditions meant that ground stations couldn’t obtain a radio-fix on thier position,and contact was completely lost when they made a turn to the East and flew out to sea (believing they would actually be flying towards land) It’s thought they would’ve run out of fuel and ditched many miles to the East out in the open ocean,in the dark. No trace was ever found despite a massive search. To add to the tragedy, a Martin Mariner flying boat blew up in mid-air during the search,killing all on board.
The guys in the programme the other night had first found these wrecks with primitave equipment in the 1980’s,and the aim this time was to take a submersable down to try and identify the wrecks conclusively. It was thought almost impossible that it could be co-incidence that 5 Avengers should ditch independantly in the same area,but that apparently is the case.
The wrecks appeared to bear the early blue and white star of 1942-43 and were painted in the earlier lighter blue camouflage (the preservation of the paint work was incredible,as Mark says). IIRC,those in Flight 19 were painted in later Midnight Blue with the modern star & bar markings. The one Beuro No. they did discover was of an aircraft that had ditched after engine failure in 1943.

Mark,

Yes, if i recall, after the initial excitement these were discounted as being Flight 19, and instead turned out to be a variety of TBM’s lost over a period of time from a nearby training base.

All ditched for a variety of reasons by novice trainees, and there proximity on the sea floor was a mere co-incidence i believe.

Perhaps someones know more ?

Cheers……..