Close Encounters Of The Third Kind

(WaltBJ) wrote:
One of Flight 19's Avengers was caught in a
shrimper's net about
halfway between Key West and Marco Island about
15 years ago. look on
a map and see how lost that guy was. As for
the Bermuda Triangle, I
flew 102s and 104s all over the southern part
of it and am still here.
I think. Wooo - woo.
Walt BJ
Walt, you may be wrong. Every few years, TBMs are found off of Florida,
and there is the usual announcement that "Flight 19 has been found". Problem
is that none of the side numbers or BuNos match the missing aircraft. What
happened to Flight 19 is in dispute. Nobody disputes the loss of Training
49 (the PBM) at 7:30 PM that night. A passing tanker noted a plane that caught
fire in the air, spiraled in and exploded on impact. The ship changed course
to provide assistance, but only found a burning pool of oil. The CVE USS
Solomons noted two radar contacts taking off from NAS Banana River (Now Patrick
AFB) and one of these dropped off the scope at 7:30: at the time and place
the tanker saw the plane crash. Two PBMs took off, but only one (Training
32) returned the next morning. 13 aircrew lost on the PBM. Now, what happened
to Flight 19 may never be known.

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(JDupre5762) wrote:
The lost squadron was "Flight 19" and the circumstances
surrounding
their disappearance has never been explained
despite the above "simple
explanation". None of the aircraft nor any
sign of survival gear have
ever been found. The flight leader didn't just
get lost, the entire
flight lost all bearing on where they were
and could not establish a
way back to base. The sky was reported as distorted,
not making sense
as well as time being lost.
The above posts claims they crashed in the
Triangle but they have
never been found. Some excitement was caused
years back when other TBM
aircraft were discovered in the area but they
were NOT Flight 19.
For more information read the book "The Disappearance
of Flight 19"
(1980) by Larry Kusche (ISBN: 0060124776).
Best place to get it from: www.bookfinder.com

Rob

From: (robert arndt)

It has been satisfactorily explained several
times beginning with the Navy
Court of Inquiry in 1945. Several years ago
a pilot who was also in the air at
the same time and tried to communicate with
Flight 19 mentioned in an interview
that at the time there was no real mystery as
to what happened. Everyone
involved realized that the Flight Leader was
disoriented including other
members of the flight who tried to point out
that they were headed in the wrong
direction. These were Navy pilots trained to
follow the orders of the flight
leader. As for no wreckage being found it is
a big ocean and even 5 TBMs are
pretty small. By the time they crashed it was
dark and there was a storm
raging. Prospects of surviving that ditching
are pretty small. Prospects of
any wreckage being scattered to hell and gone
are pretty great. Whole ships
have been lost with no more wreckage left than
would fill a suitcase. The
aircraft will eventually be found where the
half dozen radio fixes placed them
about 100 miles northeast of the northern corner
of Florida.

The best book ever written on the subject of
the Triangle is The Bermuda
Triangle Mystery: Solved; it absolutely demolishes
all the cockamamie theories
with actual research with sources like the New
York Times and Lloyds Shipping
Register and records of Courts of Inquiry.

John Dupre'
Yes, but the author never interviewed anyone involved with any of the non-Flight
19 incidents; he relied on long-distance phone calls and later admitted filtering
out information from eyewitness accounts and official documents that conflicted
with his debunking-sort of like Phill Klass with UFOs: if the info or witness
contradicts your preconceptions, disregard it.

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And what about the other missing search plane too? Just
coincidence?


The search plane took off out of the Banana River NAS and blew up shortly
afterward. Martin PBM Mariners were famous for leaking gas into the fuselage
and blowing up as a result. Again there was no mystery to the Navy over the
loss of the PBM which was seen to crash by a number of vessels at sea at the
time. The popular books distort the timeline and make it seem that the PBM
disappeared at the same time as Flight 19 was declaring itself lost. In fact
the PBM was dispatched hours later to begin searching for Flight 19 when it
was clear they would end up ditching.

John Dupre'

Dave Holford wrote:

I would be very surprised if you have not accumulated a good many hours
in the skies of the Bermuda triangle over the years.


For sure Dave...

I seem to recall some years ago a statement, which I think originated
with the USCG, that there were actually less aircraft and marine
casualties in the Bermuda triange than other areas, it was just the
traffic density that accounted for the numbers.

Dave

Sounds right...it's certainly one bitchin wild spot for weather
in the fall and winter too. Friggin Gale Alley there and even
worse off the East Coast of Newfie baby-sitting a fence of
sonobuoys for hour after hour at endurance power and occasionally
replacing a dud...Jesus I'm glad I'm retired.
--

-Gord.

"Dave Kearton"
wrote:


Thinking more about the 'career snow' that you would have encountered in the
Argus. Our Orion crews rarely see _very_ cold weather, except when
gong way down south along the Antarctic coast and on rotations to the
northern hemisphere.


Still, I suppose flying into a white out is similar to flying at night - if
you're prepared (and trained) for it.


Yes indeed...BTW, did you ever read "Impact Erebus"?...about the
Air New Zealand's DC-10 going into Mount Erebus in the antarctic
with 200 plus tourists. True story of Arctic 'whiteout'. One of
the most interesting aircraft disaster stories that I've ever
read. I have the New Zealand Gov't's Royal Commission of Inquiry
into that crash too. They weren't too kind to Air NZ's hierarchy
(whose fault it was of course) either.

--

-Gord.

Mark and Kim Smith wrote:
Marc Reeve wrote:
WaltBJ wrote:



One of Flight 19's Avengers was caught in a shrimper's net about
halfway between Key West and Marco Island about 15 years ago. look on
a map and see how lost that guy was. As for the Bermuda Triangle, I
flew 102s and 104s all over the southern part of it and am still here.
I think. Wooo - woo.
Walt BJ



Mel Fisher and crew brought that plane up in 1987. A serial number check
showed that it was not one of the five planes lost with Flight 19.

-Marc


Did Mel display it in front of his museum like he wanted? Mark

Don't know. The Mel Fisher Museum website makes no mention of it, and I
have yet to travel to Florida to see for myself.

-Marc
--
Marc Reeve
actual email address after removal of 4s & spaces is
c4m4r4a4m4a4n a4t c4r4u4z4i4o d4o4t c4o4m

robert arndt wrote:
"tim gueguen" wrote in message
news:RD1Ib.866484$9l5.274956@pd7tw2no...
"robert arndt" wrote in message
om...
(JDupre5762) wrote in message
...
Where'd the planes come from that were shown at the beginning of the
movie? Where are they now?

And for a question not based on reality, why wasn't the desert
winds blowing them around? The aliens didn't leave them tied down
or chocked.

Those were Navy TBM Avenger torpedo bombers that were supposed to
represent the famous lost squadron of 5 TBMs that crashed in 1945 in
the supposed Bermuda Triangle. The popular misconception is that
the aircraft flew into some kind of "disturbance" and disappeared.
The reality is that the flight leader became lost and disoriented
and the aircraft ran out of gas at night in a storm.


The lost squadron was "Flight 19" and the circumstances surrounding
their disappearance has never been explained despite the above "simple
explanation". None of the aircraft nor any sign of survival gear have
ever been found.

Right, because its hard to find a bunch of relatively small aircraft in a
large area of ocean after the fact.

But usually something like wreckage, debris, or floating bodies are
found then or later. They NEVER found ANYTHING.

The flight leader didn't just get lost, the entire
flight lost all bearing on where they were and could not establish a
way back to base.

It was a training flight. Only the flight leader had any real
navigation experience, and the other pilots relied on his direction. If
he screwed up they were screwed.

Not so as the leader was advised that turning west would be best. From
his correct position in the north (he believed he was heading south)
turning west would have taken the flight back over land. But the
conditions stated below caused him to think otherwise so he declined
and either headed straight north into the Atlantic or south into the
Gulf of Mexico.

The sky was reported as distorted, not making sense
as well as time being lost.

No, books written 3 decades later made that claim.

Because those remarks were omitted from the "official" report. The
flight leader could not determine position because they sky suddenly
appeared to be blended and there was (at least in the mind of the
flight leader) a loss of time.

I don't in any way suggest alien abduction, nor necessarily the
oft-claimed effects of the Triangle. But I do believe something other
than "he simply got lost" is to blame. You can't use the big ocean
excuse for not finding the planes. Deep See found a bunch of TBMs that
they thought were Flight 19- turns out they weren't. If they sunk,
they eventually will be found. If they disappeared, that's another
story. And what about the other missing search plane too? Just
coincidence?

The History Channel ran one of their "History's Mysteries" specials on
Flight 19 a few years ago. Their guy had the theory that they may have
been blown farther north than they knew, and ended up coming down in the
Okefenokee Swamp. Once there, they'd have sunk into the bog and never
been seen again. Eventually, the acidic water would have eaten the
planes and the pilots' bodies away. (Either that or one of the
semi-frequent forest fires would have burned the wreckage away. Hey, I'm
not making this up...)

Of course, there's no way to really test this theory unless someone
should happen to survey the Okefenokee with ground-penetrating radar.

-Marc

--
Marc Reeve
actual email address after removal of 4s & spaces is
c4m4r4a4m4a4n a4t c4r4u4z4i4o d4o4t c4o4m