I’m not saying it was Martians.
Most likely caught in a hurricane.
It’s okay, they were returned in 1977 on top of Devil’s Tower.
There is no Bermuda Triangle. It’s a myth made to sell a grocery store paper. any similarly trafficked piece of coast has just as many “mysterious” disappearances. Oceans eat things. Just how it goes.
Between having no weather radar and flying in the waters east of Florida (notorious for highly changeable weather), no wonder that squadron was lost.
They trusted the force rather than their instruments.
I would guess spatial disorientation.
The compasses were probably all correct but the lead pilot somehow didn’t believe his.
He flew by seat of his pants instead of sound aviation techniques.
Air Force personnel have been flying in and out of Patrick AFB through the triangle for many decades.
I think if there was any mysterious danger out there, they would know about it.
Not for nothing, but if their last leg might have been about 140.46 miles instead of stopping after 120 miles, the might have made it back.
“...a routine three-hour training mission.”
A three-hour tour? Did they search all of the islands around there?
I was at the helm when my ship (a Destroyer) went through the triangle. My compass went crazy and became useless.
The odd thing is it happened during the day, in the afternoon. If the weather was even moderately clear, even if their compasses were doing weird things, all they would have to do is look at where the sun was, and from that have a pretty general idea of where west was. Heading west, they would have hit Florida at some point and found someplace to land.
I remember years ago reading of this flight, the myths surrounding the disappearance and what really happened.
The squadron leader showed up intoxicated, flew his men over the Bahamas, but thought he was over the Keys and told them to continue NE till they came over Florida, then ditched. The ocean currents did the rest.
The rescue aircraft was known to have gasoline fume problems and was known as a flying gas can. Possibly someone lit up and the plane blew up.
After reading all this over forty years ago I never consider movies like CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND to be watchable.
I believe it was Charles Berlitz who tried to popularize this for his book on The Bermuda Triangle.
Berlitz also tried to make the claim that, in 1980, the Triangle mysteriously pulled another aircraft from Louisiana to the Atlantic.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/sports/1980/01/12/lsu-coach-presumed-killed/93071bb3-ba7d-4ee6-b397-e86e56ea5dec/
If you set down with Berlitz’ list of lost ships and planes you will find that very few disappeared in the actual Bermuda Triangle but well outside of it.
Then they went on to say the same thing about an Indonesian Triangle. It was great fodder for the checkout stand tabloids at that time.
Interesting comments by everyone. All we know for sure, is that the men and planes were never seen again. If there was bad weather it must have been very localized in the area they flew into. But in that case, why was no wreckage ever found?
And what does everyone think of the response on this thread, of one of our freepers who sailed through the Bermuda triangle and personally witness the compass go haywire?
I had heard that Flight 19 was a training mission, with experienced pilots out there. It seems odd so many experienced pilots lost their way.
This was covered by PBS about 30 years ago. Similar landmarks cause them to trust the landmarks rather than their compasses causing them to go out to sea and run out of gas.
Never had a problem getting finding my way as long as I wasn’t on an interstate. Boating in the fog, hunting unfamiliar hills in snowstorms, cruising old lumber roads at night, no problem. Stick me on an interstate, and I’ll find the shortest distance to my own rear end.