Navy PBM-5 Mariner
Navy PBM-5 Mariner
The ones who fly in and out of the hollowed-out volcano down in Mexico, but only at night.
Very interesting - thanks for posting. I can’t believe this wasn’t as well known as any other mystery about planes..such as Amelia Earhart. Can’t say I’d ever heard of it..it wouldn’t be surprising if I had and just forgot..I’ve been pretty much in tune with anything to do with military/aviation...I was always interested in the Bermuda Triangle mysteries so I’m leaning in that direction on this...
Goes to show not to follow an idiot. Speak up and save your own bacon.
The lead pilot was known to have issues navigating.
PBM-5 Mariner’s had a known history of fuel leaks in the wings and a number had blown up mid-air in the past before this.
That was debunked decades ago but the Bermuda Triangle nonsense is still going on.
The leader of the flight reportedly had been drinking before flight, once in the air he thought he was over the Fla Keys and ordered the flight to fly North east to their doom.
Charles Berlitz, who popularized the Triangle, decades ago listed all the ships lost in the Bermuda Triangle. I pinpointed every one and only about three or four went down in the triangle, the rest well outside it.
Berlitz even tried to tie the death of Bo Rein to the triangle by saying his aircraft was being mysteriously pulled to the triangle from a short flight in Louisiana to the Atlantic.
As fro the triangle shown, it is different from the triangle of decades ago. This one shown is much bigger and extends to
Washington DC. The old one started at Miami fla.
Charles Berlitz tried to popularize another “triangle” in the Philippines. It did not go over.
Many years ago I read a book detailing all the Bermuda Triangle disappearances. I was convinced it was real. Then a couple years later I read a book that legitimately disputed every single case in the first book. That was when I realized you can’t believe anything.
Lt. Taylor didn’t trust the compasses on his planes. He did the same “We aren’t in the right place” in the South Pacific and almost got a flight killed there. He also didn’t trust the training of the others in his flight. When radio stations from Cuba started overwhelming the flight radios, he wouldn’t try to get them to switch frequencies, because they might not be able to find each other again.
The Navy knew where they were too. About 70 miles off of New Smyrna Beach. That’s why the Mariner that blew up as it took off from Canaveral was heading North.
I recommend Kursche’s work “The Bermuda Triangle Mystery Solved”. He just lays out the facts without the extra stuff to make it “more interesting” like Richard Warner said on the “Nova” special back in the 70s.
The God, AI sayeth:
Were Flight 19 planes ever found?
AI Overview
No, the planes of Flight 19 and their search-and-rescue plane have never been definitively found. While there have been false alarms and claims of wreckage, no definitive wreckage matching Flight 19 or the lost search plane has been recovered.
Initial search: Hundreds of aircraft and ships conducted one of the largest peacetime search-and-rescue efforts in history, covering over 200,000 square miles, but found no trace of the six planes or their 27 crew members.
Misidentified wreckage: In 1991, a group of treasure hunters found the remains of five TBM Avenger planes off the coast of Fort Lauderdale. However, it was later confirmed that these were not Flight 19, as their serial numbers did not match.
Claims of wreckage: There have been other claims of finding wreckage, including one in a swamp that was later found to be a different aircraft, and more recent claims from the past few years about finding wrecks underwater. However, these claims have not been confirmed as belonging to Flight 19.
Official explanation: The official explanation from the Navy was that Flight 19 was a result of pilot error and navigational confusion, leading the planes to run out of fuel and ditch in the open ocean. The search plane, a Martin PBM Mariner, was thought to have suffered a mid-air explosion, which was a known issue with that aircraft model, but no wreckage from either incident has been recovered.