The saga of Flight 19 remains as one of the most mysterious incidents of Bermuda Triangle.
Five Avenger bombers that took off from the Naval base at Florida on 5th of December 1945, never returned.
U.S Navy's final report mentioned "Reasons Unknown" when citing the cause of the incident.
So what was actually Flight 19 and what really happened? My findings below are the closest to the reality that one can possibly get to.
Flight 19 was a training flight with five TBM Avenger Bombers and was led by the commander Charles Taylor. There were 13 others in the flight but were all trainees. Taylor was the only experienced pilot. On December 5, 1945 at 2:10 p.m., the five Avengers of Flight 19 took off from the Naval Air Station (NAS) at Florida for a routine training.
As per plans, the flight's path was to first go towards East into the sea for 56 miles up to Hens and Chicken Shoals to practice bombings.
Then they were supposed go further east for another 67 miles towards the Bahamas. At this point they would turn north and go for 73 miles.
Then turn back and head straight for the Naval Base back in Florida. This way they would cover a triangular area over the sea.
The triangle with the yellow line on the picture was the planned route of the flight 19.
This is the route and sequence of events of Flight 19:
D: The line D on top corresponds to 100 nautical miles (or 190 km) of distance in the map. This will help you understand the scale and the distances along the flight paths.
0: The area within the dashed lines falls within the Bermuda Triangle
1: Navy Air Station (NAS) Fort Lauderdale in Florida. The five avenger bomber training planes of Flight 19 led by Commander Charles Taylor take off at 14:10.
2: They were supposed go out into the sea towards East for 56 nautical miles to reach point 2 (Hen and Chickens shoals) and drop practice bombs until around 15:00.
3. After practice bombing, the flight was supposed to proceed further along East for another 73 nautical miles (140 km) to reach point 3.
4. Then they were to turn north and fly for 120 nautical miles (220 km) to reach point 4.
5. After reaching point 4, the planes were supposed to head back to the NAS air base.
6. Between 15:00–17:50 exact position of the flight remains unknown. No one knows for sure where the planes exactly were.
7. At 17:50 the flight's position was established from radio transmission. They were within 100 nautical miles (190 km) of 29°N 79°W. However the control tower lost trace of the flight soon after that.
8. At 19:27 when the hope was rapidly fading off, the rescue Martin Mariner PBM-5 (No. 59225) takes off from Banana River Navy Air Station for search operation.
9. At 19:50, the rescue Martin Mariner itself explodes near the point 28°N 80°W
10. The small islands of Florida Keys, where Taylor thought he was.
-Taylor is a pilot who flights one of the five Flight 19's-
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