Flight 19: The Bermuda Triangle's Strangest Mystery

Almost everybody can tell you at least one story about an aeroplane that disappeared in mid-flight. Unsurprisingly, these disappearances are often linked with wild stories of alternative reality gateways, alien abduction or top-secret government plots. However, although these make for thrilling stories and busy Reddit threads, the reality is usually much more mundane.

Even though none of these disappearances have been scientifically linked to any out of this world phenomena, it does not mean that the stories behind them are not interesting. This is certainly the case with today’s story, that of Flight 19, perhaps the most interesting and unusual of the aeroplane disappearance stories.

As is to be expected, it contains all of the usual conspiracy theories, aliens, alternative realities and government plots. Whilst we will cover the ideas behind all of these, we shall also endeavour to come up with the most likely explanation as to exactly what happened on that fateful day. So, dust off your tinfoil hat, select your beverage of choice, sit back and relax as we take a deep dive into just exactly what might have happened to Flight 19.

What Was Flight 19?

Let us start with Lieutenant Charles C. Taylor.

Taylor, who would go on to lead the training mission known as Flight 19, was by no means a rookie. Having racked up over 2,500 hours of flight time, 600 of which were in the TBM Avenger torpedo bombers, the same plane used for Flight 19, as well as having two years experience as a flight instructor, he should have been more than qualified to lead what has been described as an exceptionally simple training exercise.

The exercise, known as Navigation Problem Number One, took place on the 5th of December 1945. According to the National Archives at Fort Worth:

Navigation Problem #1 required Taylor to fly eastward from Fort Lauderdale, conduct a practice bombing run at Hen & Chicken Shoals just north of Bimini, continue eastward, then turn north, fly over Grand Bahama Island, and then turn southwest and return to base. The flight would cover approximately 316 miles and last about 2 hours and 40 minutes.

At 2:10 pm, Taylor and 13 other naval personnel took off in five Avenger torpedo bombers. According to the records, the first leg of the exercise was completed without a hitch. However, at 3:40 pm, it became apparent that the mission was not proceeding as it should. A transcription from the radio broadcasts between the aircraft show that one pilot radioed to another to obtain a compass bearing, and the response came back saying:

I don’t know where we are. We must have got lost after that last turn.

After this, the afternoon only got more strange.

At approximately 3:43 pm, Lieutenant Taylor put out a radio call to a pilot on the ground saying:

Both of my compasses are out, and I am trying to find Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. I am over land but it is broken. I am sure I am in the Keys but I don’t know how far down and I don’t know how to get back to Ft. Lauderdale.

At the time Taylor sent this message, he was completely lost. Although he believed himself to be south-west of Ft. Lauderdale, he was, in fact, north east of his intended destination. Had Taylor followed the standard operating procedure for being lost in the Atlantic and simply headed towards the sunset, he would have, most likely, found land and been able to re-orient himself.

Unfortunately, he now believed that he and his planes were somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico and so decided to fly north east in an attempt to locate the Florida peninsula. In actual fact, he was now flying further out to sea. By this point, several of the other pilots had begun to lose faith in their leader.

Records of the conversations between the pilots indicate that one man said over the radio:

Dammit. If we would just fly west, we would get home.

It appears that Taylor was eventually persuaded to fly west but, shortly after 6 pm, he reversed his decision and ordered everybody to fly east again. By this point, it is believed that at least one of the pilots had had enough of this and headed off on his own. Unfortunately for both the pilot, the other two men on board and the records for the story, this plane fared no better than the others.

One of the problems with being lost in the sky with nowhere to land is that aircraft require fuel and, should that fuel run out, your options quickly become exceptionally limited. This scenario was quickly playing out for everybody involved in Flight 19. As the planes flew further and further out to sea and their radio transmissions became more and more faint, Taylor was heard prepping his men for a crash landing.

All planes close up tight,” he said. “We’ll have to ditch unless landfall…when the first plane drops below ten gallons, we all go down together.

A few minutes later, the Avengers’ last broadcasts were replaced by nothing. Nothing that is apart from a persistent buzz of radio static.

The Search

As you will probably be unsurprised to hear, the Navy was not prepared to simply let this go, and a huge search was immediately launched.

Part of that search included the launch of two PBM Mariner flying boats, the fate of one of which adds more fuel to the fire of conspiracy theorists who claim that something is amiss with the official report. At 7:50 pm, 20 minutes after it was launched, one of the flying boats also completely vanished along with its 13 crew members.

Over the next five days, the Navy launched more than 300 boats and planes which would search an area of more than 300,000 square miles. Neither Flight 19, nor the missing flying boat, were ever discovered.

So, Where Did They Go?

Up until this point, my version of events has been largely taken from official reports. So, I think it only makes sense to carry on in that vein and look at the official explanation before we start to look into some of the, shall we say, slightly more outlandish explanations.

First of all, because it is the most simple disappearance to explain, we shall look at the flying boat that vanished during the search.

The official Navy report suggests that this plane suffered some sort of fuel leak and exploded. This is certainly not without precedent. PBM Mariner flying boats were nicknamed the “flying gas tanks” because of their propensity to leak gas fumes, and it certainly wasn’t the first time that one of these planes exploded.

The likelihood of this scenario is further backed up by a radio message broadcast from the tanker SS Gaines Mills. While passing through the same area in which the flying boat disappeared, the captain noticed a sudden burst of flame which went on for about 10 minutes. A transcript of the message that he sent reads:

At 1950, observed a burst of flames, apparently an explosion, leaping flames 100 feet high and burning for ten minutes. Position 28 degrees 59 minutes north, 80 degrees 25 minutes west. At present passing through a big pool of oil. Stopped, circled area using searchlights, looking for survivors. None found.

The USS Solomons, which had been tracking both flying boats on radar, also reported that this was the exact point at which one of them disappeared.

Now, on the face of it, this seems fairly open and closed. A notoriously unreliable aircraft suffers from a known fault and bursts into flames. We shall have to see if any of the alternative versions of the story provide a better explanation. But what about the flight for which this video was named? What about Flight 19?

What do the Navy claim happened to those planes and the people on board?

As with any such incident, a thorough investigation was carried out. Although what happened was never definitively proved, The Board of Inquiry concluded, “The leader of the flight became so hopelessly confused as to have suffered something akin to mental aberration.” Further reports seem to have attributed this confusion to a number of factors.

Firstly, Taylor did not actually have a clock in his plane, so he was unable to know how long the squadron had been flying in any given direction, information that is incredibly important, especially when you are flying over open water without the aid of GPS. Secondly, as he reported in one of his radio messages, both of his compasses seemed to be malfunctioning. Thirdly, although an experienced pilot, he was new to the area and had very little experience with flying over the Bahamas.

I believe it’s also worth mentioning that, although I could not find any substantial evidence to back them up, I found several reports which claimed that, on the morning of the incident, Taylor asked to be excused from duty, saying something along the lines of “I don’t want to take this one out.” At least two of these reports claim that, due to a turbulent romantic life, he had also been drinking heavily the night before and may not have been fit for duty.

As for what happened to the planes and the men on board, a report posted on history.navy.mil says:

The most likely explanation is that the aircraft ditched as a group off the east coast of Florida north of the Bahamas in the face of a rapidly moving severe weather front. The prospects of survival in an Avenger ditched at sea are marginal at best, especially for the aircrewmen in the back. Ditching an Avenger at night in heavy seas would almost certainly prove fatal, causing the plane to break up, and if anyone got out, they would not last long in the cool December water and winds.

So there it is, the official version of exactly what happened to the unfortunate individuals who took part in Flight 19.

From here on in, things get a little more unlikely.

The Bermuda Triangle

Now, if you’re watching this video, then I can probably quite safely assume that you have watched similar videos. And, as such, you probably do not need an explanation as to what the Bermuda Triangle is. However, as my grandfather used to say, assumption is the mother of all fuck ups, so here is a brief description taken from a short I wrote about it.

The Bermuda Triangle, a section of ocean between Bermuda, Miami, and Puerto Rico, has for a long time been the subject of many alleged disappearances. It is claimed that more than 50 ships and 20 aircraft have mysteriously vanished, without a trace, in this area over the years. Given that Flight 19 would appear to have gone down inside this triangle, many people have attributed the disappearance to one of the many peculiar phenomena that are alleged to take place in this area.

One of the more frequently suggested of these phenomena is the existence of wormholes. Many people have claimed, and continue to claim, that somewhere out there in the Bermuda Triangle, there are various wormholes. These wormholes, or rips in the space-time continuum, allow aircraft or ships to instantly travel hundreds of miles almost instantaneously. Those proponents of this particular theory often cite Taylor’s second radio message:

I am over land but it is broken. I am sure I am in the Keys.

“Surely,” these people claim, “the only way he could have gone that far off course is if he traveled through a wormhole.” Now, geography really is not my thing, and understanding maps even less so. However, the likelihood that Taylor was, in fact, flying over the Florida Keys as he believed is incredibly low.

As I previously mentioned, Taylor was new to the Bahamas. Before being based there, he had been based in the Florida Keys, and according to several people who have taken the time to study aerial photographs of both areas, the group of islands that Taylor and the rest of the squadron were flying over, located to the north of the Bahamas, look incredibly similar to the Florida Keys. If you add into the mix that Taylor was undoubtedly panicking, then it is certainly a forgivable mistake to make.

A mistake that, more importantly, requires no wormhole activity whatsoever.

Because Flight 19 has officially never been located, several books that have been written on the topic have proposed another Bermuda Triangle-related theory. The specifics of these theories vary slightly, but they all center around another radio message that Taylor sent during the incident. In this message, Taylor allegedly claims that everything looks completely wrong, they cannot see any land, and the sea appears to be a strange color.

People who are determined to believe that something supernatural or otherworldly took place that day have said that this radio message is evidence that, while traveling through the Bermuda Triangle, Flight 19 was unfortunate enough to travel through some sort of portal and into an alternative dimension or other world. While I am quite happy to admit that this radio message was unusual, the real question is whether or not Taylor sent it at all. According to a documentary that originally aired on the BBC in 1976, no such message was ever broadcast.

The makers of this documentary spoke to both of the officers who were in the radio tower at the time, and both of them categorically stated that they heard no such message. As pretty much all of the Bermuda Triangle theories rely heavily on their content, the fact that they, in all likelihood, never actually happened is fairly damning.

Government Cover-Up

So, if Flight 19 was not teleported to an alternative dimension, what else, besides what the official report says, could’ve possibly happened?

Because we, as humans, often struggle to believe anything that branches of the government tell us, several private investigations have been carried out in an attempt to discover where Flight 19 went.

When compared to the outlandish Bermuda Triangle claims, these investigations have actually yielded some fairly interesting results. During 1963, a lawyer from Florida named Graham Stikelether was hunting in the Florida swamps when he came across something quite unusual. That something was a downed aircraft with navy markings.

Inside the plane were two bodies. He quickly informed the authorities, and the wreckage was removed. According to Stikelether, a member of navy personnel said that it was highly likely the wreckage was something to do with the Flight 19 incident.

Curious to find out more, he made several attempts to discover the identity of the two bodies found in the plane but was repeatedly rebuffed. Apparently having grown weary of being refused information by the Navy, Stikelether contacted a friend of his who worked at the Pentagon. This friend allegedly told him that he would get no further information and he should immediately drop the case.

Instead of doing that, he would later join forces with another investigator, Tom Myhre, who believed that, instead of crashing far out to sea as the Navy claimed, several of the planes may have turned back and actually crashed somewhere in the Florida swamps. Given that Stikelether appears to have found the correct model of plane with navy markings, this theory is not entirely without merit. Although the squadron was under the command of the Navy, it included several marine pilots, and it is these pilots that Myhre believes may have broken away from the main group and taken their chances on their own.

In 2013, Myhre filed a freedom of information request in one final attempt to find out who had been on board the downed aircraft. Unfortunately, this request was denied on the grounds that the names of the recovered bodies had been redacted from the Navy’s records. Myhre believes that the aircraft was the one flown by Marine Capt. Edward Powers, Sgt. Howell Thompson, the gunner, and Sgt. George Paonessa, the radioman.

But, you’re probably thinking, “There were only two bodies found in the aircraft. What happened to the third?” Myhre believes that the radioman, George Paonessa, somehow survived the crash and, for reasons unknown, decided to go into hiding for the rest of his life. Obviously, this idea appears to be completely insane! However, there is one piece of evidence that lends a little credence to this theory.

While researching the archives at the Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale Museum, Myhre discovered a copy of a telegram sent from The Naval Air Station in Jacksonville just a couple of days after Flight 19 disappeared. This telegram, which was addressed to the family of Paonessa, reads: “I am very much alive. Signed: Georgie.”

While it is most likely that this is, at best, a misguided attempt by an unknown individual to provide false hope to the family and, at worst, somebody’s idea of an amusing prank, the family, for understandable reasons, believes it to be genuine. When interviewed, an employee of the museum, Minerva Bloom, told a reporter: “The telegram is believed to be a hoax by many. But I am not 100 percent sure because the family believes it is authentic, as only close family members knew his nickname, Georgie.”

The one problem with the cover-up theory is that nobody seems to be able to provide even a slightly plausible explanation as to why. I mean, I fell down a Reddit rabbit hole which provided an amazingly detailed theory about how the entirety of Flight 19 had been abducted by aliens. A theory which included many more alleged broadcasts from Taylor, the last of which said “I know where I am now, don’t try and come after me.”

According to this theory, the United States Navy were not only aware of the alien involvement but had actually arranged for the planes and pilots to be taken away in some sort of technology swap. Because, you know, an alien species that was capable of traveling to Earth, successfully abducting five airplanes and the crew, and transporting them all back to their home planet would obviously be interested in the technology available here on Earth. But apart from that highly likely sequence of events, unless I am missing something incredibly obvious, there doesn’t appear to be any logical reason why the Navy would want to disappear a large amount of valuable equipment and personnel.

Again, I’m open to suggestions.

Conclusion

So, let’s take a quick recap. Do we think that the disappearance of Flight 19 was an unfortunate and tragic accident caused mainly by pilot error? Or do we think that mysterious forces at work in the Bermuda Triangle transported the planes way off course or caused them to vanish into an alternate dimension?

Incidentally, and I did not know this until carrying out research for this script, although it might appear that an unusual number of boats and aircraft have gone missing within the triangle, given the fact that it is a particularly high traffic area, a plane crashing or a boat sinking is no more statistically likely there than anywhere else. Additionally, given that the triangle covers some 500,000 square miles, it is not all that surprising that things that have been lost there are difficult to find. If you don’t believe me, then perhaps you will believe the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who state on their website: “There is no evidence that mysterious disappearances occur with any greater frequency in the Bermuda Triangle than in any other large, well-traveled area of the ocean,” and boaters and fliers continue to venture through the triangle without event.

Lastly, we have the option of a military or government cover-up. While I accept that the Navy’s reluctance to provide any information on the downed aircraft and its occupants might be taken by some people as evidence that they are trying to hide something, military organizations are notoriously secretive. Furthermore, we don’t actually have any evidence, apart from hearsay, that the downed aircraft was anything to do with Flight 19.

In fact, I never actually found any indisputable evidence that the plane ever existed at all. As for the story of the alleged survivor who sent a telegram to his family, if you believed that you had survived some sort of military plot to get rid of you, would you really send a telegram to your family from a naval airbase? I suppose he could have been in shock after surviving a plane crash, but it seems a little risky to me.

For the record, boring as it may seem, I am inclined to believe the official version. However, as always, I shall leave it up to you to make up your own mind on the matter. Because any video that contains the Bermuda Triangle always results in a plethora of “interesting” theories, I look forward to reading about any that I may have missed in the comment section.

Frequently Asked Questions

What was Flight 19?

Flight 19 was a training mission led by Lieutenant Charles C. Taylor on December 5, 1945. It involved five Avenger torpedo bombers and 14 naval personnel performing a navigation exercise.

What was the planned route for Flight 19?

The exercise, known as navigation problem number one, required Taylor to fly eastward from Fort Lauderdale, conduct a practice bombing run at Hen & Chicken Shoals, continue eastward, turn north over Grand Bahama Island, and then turn southwest to return to base.

What went wrong during Flight 19?

The mission went awry when Lieutenant Taylor reported that both of his compasses were malfunctioning. He became lost and made several incorrect navigational decisions, leading the squadron further out to sea.

What was the official Navy report on the disappearance of Flight 19?

The Board of Inquiry concluded that the leader of the flight became confused and suffered something akin to mental aberration. The most likely explanation is that the aircraft ditched as a group off the east coast of Florida north of the Bahamas in the face of a rapidly moving severe weather front.

What happened to the search aircraft sent to find Flight 19?

One of the PBM Mariner flying boats sent to search for Flight 19 also vanished. The official Navy report suggests that this plane suffered a fuel leak and exploded, which is supported by a radio message from the tanker SS Gaines Mills and radar tracking from the USS Solomons.

What are some of the conspiracy theories surrounding Flight 19?

Some conspiracy theories suggest that Flight 19 was affected by phenomena in the Bermuda Triangle, such as wormholes or portals to alternative dimensions. Others propose a government cover-up, with some investigators claiming that parts of the squadron may have crashed in the Florida swamps.

What evidence supports the theory that parts of Flight 19 crashed in the Florida swamps?

In 1963, a lawyer named Graham Stikelether found a downed aircraft with navy markings in the Florida swamps. Inside the plane were two bodies. Investigators believe this plane may have been part of Flight 19, and one theory suggests that a radioman, George Paonessa, survived the crash and went into hiding.

What is the official stance on the Bermuda Triangle?

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration states that there is no evidence that mysterious disappearances occur with any greater frequency in the Bermuda Triangle than in any other large, well-traveled area of the ocean.

Sources

• Original Decoding the Unknown video: Flight 19: The Bermuda Triangle’s Strangest Mystery
• Hero image source by Bahnfrend / openverse, by-sa.