Flight 19 (5 Avengers Disappear; 1945; Bermuda Triangle)

[EnolaGaia]

... WHY did Taylor think the compass was not working? Taylor thought he knew where he was. IE over Grand Bahama, but the compass told him otherwise. If he was actually flying over Great Abaco at the time? well.... of course the compass would disagree since it was TAYLOR that was wrong.

Agreed ... The most straightforward explanation is that Taylor erroneously concluded there was a fault with the compass(es) because the readings clashed with whatever other factors (e.g., visual sighting of islands) he was relying upon to determine his location.

... Also I'm not sure if they were using magnetic or gyroscopic compasses. Gyroscopic compasses don't fail due to magnetic anomalies. 10 failing at the same time? that's... highly unlikely. ...

As far as I can tell the TBM (GM-built) Avenger didn't have multiple 'compasses' per se. They were equipped with a magnetic compass installed at or above the pilot's forehead elevation and a directional gyro in the top center of the instrument panel. This image of an SBD Dauntless cockpit illustrates the relative location of both units better than any image of a TBM cockpit I could find ...

SOURCE:
https://aeroantique.com/products/co...i-with-mounting-bracket?variant=6100723138590​

A directional gyro (aka heading indicator) is a gyroscopically controlled display showing where the aircraft is pointed in the horizontal plane (i.e., N / S / E / W). This is not a true gyrocompass, insofar as it is not automatically calibrated to track (e.g.) "north" at all times. Instead, it's an adjustable pointer that has to be correlated with "north" (or whatever bearing / heading) by reference to the main / magnetic compass. It indicates the direction of the aircraft relative to this setting until it's reset / re-calibrated. It indicates your heading relative to the last designated setting rather than any particular geo-direction.

If my interpretation is correct, Taylor's allusion to "both compasses" being untrustworthy didn't mean two independent compasses had both failed. It meant he blamed some anomalous correlation (or not ...) between the magnetic compass's reading and the directional gyro (as well as between both these two instruments and where he thought he was and where he thought he was heading) on the equipment rather than an error in his own evaluation of location.

 

[Naughty_Felid]

You don't need a compass to determine direction, provided you have a watch and can see the Sun.
As one of the crew was heard to say "Dammit, if we could just fly west we would get home; head west, dammit!".

Would not be the first subordinate to not be listened too. Hence crew resource management philosophies in place theses days.

 

[marhawkman]

Would not be the first subordinate to not be listened too. Hence crew resource management philosophies in place theses days.

Well I had another think about that and well... My experience with military training exercises is that there's an extra layer to "never disobey the instructor".

As a trainee, you don't necessarily know what the "script" (so to speak) of the exercise is. Maybe the instructor is intentionally pretending to get lost and is listening to your attempts to figure out how to get un-lost as part of course evaluation? Is it normal? no, but that's part of why it's done, to try to simulate the unknown. If you knew the instructor was going to (intentionally or otherwise) get lost you would preemptively counteract that surprise.

 

[charliebrown]

My wife has a male cousin who sometimes hires a crew to help him sail his boat.

A few years back, her cousin planned a trip to Bermuda, but when they got into the Bermuda Triangle his compass went wild

with a lot of witnesses from the crew.

The cousin and crew got really freaked out and immediately turned around for home.

He swears this is 100% true.

 

[charliebrown]

The U.S. History Channel is making a new program about Flight 19.

This new program will claim that a diver found pieces of an Avenger.

This is not what it seems since 1930, 325 planes and 1,200 ships have disappeared.

The navy has said many other Avengers had crash before flight 19, so this could be a different Avenger.

 

[Cochise]

Flight 19 is interesting, as are a couple of the other 'Bermuda Triangle' aviation accidents.

Flight 19 didn't just 'disappear', they were in radio contact until nearly the end of the flight. But the radio contacts were odd, to say the least.

I take it there is no chance one or more of the pilots had a fraternal toke or two before take off? Drug abuse was not unknown in the armed forces of WW2.

Anyway, this is one that is more than a little puzzling - not least the 5 Avengers discovered on the seabed that were not flight 19.

I'll try and find the other 'Bermuda Triangle' disappearance that was characterised by unexpected / odd radio messages.

 

[marhawkman]

The U.S. History Channel is making a new program about Flight 19.

This new program will claim that a diver found pieces of an Avenger.

This is not what it seems since 1930, 325 planes and 1,200 ships have disappeared.

The navy has said many other Avengers had crash before flight 19, so this could be a different Avenger.

I remember seeing in the commentary of a youtube video someone mentioning a case where a group of 5 Avengers was found along the route between Florida, and the place Flight 19 left... they ran the serial numbers and figured out that it was not only not flight 19, but not even a flight, it was planes from 5 different flights.

Flight 19 is interesting, as are a couple of the other 'Bermuda Triangle' aviation accidents.

Flight 19 didn't just 'disappear', they were in radio contact until nearly the end of the flight. But the radio contacts were odd, to say the least.

I take it there is no chance one or more of the pilots had a fraternal toke or two before take off? Drug abuse was not unknown in the armed forces of WW2.

Anyway, this is one that is more than a little puzzling - not least the 5 Avengers discovered on the seabed that were not flight 19.

I'll try and find the other 'Bermuda Triangle' disappearance that was characterised by unexpected / odd radio messages.

After pondering this for years.... I think the US Navy official investigation... was right.

When you look at the radio log and use reasonable approximations to place the location of the flight when the messages were broadcast... it makes a lot of sense to label it as catastrophic pilot error. And it's clear from the dialog, that it's the flight leader's error, and not a group error.

Also one detail that often gets left out.... is that this was actually an experienced pilot.... flying a route he barely knew. Why did he talk about the Keys? Because most of his time as a flight instructor was flying over the Keys. Not the Bahamas.

 

[Cochise]

I remember seeing in the commentary of a youtube video someone mentioning a case where a group of 5 Avengers was found along the route between Florida, and the place Flight 19 left... they ran the serial numbers and figured out that it was not only not flight 19, but not even a flight, it was planes from 5 different flights.

After pondering this for years.... I think the US Navy official investigation... was right.

When you look at the radio log and use reasonable approximations to place the location of the flight when the messages were broadcast... it makes a lot of sense to label it as catastrophic pilot error. And it's clear from the dialog, that it's the flight leader's error, and not a group error.

Also one detail that often gets left out.... is that this was actually an experienced pilot.... flying a route he barely knew. Why did he talk about the Keys? Because most of his time as a flight instructor was flying over the Keys. Not the Bahamas.

Well his previous posting was also in Florida. Surely he should have known the general geography and locations of other airstrips for emergencies?

I'm not suggesting this is supernatural - just, well, Fortean.

 

[marhawkman]

Well his previous posting was also in Florida. Surely he should have known the general geography and locations of other airstrips for emergencies?

I'm not suggesting this is supernatural - just, well, Fortean.

One would think so, but... it's a matter of degree. Only knowing the "general geography"... greatly increases the margin of error vs something you've done several times before.

The key error that threw things off the deep end, and the one that is most baffling... is "why did Taylor think he was over the Keys?" the only explanation that seems to make sense is he tried to visually id what he was flying over... and got an unfamiliar island confused for a familiar island.

 

[Cochise]

One would think so, but... it's a matter of degree. Only knowing the "general geography"... greatly increases the margin of error vs something you've done several times before.

The key error that threw things off the deep end, and the one that is most baffling... is "why did Taylor think he was over the Keys?" the only explanation that seems to make sense is he tried to visually id what he was flying over... and got an unfamiliar island confused for a familiar island.

Yes, but even if he was confused, the Keys are south of Florida, not to the west. Flying north-east makes no sense at all.

 

[charliebrown]

Just my opinion, they should had simply flown toward the setting sun or west, and they would have been back in Florida in no time.

Were these pilots brains scrambled ?

I think I heard everyone was convinced they were in the Florida Keys, why ?

 

[Cochise]

Just my opinion, they should had simply flown toward the setting sun or west, and they would have been back in Florida in no time.

Were these pilots brains scrambled ?

I think I heard everyone was convinced they were in the Florida Keys, why ?

One of the trainee pilots said exactly that but was overruled. It was also Navy Air Force standard rule to head west if in doubt about a landfall over the ocean. I'm not sure of the sense of that , but such it was.

If they had I think they'd have been OK.

 

[charliebrown]

I guess fear does strange things to people and pilots.

Even stranger a PBM Mariner flying boat took off to search for Flight 19, and 20 minutes later it just disappeared from radar.

The Navy assumed it just exploded, but no trace of the 13 crew or plane were ever found.

 

[Cochise]

I guess fear does strange things to people and pilots.

Even stranger a PBM Mariner flying boat took off to search for Flight 19, and 20 minutes later it just disappeared from radar.

The Navy assumed it just exploded, but no trace of the 13 crew or plane were ever found.

True, but the explosion was witnessed and by then then weather had seriously deteriorated.

 

[charliebrown]

Cochise,

Probably true, but strangely not a seat cushion or man’s life preserver found from the explosion ?

 

[marhawkman]

Yes, but even if he was confused, the Keys are south of Florida, not to the west. Flying north-east makes no sense at all.

Well, yes and no, but mostly no. The Keys are an island chain that attaches to the tip of the boot, and strings generally westward from the tip. going due north will have varied results depending where in the Keys you are.

In the Upper Keys, yes, North. the rest though? NE is probably better. IIRC Taylor's course was NNE and not simply NE. Which... yeah... anywhere in the keys pretty much NNE will hit mainland Florida somewhere(and not the Panhandle).

Flying west will... eventually... get you to either Mexico or Texas.... on the other side of the Gulf. Long ways.... they probably didn't have the fuel for that.

I guess fear does strange things to people and pilots.

Even stranger a PBM Mariner flying boat took off to search for Flight 19, and 20 minutes later it just disappeared from radar.

The Navy assumed it just exploded, but no trace of the 13 crew or plane were ever found.

The Navy did have evidence for that conclusion. There was a ship that had recorded seeing a fireball in mid-air around the time the Mariner was lost and in the right place to have been the Mariner's destruction.

Cochise,

Probably true, but strangely not a seat cushion or man’s life preserver found from the explosion ?

you mean the plastic parts... that sometimes get incinerated? The Mariner would have had nearly full fuel tanks when she exploded. The placement of the tanks would potentially have caused the cabin to be engulfed in flames before the plane experienced structural failure. IE everything inside got sprayed with Jet Fuel-A which then flashed into a catastrophic explosion. Yeah, in that scenario it's easy to imagine the contents of the plane getting incinerated in bulk :/
http://www.seawings.co.uk/images/ma...Koss/Pilots Handbook Martin PBM-5 Mariner.pdf
Page 2 of the book(7 in the PDF) item 14... next to the walkway... that's the fuel tank.... If that ruptures, kiss your butts good bye. Also... anything in the cabin not made of metal? probably incinerated.

 

[charliebrown]

My wife has a first cousin who during the summer hires a crew to help run his sail boat.

One year a trip was planned from Brooklyn, NY to Bermuda, and about half way through the cruise, the boat’s compass just started to go around in circles.

Everyone was just freaked out, and the cousin turned his boat around and went as fast as they could back to Brooklyn.

This is a true story that still has the cousin to this day still talking about this event.

 

[Cochise]

My wife has a first cousin who during the summer hires a crew to help run his sail boat.

One year a trip was planned from Brooklyn, NY to Bermuda, and about half way through the cruise, the boat’s compass just started to go around in circles.

Everyone was just freaked out, and the cousin turned his boat around and went as fast as they could back to Brooklyn.

This is a true story that still has the cousin to this day still talking about this event.

That kind of fits in with what I was thinking - some kind of magnetic or electronic anomaly.

 

[Nosmo King]

That kind of fits in with what I was thinking - some kind of magnetic or electronic anomaly.

If there was a large wreck of an iron ship below the boat would that have an effect on the compass?

 

[Naughty_Felid]

If there was a large wreck of an iron ship below the boat would that have an effect on the compass?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteoric_iron

or a spaceship.

 

[marhawkman]

That kind of fits in with what I was thinking - some kind of magnetic or electronic anomaly.

the idea the compasses were actually wrong as a group? all 10 of them?

Yeah... no. It's like Enola said:

Agreed ... The most straightforward explanation is that Taylor erroneously concluded there was a fault with the compass(es) because the readings clashed with whatever other factors (e.g., visual sighting of islands) he was relying upon to determine his location.

As far as I can tell the TBM (GM-built) Avenger didn't have multiple 'compasses' per se. They were equipped with a magnetic compass installed at or above the pilot's forehead elevation and a directional gyro in the top center of the instrument panel. This image of an SBD Dauntless cockpit illustrates the relative location of both units better than any image of a TBM cockpit I could find ...

View attachment 37161
SOURCE:
https://aeroantique.com/products/co...i-with-mounting-bracket?variant=6100723138590​

A directional gyro (aka heading indicator) is a gyroscopically controlled display showing where the aircraft is pointed in the horizontal plane (i.e., N / S / E / W). This is not a true gyrocompass, insofar as it is not automatically calibrated to track (e.g.) "north" at all times. Instead, it's an adjustable pointer that has to be correlated with "north" (or whatever bearing / heading) by reference to the main / magnetic compass. It indicates the direction of the aircraft relative to this setting until it's reset / re-calibrated. It indicates your heading relative to the last designated setting rather than any particular geo-direction.

If my interpretation is correct, Taylor's allusion to "both compasses" being untrustworthy didn't mean two independent compasses had both failed. It meant he blamed some anomalous correlation (or not ...) between the magnetic compass's reading and the directional gyro (as well as between both these two instruments and where he thought he was and where he thought he was heading) on the equipment rather than an error in his own evaluation of location.

The main instrument is magnetic, but the backup(not a true compass) is gyroscopic. It's also not electronic. This is by DESIGN so that if one instrument is being affected the other WON'T. It they both tell you the same heading is north... it's probably north.

Taylor choosing to ignore that? well... his students thought he was an idiot apparently. Sure it might be one of the dumbest decisions in all of human history, but that's what made the case famous I think. The sheer incredulity of the idea that a trained pilot would think that all 10 instruments had failed in the same way at the same time. It's mind boggling, but.... it's seemingly what happened.

 

[Cochise]

the idea the compasses were actually wrong as a group? all 10 of them?

Yeah... no. It's like Enola said:

The main instrument is magnetic, but the backup(not a true compass) is gyroscopic. It's also not electronic. This is by DESIGN so that if one instrument is being affected the other WON'T. It they both tell you the same heading is north... it's probably north.

Taylor choosing to ignore that? well... his students thought he was an idiot apparently. Sure it might be one of the dumbest decisions in all of human history, but that's what made the case famous I think. The sheer incredulity of the idea that a trained pilot would think that all 10 instruments had failed in the same way at the same time. It's mind boggling, but.... it's seemingly what happened.

At least one of the pilots tried to argue with him and make them head west, according to the transcripts, so it's not necessary for everyone's instruments to have failed.

The other five Avengers? All crashed in the same place - I don't necessarily believe 'in formation' as the divers alleged. The thing is decidedly odd, even if the 'oddness' only comes under 'remarkable coincidence'. I'm not a great believer in 'remarkable coincidence'.

The whole essence of Forteana, to me, is that odd things happen, and science is disinclined to consider them. Which in turn leads to people to make up ludicrous explanations, some of which Fort was obviously poking fun at. My interest is that if some of these things were properly investigated, then our fund of scientific knowledge might be extended. Ball lightning might be one of the better examples.

 

[EnolaGaia]

There are two things about the Flight 19 incident that have always bothered me to the point of irritation:

(1) I've never been able to figure out how Lt. Taylor (with his trainees) flew circa 140 miles east of NAS Fort Lauderdale, turned northward, and only then managed to convince himself the flight was more than a hundred miles to the south and west of where they'd started. There was no mention of compass failure until they had made the turn northward, but it seems someone jumped to the conclusion they'd been flying in the opposite compass direction(s) from the very beginning. If they'd been flying west and south from the beginning, how the hell did they miss the fact their first leg was over the entire southern end of Florida and the Everglades rather than open sea?

(2) The official Navy investigation correctly (IMHO) attributed the cause to gross navigational error and poor situational judgment (largely casting shade on Taylor). If they hadn't backed down after Taylor's mother protested and changed the cause of record to "unknown" (for the sake of Taylor's reputation) there wouldn't have been an explanatory gap into which writers would opportunistically insert woo factor to manufacture the whole Bermuda Triangle mythos.

 

[Cochise]

Just for clarity, I don't buy into the 'Bermuda Triangle' as such, but a small number of the incidents that go to make up the myth are interesting.

To reinforce EnolaGaia's point 1, at that stage of the flight the weather was reportedly clear. Were they all concentrating on their instruments and keeping formation so much that they never looked down (or rather, that what was below didn't register against what they expected to see, their concentration being elsewhere?)

All 5 of them?

Most descriptions I've seen of the incident skip over the 'how did they get so lost in the first place' issue.

 

[EnolaGaia]

... Were they all concentrating on their instruments and keeping formation so much that they never looked down (or rather, that what was below didn't register against what they expected to see, their concentration being elsewhere?)
All 5 of them? ...

There were 14 pairs of eyes among the Flight 19 crews that day. A TBM Avenger carried a crew of three: the pilot; the turret gunner up top facing rearward; and the radioman / bombardier / ventral gunner down below.

The pilot and turret gunner were surrounded by glass and could see laterally in all directions. The third guy sitting below had limited visibility to the rear and below, and he faced forward when operating the radio. Here's a photo illustrating the third guy's viewing affordances when facing rearward.

The flight was one man short that day. A crewman on one of the student-piloted TBMs had been excused from the exercise. I don't know whether he was the turret gunner or the radio (etc.) man. I suspect he had to be a turret gunner, because the radio and bombardier roles were required to perform the training mission.

Anyway ... There were 14 pairs of eyes capable of looking outside, 5 of which (the radio / bombardier guys) had only limited visibility whenever they weren't facing forward to do their primary functions.

 

[charliebrown]

According to wikipedia, Lloyd’s of London does not put high risk insurance on commercial travel through the Bermuda Triangle.

But, also according to wikipedia most paranormal stories about the Bermuda Triangle usually has to do with a spinning compass.

I find this fact bizarre.

What is affecting these compasses ?

 

[Nosmo King]

According to wikipedia, Lloyd’s of London does not put high risk insurance on commercial travel through the Bermuda Triangle.

But, also according to wikipedia most paranormal stories about the Bermuda Triangle usually has to do with a spinning compass.

I find this fact bizarre.

What is affecting these compasses ?

"Objects to avoid include wristwatches, keys, tables with metal legs or steel screws, mobile telephones and even heavy framed spectacles. Many geological formations, and for that matter, many rocks, are magnetized and can affect compass readings, as can electricity power lines."

https://setcompass.com/FalseCompassReadings.htm

 

[Mythopoeika]

According to wikipedia, Lloyd’s of London does not put high risk insurance on commercial travel through the Bermuda Triangle.

But, also according to wikipedia most paranormal stories about the Bermuda Triangle usually has to do with a spinning compass.

I find this fact bizarre.

What is affecting these compasses ?

It's entirely possible that the Earth's magnetic field is particularly dense there, for some reason. Perhaps as Naughty_Felid says, it may be an iron meteorite of huge size.

 

[Austin Popper]

The whole essence of Forteana, to me, is that odd things happen, and science is disinclined to consider them. Which in turn leads to people to make up ludicrous explanations, some of which Fort was obviously poking fun at.

Some of those explanations are right up there with "The fishmonger did it", an explanation Fort cited for a fish fall. Of course it was the fishmonger. Who else has lots of fish? People feel a strong need to get on with life, and some people need a comfortable explanation in order to get past weird things. I find them endlessly amusing.

 

[Mr_Hermolle]

My Dad was in the RAF, and flew over the area if the Bermuda Triangle. This would have been the 1960s. He did say that, at least on a few occasions, the compass didnt work properly. I'll ask him about it the next time I see him and see if he can provide further details.