1. Flight 19
On the afternoon of 5 December 1945, five Avenger torpedo
bombers left the Naval Air Station at Fort Lauderdale, Fla., with Lt. Charles
Taylor in command of a crew of 13 student pilots. About an hour and a half into
the flight, Taylor radioed the base to say that his compasses
weren't working, but he estimated he was somewhere over the Florida Keys. The
lieutenant who received the signal told Taylor to fly north toward Miami, as
long as he was sure he was actually over the Keys. Although he was an experienced pilot ,
Taylor got horribly turned around, and the more he tried to get out of the
Keys, the further out to sea he and his crew traveled.
When night fell, the reception of radio signals worsened, until, finally, there was
nothing at all from Flight 19. A United States Navvy investigation reported that Taylor's
confusion caused the disaster, but his mother convinced them to change the
official report to read that the planes went down for "causes
unknown." The planes have never been recovered.
2.
Star
Tiger
On 30th January 1948, a British South American Airways
Tudor IV plane flying from England to Bermuda disappeared without a trace. The
Star Tiger, commanded by Capt. B. W. McMillan, was flying from England to
Bermuda. On the date, McMillan reported he expected to arrive in Bermuda at
5:00 a.m., but neither he nor any of the 31 people onboard the Star Tiger were
ever heard from again. The official accident report suggests that the airplane's
heater was unreliable and may have failed en route and a compass was at error.
To keep the temperatures warmer, the pilot may have chosen to fly the route at
a lower altitude, burning fuel faster. Flying so low would have left the pilot little
time to maneuver or signal for help in the case of a catastrophe; the flight
would have lost its height quickly and fallen into the sea.
Image : Star Tiger ( 1948 )
3.
The Spray
The earliest man to sail alone
around the world, Joshua Slocum in 1895, was considered one of the most
excellent sailors of his era His boat, the Spray, was an old fishing boat that
he had rebuilt, and the story of his circumnavigation, "Sailing Alone
around the World", remains a classic in sea literature. He never should
have been lost at sea,
but it appears that's exactly what happened. In 1909, Slocum left the East
Coast of the United States and headed to Grand Cayman for the winter. Slocum
was never heard from or seen again. He wasn't declared legally dead until 1924.
No one knows for sure that Slocum disappeared within Triangle waters, but
Bermuda buffs claim Slocum's story as part of the legacy of the Devil's
Triangle.
4.
Star
Ariel
Star Ariel left Bermuda on 17th
January 1949, with seven crew members and 13 passengers en route to Jamaica.
That morning, Capt. J. C. McPhee reported that the flight was going smoothly.
Shortly afterward, another more mysterious message came from the captain, when
he reported that he was changing his frequency, and then nothing more was
heard. A rescue party
was deployed to look for the Star Ariel, but not even a hint of debris or
wreckage was ever found.
Image : Star Ariel ( 1949 )
5. USS Cyclops
5. USS Cyclops
The USS Cyclops, a navy cargo vessel was stationed on the
eastern seaboard of the United States throughout WWI and in February 1918 was dispatched
to Baltimore, Maryland from Rio De Janeiro. Last
sighted on 9 March off the coast of Virginia, the Cyclops was never heard from
again and no wreckage has ever been found. It remains the biggest non-combat
related loss of life for the US Navy – 306 people were lost with the ship.
The Navy says in its official statement, "The disappearance of this ship
has been one of the most baffling mysteries in the annals of the Navy, all
attempts to locate her having proved unsuccessful. There were no enemy submarines in
the western Atlantic at that time, and in December 1918 every effort was made
to obtain from German sources information regarding the disappearance of the
vessel”.
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