Flight’s Enigmatic Loss: A Complex Puzzle Unfolds

Perhaps the most notorious of the Triangle disappearances, the fate of Flight 19 and PBM Mariner has left even the brightest minds searching for answers. When Flight 19 , a group of five Avenger Torpedo Bombers, took off from Fort Lauderdale on December 5, 1945, they expected their three-hour bombing run to be as uneventful as the runs they had made countless times before.

Shortly after dropping their payload of replica bombs, the patrol began to run into trouble. Lt. Charles C. Taylor, an experienced pilot, believed that his compass had begun to malfunction and that Flight 19 had been flying in the wrong direction. Concerned, Taylor contacted another Navy flight instructor who was flying near the coast of Florida. With the weather worsening, Taylor went against protocol to point a stray aircraft toward the setting sun. Believing they were somewhere over the Florida Keys, Taylor adjusted course in an attempt to navigate the Gulf of Mexico.

Sensing Taylor’s mistake, some of his men challenged his decision to continue northeast and convinced him to turn around and head back west. However, for unknown reasons, he once again turned the flight back still concerned that they were somewhere over the Gulf. As the flight moved away from land, its transmissions grew weaker and weaker.

Having flown beyond their allotted time, the crew was beginning to worry that they would not be able to correct their navigation before running out of fuel. In his final transmission, Taylor told his men that once the lead plane was down to ten litres of fuel, they would all launch together for the best chance of rescue. A few short minutes later the transmissions ended.

Convinced that the flight had gone down in the ocean, the Navy immediately launched a search and rescue operation. Two Mariner seaplanes scrambled to search for the missing Flight 19 , however, 20 minutes after takeoff, one of the Mariners disappeared from radar. Neither the 13 crew, the 5 pilots of Flight 19 nor the wreckage of either aircraft were ever recovered.