1945 — Dec 5, Five USN Avengers and USN Mariner search plane lost off east FL coast–27
–14 Flight 19 Five. USN torpedo bombers lost ~100M ENE, Banana River NAS, FL.
–13 USN PBM-5 Mariner search plane lost ~25M SW off Cape Canaveral, FL
Last edit Nov 24, 2023 by Wayne Blanchard for upload to: http://www.usdeadlyevents.com/
–27 Berkshire Evening Eagle (MA). “Big Navy Air Fleet Hunts Missing Planes.” 12-7-1945, 1.
–14 formation of five torpedo bombers
–13 Martin rescue craft
–27 Gero 1999, pp. 37-38. Flight 19 comprised of five Grumman TBM Avengers.
–14 Five USN Gruman TBM Avenger torpedo bombers.
–13 USN Martin PBM PBM-5 Mariner (59225)
–27 US Dept. Navy. “Casualties: US Navy…Marine Corps Personnel Killed and Injured…”
–14 Flight 19, comprised of 5 USN TBM Avengers; training flight from Fort Lauderdale
–13 USN PBM Mariner exploded/crashed while searching from Flight 19.
–27 Wright, E. Lynne. Disasters and Heroic Rescues of Florida. Chapter 10, pp. 75-76.
–14 Flight 19. Five Avenger torpedo bombers (three men each except for one with two).
–13 Martin Mariner plane searching for Flight 19.
Narrative Information
Gero. Military Aviation Disasters: Significant Losses Since 1908. 1999, pp. 37-38:
“Date: 5 December 1945 (c.20:00)
“Location Off Florida, US
“Operator: US Navy
“Aircraft Types: (5) Gruman TBM Avenger (23307) (45714) (46094) (46325) (73209)
- Martin PBM-5 Mariner (59225)
“This multiple crash, which would later become the center of the “Bermuda Triangle’ legend, began as a routine over-water navigational training flight out of the US Naval Air Station at Fort Lauderdale, located on Florida’s eastern coast. The five torpedo bombers had been assembled into a group designated as Flight 19. Its leader, Lt. Charles Taylor, was a qualified instructor with recent combat experience; his students had between 350 and 400 hours in the air, more than 50 hours each in the type. Aboard the five aircraft were a total of 14 men, with one carrying two rather than the normal three-member crew.
“As part of the exercise, the group was to fly a triangular-shaped course over the Atlantic Ocean that would end back at the base. Following take-off, they proceeded almost due east for a distance of more than 100 miles (150km), with the initial leg including some low-level practice bombing at about the half-way point. The first hint of trouble came at around 16:00 local time, or some two hours into the mission, after the flight was to have turned left and continued on the second leg, on a heading of 346 degrees, when a radio conversation between two of its pilots was heard by the leader of another group of aircraft, indicating that they had become lost. Over a period of at least three hours, the group zigzagged over the sea, changing their direction several times, the flight leader trying to lead them to safety….
“By using directional bearings obtained from different ground stations, the approximate position of the group was determined to have been in an area some 150 miles (250km) east of New Smyrna Beach, Florida. This information was relayed to the aircraft, but as attempts to contact them had been unsuccessful due to interference from Cuban radio broadcasting stations, static and atmospheric conditions, it probably never got through….
‘No trace was found either of the five TBM Avengers in what, to this day, remains as one of the biggest media-embellished incidents in the history of military aviation. The suspected causes were, however, far more mundane. An investigative report attributed the loss of Flight 19 to temporary mental confusion resulting in faulty judgement on the part of Lt Taylor, who allowed himself to become disorientated relative to the Florida peninsula, and his failure to use all the navigational facilities available to him. He also failed to take into account the strong winds that carried the aircraft farther east than expected, and did not switch to the emergency radio band, perhaps fearing that in changing frequencies, the pilots might lose contact with each other. Nor was there evidence that any of the pilots had used their ZBX homing devices designed to receive a special land-based transmitter.
“The aircraft would have exhausted their supply of fuel by 20:00, but the flight leader was heard to tell his fellow pilots that when any aircraft got down to 10 gallons (401) of gasoline, they would all ditch together. But by then, darkness would have fallen, the sea was rough, and there could have been some unexpected development in the local weather, which as forecast, consisted of rain showers, with reduced visibility and a lower overcast within the areas of precipitation, and surface winds of 20 knots, gusting to more than 30. These factors and the relative inexperience of all but the lead pilot would have made a successful water landing unlikely….It was recommended in the report pertaining to the loss of the five Avengers that greater emphasis be placed on the importance of proper navigation and lost-aircraft procedures in such over-water flights.
“An air/sea search that would continue for five days began after the bombers were reported in trouble, and during this operation a sixth aircraft was lost. The Mariner, with a crew of 13 men aboard, went missing after being dispatched from Banna River Naval Air Station located near Merritt Island. At around 19:15, a crewman on a ship observed an aircraft, presumably 59225, burst into flames in the air, then plunge into the sea and explode at a position 30 miles (50km) west of New Smyrna Beach. The vessel reported passing through a pool of oil where the twin-engine amphibian had fallen, but recovered no survivors, bodies or solid pieces of debris from the water, which was about 80ft (25m) deep at the crash site….” (Gero 1999, 37-39.)
United States Navy: “Flight 19, comprised of 5 TBM Avengers on a training flight from Fort Lauderdale, FL, strayed off course, ran out of fuel and crashed into heavy seas. 14 killed. During the subsequent search, which involved hundreds of ships and aircraft, a PBM Mariner with a crew of 13 also crashed with no survivors. 5 Dec. 1945.” (US Dept. Navy. “Casualties: US Navy…Marine Corps Personnel Killed and Injured…”)
Wright, E. Lynne. Disasters and Heroic Rescues of Florida. Chapter 10:
“….The Avengers were scheduled to fly east for 160 miles, then north for 40 miles, and back to the base in a routine flight for the crews who were nearing the end of their training. Estimated time for the flight was about two hours, but in an hour and a half, Taylor, an experienced Pacific flight veteran, became convinced his compasses were not working and that he was lost. Conventional wisdom for pilots in the area was, if lost, immediately switch the radio to the emergency frequency for better communication and head west, but Taylor ha only recently been stationed in the Fort Lauderdale area, having spent much time at the Miami Air Station, where the admonition to head west could land a plane in the Gulf of Mexico. Taylor continued the flight on dead reckoning, believing the islands he saw below him were the Florida Keys, not the islands of the Bahamas as was later believed. Because radio contact was spotty, Fourt Lauderdale advised him to change to the emergency frequency to improve communication, but he refused, fearing he might lost contact with his planes during the changeover. At approximately 5:00 p.m. the base heard two of Taylor’s students over the air waves. One said ‘If we would just fly west, we would get home.” Another repeated that later.
“A bad situation turned worse when severe weather moved in with sunset at 5:29. It was estimated the planes had enough fuel to last until 8:00 p.m. Bases from Melbourne to Key West were ordered to turn on their field lights and beacons.
“At 6:oo the Sea Frontier Evaluation Center in Miami, using direction bearings from other coastal centers, calculated the approximate position for Flight 19 – east of New Smyrna Beach, farther north than anyone had guessed. Search planes from Vero Beach, Daytona, and Miami were dispatched into the storm, dark skies.
“At the Banana River Naval Air Station, two Martin Mariner PBM seaplanes, Training 32 and Training 49, were dispatched to fly to the position fix supplied by Miami to join the search. At 8:30, T32 reported arriving at the area but T49 did not.
“Mariners were sometimes called ‘flying gas tanks’ because of the gas fumes that could frequently be smelled inside them. An explosion could be ignited by a single spark. Although this one was later said to have vanished without a trace, it was probably the explosion in the sky observed by a ship at 7:50 p.m. ….”
Newspaper
Dec 7: “Miami (AP). A vast sea and air armada was order out-today to scan 100,000 square miles of the Atlantic in. a “last chance” effort to rescue 27 men who disappeared with a formation of five torpedo bombers and a missing search plane…. The Navy alone ordered 248 planes into the air, while 18 surface craft—including the baby flattop U.S.S. Solomons—numerous merchant ships and other searchers made it probably the biggest rescue effort of peacetime.
“Two clues seemed sufficiently definite to remove some of the mystery that cloaked the disappearance of the entire formation of bombers, carrying 14 men, and the big Martin rescue craft that joined them in the Atlantic’s limbo Wednesday with 13 men on board. One was word from a passing ship, the S.S. Games Mills, that it saw an explosion at sea off New Smyrna Beach at 7.50 PM Wednesday, and what appeared to be an airplane falling. That may have been the fate of the BBM search craft. The other clue was a report by the airport weather station at Miami that a large area of turbulent air rolled out of a storm centered over Georgia, swept over Jacksonville about noon, and reached Miami by nightfall.
“A meteorological freak—squalls on the surface, 40 mile winds at 1000 feet, and full hurricane of 75 miles an hour at 8000 feet was recorded at 4 PM. Such a development could easily have carried the torpedo planes miles out of their practice area.
“The missing formation was last heard from at 5.25 PM and its location was given as 75 miles northeast of Cocoa, Fla. At that time the planes had slightly more than one hour’s fuel supply. They may actually have been as much as 200 miles at sea. “Can’t tell whether over Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico,” the final message was reported to have said.” (Berkshire Evening Eagle (MA). “Big Navy Air Fleet Hunts Missing Planes.” Dec 7, 1945, 1.)
Sources
Berkshire Evening Eagle, Pittsfield, MA. “Big Navy Air Fleet Hunts Missing Planes.” 12-7-1945, p. 1. Accessed at: http://www.newspaperarchive.com/PdfViewerTags.aspx?topic=Flight+19+lost&img=2537829&terms=Navy&dpviewdate=12%2f05%2f2008&firstvisit=true
Gero, David. Military Aviation Disasters: Significant Losses Since 1908. UK and Newbury Park, CA: Patrick Stephens Limited, an imprint of Hayes Publishing, 1999.
United States Department of the Navy. Casualties: US Navy and Marine Corps Personnel Killed and Injured in Selected Accidents and Other Incidents Not Directly the Result of Enemy Action. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center. 2008. Washington, DC: Washington Navy Yard. Accessed 11-23-2023 at: http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/NHC/accidents.htm
Wright, E. Lynne. Disasters and Heroic Rescues of Florida. Chapter 10. “A Great Aviation Myster…Flight 19.” Guilford, CT: Insiders’ Guide, an imprint of the Globe Pequot Press, 2006.