Flight 19 was a training flight of five TBM Avenger Torpedo Bombers
that disappeared on December 5, 1945, while over the
Bermuda Triangle. The flight leader was United States Navy Lieutenant
Charles Carroll Taylor, who had about 2,500 flying hours. The aircraft
were the TBM-1Cs, one TBM-1E, and one TBM-3. It began as
nothing more than a routine training flight. The assignment was called
"Navigation problem No. 1", a combination of bombing and navigation. Flight 19 completed their assigned exercise and on their way back about 90 minutes after takeoff, the squadron commander Lt. Charles C. Taylor reported that he was lost. By this time, the weather and sea conditions got worse, as the evening wore on.
Over the next three hours, Lt. Taylor mistakenly led Flight 19 far out to sea, where the planes apparently ran out of fuel and crashed. That was on December 5, 1945, several months after the end of World War II. A massive search was launched for 5 lost planes, with units of the Navy, Army, and Coast Guard scouring the sea for the lost NASFL Aircraft.
Here we describe it-
On December 5, 1945, five TBM Avenger torpedo bombers took off
at 14:10 local time from Naval Air Station Banana River
(Now Patrick Space Force Base). The squadron's flight plan was
scheduled to take them due east from Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale for
141 miles, north for 73 miles, and then back over a final 140-mile leg to
complete the exercise. Called "Naval Air Station, Fort Lauderdale,
Florida, navigation problem No. 1", the exercise involved three different
legs, but the actual flight should have flown four. After take-off, they
flew on heading 091° (almost due east) for 56 nmi (Nautical Mile) (64 mi; 104 km) until reaching Hen and Chickens Shoals where
low-level bombing practice was carried out. The flight was to continue on
that heading for another 67 nmi (77 mi; 124 km) before turning onto a
course of 346° for 73 nmi (84 mi; 135 km), in the process over-flying
Grand Bahama island. The next scheduled turn was to a heading of 241° to
fly 120 nmi (140 mi; 220 km) at the end of which the exercise was
completed and the Avengers would turn left to then return to NAS Ft.
Lauderdale.[2].
Radio conversations between the pilots were overheard by the base and
other aircraft in the area -
An unidentified crew member asked Powers, one of the students, for his
compass reading. Powers replied: "I don't know where we are. We must
have got lost after that last turn." Cox then transmitted; "This is
FT-74, plane or boat calling 'Powers' please identify yourself so
someone can help you." The response after a few moments was a request
from the others on the flight for suggestions. FT-74 tried again and a
man identified as FT-28 (Taylor) came on. "FT-28, this is FT-74, what is
your trouble?" "Both of my compasses are out", Taylor replied, "and I am
trying to find Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I am over land but it's broken.
I am sure I'm in the Keys but I don't know how far down and I don't know
how to get to Fort Lauderdale."[2]
FT-74 informed the NAS that aircraft were lost, then advised Taylor to
put the sun on his port wing and fly north up the coast to Fort
Lauderdale. Base operations then asked if the flight leader's aircraft
was equipped with a standard YG (IFF transmitter), which could be used
to triangulate the flight's position, but the message was not
acknowledged by FT-28. (Later he would indicate that his transmitter was
activated.) Instead, at 16:45, FT-28 radioed: "We are heading 030
degrees for 45 minutes, then we will fly north to make sure we are not
over the Gulf of Mexico." During this time no bearings could be made on
the flight, and IFF could not be picked up. Taylor was told to broadcast
on 4805 kHz. This order was not acknowledged so he was asked to switch
to 3000 kHz, the search and rescue frequency. Taylor replied – "I cannot
switch frequencies. I must keep my planes intact."[2]
At 16:56, Taylor was again asked to turn on his transmitter for YG if he
had one. He did not acknowledge but a few minutes later advised his
flight "Change course to 090 degrees (due east) for 10 minutes." About
the same time, someone on the flight said "Dammit, if we could just fly
west we would get home; head west, dammit." This difference of
opinion later led to questions about why the students did not simply
head west on their own." It has been explained that this can be attributed to military
discipline. At 18:04, Taylor radioed to his flight "Holding 270. We didn't fly
far enough east; we may as well just turn around and fly east again".
By that time, the weather had deteriorated even more and the sun had
set. Around 18:20, Taylor's last message was received. He was heard
saying "All planes close up tight ... we'll have to ditch unless
landfall ... when the first plane drops below 10 gallons [38 liters],
we all go down together."
Suspicions that the seaplane may have gone up in flames were all but
confirmed by a passing merchant ship, which spotted a fireball and
found evidence of an oil slick in the ocean.
At first light the next day, the Navy dispatched more than 300 boats and
aircraft to look for Flight 19 and the missing Mariner. The search party
spent five days combing through more than 300,000 square miles of
territory, to no avail. “They just vanished,” Navy Lieutenant David White
later recalled. “We had hundreds of planes out looking, and we searched
over land and water for days, and nobody ever found the bodies or any
debris.” A Navy board of investigation was also left scratching its head.
While it argued that Taylor might have confused the Bahamas for the
Florida Keys after his compasses malfunctioned, it could find no clear
explanation for why Flight 19 had become so disoriented. Its members
eventually attributed the loss to “causes or reasons unknown.”
Investigation Report
_____________________________
After this huge search operation, a 500-page Navy board of investigation report was published, which made several observations:
- Flight leader Lt. Charles C. Taylor had mistakenly believed that the small islands he passed over were the Florida Keys, that his flight was over the Gulf of Mexico, and that heading northeast would take them to Florida. It was determined that Taylor had passed over the Bahamas as scheduled, and he did in fact lead his flight to the northeast over the Atlantic. The report noted that some subordinate officers did likely know their approximate position as indicated by radio transmissions stating that flying west would result in reaching the mainland.
- Taylor was not at fault because the compasses stopped working.
- The loss of PBM-5 BuNo 59225 was attributed to an explosion.
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