Many Bermuda Triangle Web sites include long lists of missing ships and planes. But many of those were nowhere near the Triangle when they disappeared or they turned up later with rational explanations for their disappearances. For example, the Mary Celeste, found floating in 1872 with not a person on board and everything exactly as they had left it, is on nearly every list of losses blamed on the Bermuda Triangle. But in reality, it was many hundreds of miles from the Triangle at the time.
Here is a sampling of the some of the most notable incidents. As you'll see, some of these have reasonable explanations although they're still attributed to the strange and unknown powers of the Bermuda Triangle.
The U.S.S. Cyclops, 1918
During World War I, the U.S.S. Cyclops served along the eastern coast of the United States until January 9, 1918. At that time, she was assigned to the Naval Overseas Transportation Service. The Cyclops was scheduled to sail to Brazil to refuel British ships in the south Atlantic. She set out from Rio de Janeiro on February 16, and, after a brief stop in Barbados from March 3 to 4, was never seen or heard from again. All 306 passengers and crew were gone without a trace.
U.S. Navy Avengers Flight 19, 1945
The most famous Bermuda Triangle story is the mystery surrounding five missing Navy Avengers in 1945. The story of Flight 19 is usually summarized this way: a routine patrol set out on a sunny day with five highly experienced student pilots. Suddenly, the tower began receiving transmissions from the flight leader that they were lost, compasses were not working, and "everything looked wrong." They were never seen again, and extensive Navy investigations turned up no clues to explain the disappearance.
Lieutenant Charles C. Taylor led the mission, which included several planned course changes. They departed at 1:15 p.m. on December 5, 1945. At 3:00 p.m., Lieutenant Robert F. Cox was flying over Fort Lauderdale, Florida when he heard a signal that he thought was from a boat or plane in distress. He called Operations at the Naval Air Station to report what he had heard. Cox told Taylor to fly with the sun at his left wing and up the coast until he hit Miami. Taylor then said that they were over a small island with no other land in sight. If he was over the Keys as he had said, however, he should have seen several islands as well as the Florida peninsula.
With less than two hours' flying time until they ran out of fuel, Taylor described a large island to Operations. Assuming this was Andros Island, the largest in the Bahamas, Operations sent Taylor a heading that would take him to Fort Lauderdale. Apparently this heading was correct, because once Flight 19 assumed the new course, Taylor's voice began coming in stronger over the radio. Taylor, however, didn't believe this course was right and after a few minutes said that they "didn't go far enough east. Turn around again and go east. We should have a better chance of being picked up closer to shore." With this move, transmissions began to weaken as they flew out of radio range in the wrong direction. For unknown reasons, Taylor ignored the standard flying procedure of flying west if over water and east if over land.
Two PBM-5 Mariner seaplanes went out to search the area, but one exploded soon after takeoff. The other never located Flight 19.
DC-3 Flight NC-16002, 1948
On December 28, 1948, Captain Robert Lindquist of flight NC-16002 was piloting DC-3 commercial flight NC-16002 from San Juan, Puerto Rico to Miami, Florida. He radioed Miami when they were 50 miles away and requested landing instructions. Miami radioed back with the instructions, but got no reply. The plane never arrived and was never heard from again. Although many reports state there was no radio trouble and that the weather was clear, the accident investigation report from the Civil Aeronautics Board says differently.
According to the report, the plane had electrical difficulties from the beginning and its batteries needed a recharge so it could communicate with the tower. But rather than charging the batteries prior to takeoff, Lindquist instructed the ground crew to refill the water in the batteries and replace them in the plane. He originally canceled his flight plan because of the battery difficulties, and was directed to remain in San Juan until he established radio contact with the tower and reinstated his flight plan. But 11 minutes after takeoff, Lindquist radioed to the tower that they were proceeding to Miami. The tower never received the transmission, but CAA Communications in San Juan did. All attempts to contact the flight were unsuccessful. In the flight's final radio communication, Lindquist stated that they were 50 miles south of Miami.
The Civil Aeronautics Board report analysis includes the assumption that some failure in the electrical system made the aircraft's radio and automatic compass inoperative after the final communication. It also assumes that because Captain Lindquist didn't communicate with the tower, he didn't know about changes in the weather. The wind direction had changed, which would have made his plane drift left of its actual course by as much as 50 miles. Since the captain's location was an estimate based on his flight time, speed, and weather conditions, he could easily have been off-course. The plane had fuel for seven and a half hours of flight. At the time of his last communication, he had been flying for a little more than six hours. He may have then crashed into the Gulf of Mexico after running out of fuel. No debris was found, but the crash could have occurred in an area where the water is extremely deep and any evidence of the crash would disappear quickly.
