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For fifteen minutes the flying boat kept in routine contact with base. The Mariner's radio operator
stated that they were nearing the last known position of the missing bombers. Soon after, one more
report was received. And after that - nothing! The rescue flying boat also disappeared off the face of
the earth, never to be heard of again. In that one fateful afternoon, within less than an hour, six aircraft
and twenty-seven men went missing. No wreckage of any kind has ever been found, no life-rafts, no
article of clothing, no bodies, no oil-slick - nothing!
As soon as contact with the Mariner flying boat had been lost, coast guard planes and boats were
launched to search the area. The search continued into the hours of darkness, hoping for some signal
flare. Navy planes covered an area 440 kilometres north-east of Miami. At dawn the next day, the
navy escort aircraft carrier Solomons joined the search. A total of 240 aircraft and eighteen ships were
employed to search an area that covered some 450,800 kilometres. But absolutely nothing was found.
No trace of the planes or crew has ever been discovered to this day.
Two other disappearances in the 'Bermuda Triangle' that I have found particularly puzzling, concern
the British South American Airways and their luxury four-engined Tudor IV aircraft.
The 32 passenger plane, Star Tiger, left London on Tuesday 27 January 1948, bound for Kingston,
Jamaica. It was on the third stage of its journey from Santa Maria in the Azores to Hamilton,
Bermuda, when a message was radioed from the pilot Captain Colby. He indicated that he would
reach Hamilton at approximately 1 a.m. (EST), an hour and a half late. Half an hour later, at 10.30
p.m., he radioed, 'On course, position approximately four hundred miles north-east of Bermuda. Good
weather and performance excellent.' That was the last message received from the Star Tiger. The
plane and its crew of six, together with twenty-five passengers, including British air marshal, Sir
Arthur Coningham, was never heard of again.
When the plane appeared to be missing, it was thought that the pilot may have been able to ditch it
without seriously damaging the fuselage. Also the Tudor's main cabin was pressurized, and if it had
been brought down undamaged, there would have been time for the passengers and crew to get away
in the life rafts.
Search operations were placed under the control of Colonel Thomas Ferguson, commander of the
United States Air Force base in Bermuda. Altogether ten ships of the U.S. Navy were joined by thirty
aircraft from America and Britain. By Tuesday 4 February, the search was called off. No wreckage,
no survivors, no oil-slick were to be found.
Just thirteen days short of the anniversary of the Star Tiger's disappearance, a sister-ship of the ill-
fated plane, the Star Ariel left Bermuda at 7.42 a.m. (EST) bound for Kingston, Jamaica. This Tudor
IV also carried a crew of six. On board were thirteen passengers. Although the planned flight should
only have taken about five and a quarter hours, Captain J. C. McPhee had filled the tanks with enough
fuel for up to ten hours flying.
At 8.25 a.m. a radio report came in from the Star Ariel indicating that Captain McPhee was changing
radio frequency to Nassau. In his message he said, 'We're approximately one hundred and eighty miles
south of Bermuda. Flying weather is fair.' And then silence. Nothing more was ever heard of the Star
Ariel. Once again, a plane had gone missing without a distress signal of any kind, in near-perfect
weather conditions.
When the Star Ariel disappeared, the U.S. Navy was conducting an exercise several hundred
kilometres to the south of Bermuda. Ships and planes taking part in the manoeuvres were diverted to
take part in the search for the missing aircraft. The battleship Missouri, and two aircraft carriers, Leyte
and Kearsage, were amongst those joining in the search.
Planes flying in relays over 250,000 square kilometres of the Atlantic, as well as other ships and
planes taking part in the gigantic search, failed to find any trace whatsoever of the missing Tudor IV.
The Star Ariel was the second aircraft of its type to have gone missing without even an oil-slick being
found, in the depths of the Bermuda Triangle. Only twelve days before the first anniversary of the
other Tudor IV's disappearance.
There are some cases of trouble in the Bermuda Triangle when wreckage is found, but again many
questions are raised by the odd discoveries. One of these stories concerned the first of two jet planes
that encountered problems in the area. A jet has one great advantage over a propeller driven aircraft
because it can fly above any weather or atmospheric disturbance.
On the morning of Wednesday 28 August 1963, two big KC-135 four-engined Stratotankers took off
from the Homestead Air Force Base, Florida, on a classified refueling mission. It was excellent
weather, with clear skies. At noon, the aircraft made contact with the Homestead control tower, and
reported their position as 480 kilometres south-west of Bermuda. That was the last report heard from
either of the jets. When they were reported as being overdue, a massive search and rescue operation
was set in motion.
Throughout the rest of that fateful day, and into the hours of darkness, the search went on. The next
day a report of wreckage came from one of the many search planes. The area was described as a
floating junkyard. A coast guard cutter collected the debris, and on 29 August Associated Press
announced that three life rafts had been found. Both of the planes carried two life rafts. It was thought
that the two planes must have had a midair collision. But if so, where was the wreckage of the second
jet?
It was found, two days later. But the wreckage was 255 kilometres away from the other plane! If they
had had a mid-air collision, how could the debris of each aircraft have been so far apart? Surely ocean
currents couldn't have accounted for such a great separation. 255 kilometres in two days? An official
Air Force statement said that the two planes were flying in formation, within constant sight of each
other, and they were in radar contact as well. Did they really collide in mid-air? If not, and one of the
KC-135s had crashed, why didn't the other one send out a distress message? If both had crashed at the
same time, then what could possibly have caused the crash? If each plane carried two life rafts, then
how was it that three life rafts were found at the site of one crash?
We now turn our attention to one of the many mysterious naval disasters associated with the Bermuda
Triangle. I don't know of a better or more fascinating story than the now famous one concerning the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]