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The Bermuda Triangle is popularly called over a million square feet. km of area in the western Atlantic, off the southeastern coast of the United States. Its limits are drawn from the Bermuda Islands in the north, to the south of Florida, and from there east through the Bahamas, along Puerto Rico to 40 degrees west longitude and back to Bermuda.
Strange and inexplicable things are said to be happening here. Planes fall from the sky. The big ships suddenly sink under the waves. Full cargo ships are disappearing. People seem to evaporate. Maybe the aliens are to blame? And of course everything is hidden from people, but someone really knows the real truth.
This, of course, is nonsense, writes The Telegraph. Historical records show that there have been a number of accidents and deaths in this area, but the Bermuda Triangle is one of the most active in terms of air and sea transportation. Ships navigate here through extremely deep waters rich in sharp coral and threatening currents. Here you often have to worry about hurricanes and tropical cyclones. In pre-Soviet times, planes flew over this area to Miami, Cuba, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. Statistically speaking, in terms of probability of risk, the Bermuda Triangle is no less dangerous than any other bustling place in the world. But that didn’t stop the conspiracy theories.
The blame (or honor, depending on your point of view) for this phrase lies primarily with Vincent Gaddis, author of the tabloid magazine Argosy. Other writers have already picked up on this patch of the Atlantic, writing about the disappearance of the USS Cyclops. St Kitts 1918 disappeared with manganese ore and crew), on the disappearance of the Star Tiger (a 31-man British South American Airways plane that disappeared from the Azores to Bermuda in 1948). However, it was Gaddis who coined the term that is still used today. 1964 In February his article “The Mortal Triangle of Bermuda” was published, which gave rise to a myth.
Gaddis, to put it mildly, stretched the facts: adding 2 and 2 he got 436. But what he did was shed more light on an event that happened 75 years ago and whose answers are not yet fully answered. It was from flight 19 that the legend of the Bermuda Triangle originated.
Artwork from Wikimedia Commons / Bermuda Triangle
Of course, now looking at the disaster that occurred 75 years ago, we would say that what happened on December 5, 1945, was simply a series of failed failures that led to tragedy. But the remains of 27 men and the remains of the planes that destroyed them were not found. In this case, they really were snatched up by the sea and never gave up. It happened without the heads of green people or flying saucers, but the story is no less interesting.
December 5, 1945 had to be an ordinary Wednesday of the year World War II finally ended. Flight 19 was to take place: A small squad of Grumman TBM Avengers bombers took off from the Florida airport, which was then a military base. The attacker had to perform the routine task of dropping explosives on small uninhabited islands. That day, his target was a shallow coral 100 km offshore. Chicken and Chicken, which had already been bombed that morning.
In all, they flew five bombers with a crew of 14: four TBM-1C and one TBM-3. The squadron commander was Navy Lieutenant Charles Taylor, a 28-year-old pilot with experience in WWII battles. Bombers at 2:10 pm in good weather got up with tanks full of fuel.
NAS Fort Lauderdale Museum Photo / Lieutenant Charles Taylor
Towards the intended target, the Gallina and Pollo Shoals, the squad flew as planned. The task was designed not only to develop the accuracy of the explosives drop, but also to “estimate” – the ability to calculate the situation based on data from the previous situation.
Around 3pm the last bomb was allowed to be dropped, and the Avengers had to turn back in the same direction they were flying, first east, then make a sharp left-to-north turn, and finally another left turn to get to the military base. Fort Lauderdale. Problems arose when turning around and starting to fly east.
3:40 pm the base received a radio signal from pilot Edward Powers, causing an alarm. When asked for his coordinates, he replied, “I don’t know where we are. We probably got lost after last shift.” The situation worsened when Taylor also joined the radio from his plane. “My two compasses are not working,” he said. – I am trying to find Fort Lauderdale. “His next message:” I’m on the surface … I’m sure it’s over the Florida islands, but I don’t know where. I don’t know how to achieve that Fort Lauderdale “.
Photo by NAS Fort Lauderdale Museum / Fort Lauderdale Military Base 1945
It is impossible for the planes to be over the Florida islands at that time, as the squadron commander thought (The Florida Keys). They were somewhere in the Bahamas. That was the plan, that was the route. After turning north, the Avengers had to fly over the Grand Bahamas, which is easy to identify by its contours. But somewhere and for some reason Ch.Taylor got confused and began to believe that they were still almost 500 miles to the southwest. Such confusion would be disastrous. By confusing their location and continuing to follow the flight plan, the planes would have flown into the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico and would have run out of fuel.
At 4:45 p.m., an hour after the confusion, Taylor announced what he would do next: He would fly northeast for 45 minutes, then north.
During all this time, the radars could not detect the Avengers. However, assuming they were still above the Bahamas, such a course change would have carried them even deeper into the Atlantic Ocean, though not so far as to escape.
But the next step was fatal. Convinced that the planes were flying over the Gulf of Mexico, Ch. Taylor ordered a course change, turning 90 degrees to the east and flying for 10 minutes. Fort Lauderdale came to the words of the unsatisfied crew. “Damn it, if we flew west, we’d go home,” heard a voice. “Turn west, damn it.”
If the younger pilots had disobeyed the commander’s order and followed their instincts, they probably would have returned home. But obeying instructions, they were probably already more than 350 miles from the continental United States.
Wikimedia Commons / Red Triangle – Flight 19’s planned route. The yellow circle is where the squadron is believed to have disappeared.
Taylor seems to have realized his mistake for a moment. 5:24 pm announced that it would turn west and fly until it hit the ground or ran out of fuel. But after 40 minutes, he changed his mind again and wanted to fly east again.
Flight 19 was irretrievably lost. Weather conditions have deteriorated. The sun was already setting and fuel supplies were still on. The last message from Ch. Taylor was received at 6:20 pm. He reported that as soon as the fuel level of one of the planes was below 10 gallons, all five bombers would be forced to land at sea.
This scenario was already terrible, but there were other problems. At dusk, three planes, the Consolidated PBY Catalina and two Martin PBM Mariners, were dispatched to search for the Avengers. One of the Martin PBM Mariners with a crew of 13 took off at 19.27. of Banana River military air bases. He sent the last message just three minutes later. 9:15 pm the SS Gaines Mills tanker reported seeing the flames where the Martin PBM Mariner was supposed to be.
Wikimedia Commons: Martin PBM-5 Mariner – Flight 19
What led to this double tragedy? Supernatural forces? Are there accidents caused by human error, bad decisions made under great pressure, terrible coincidences and, ultimately, mere failure?
After investigation of the incident, responsibility was assigned to Ch. Taylor. It was reported that he misjudged the plane’s actual location – the Bahamas had supported the Florida islands, leading to wrong decisions. Still, he was not found guilty because both of his compasses were broken. It was a fatal factor that led him desperately to fly in the wrong direction. He was later fully acquitted and the report was corrected to say “the cause is unknown.” This was achieved by Taylor’s mother, who could not accept blaming the son for the deaths of 27 people when neither the bodies nor the wreckage were found.
The failure of the Martin PBM Mariner was recognized as an explosion; a known problem was that explosive fuel vapors accumulated in the PBM-5’s tanks.
Photo by NAS Fort Lauderdale Museum / Document announcing the completion of the Flight 19 disappearance case
The Avengers bombers were not found. Flight 19 is a sad story, but it must be admitted that it should not be exceptional. It was a horrible time when young people died so often that their deaths had become almost common. Only during exercise Fort Lauderdale from 1942 to 1945 95 people died.
But Flight 19 has become an engaging story through articles like Gaddis and because man is already a creature who likes to create conspiracies out of random events.
The history of Flight 19 has been recalled multiple times by ocean explorers. 1986 The bottom of the Atlantic Ocean was scanned for remains of the Challenger spacecraft, and it was announced that one of the Avengers bombers had been accidentally found. It turned out not.
1991 Great Britain Graham Hawkes was searching for Spanish gold in the Atlantic Ocean, said to have sunk in the 17th century. He announced that he had found five Avengers drowned close to each other, who appeared intact, as if submerged in the ocean, not crashed. There was a lot of interest, press conferences were held … Only later was all this frustrated. The serial numbers on them could not be confirmed, and it was later determined that the Avengers found on them are older than those used in 1945. In a huge oceanic tomb marked by countless bodies, it was just another coincidence.
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