WASHINGTON (AP) -- The disappearance of Flight 19, a Navy mission that began the myth of the Bermuda Triangle, is still unexplained, but not forgotten, 60 years later.
The 27 Navy airmen who disappeared somewhere off Florida's coast on December 5, 1945, were honored in a House resolution Thursday. Rep. Clay Shaw, R-Florida, said he hoped the gesture would help bring closure for surviving families.
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Radio reports overheard by ground control and other airplanes indicate the compasses on Taylor's plane malfunctioned 90 minutes into the mission.
With no instruments to guide him over the open ocean, Taylor thought the flight had drifted off-course and was actually south over the Florida Keys. As a result, he directed the planes to fly due north to hit land.
"He was not in the Keys, he was out in the end of the Bahama chain," said David White, who at the time was a flight instructor stationed at Fort Lauderdale. "When he went north, he was going out to the wide ocean."
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In the years that David White flew out of Fort Lauderdale, none of his instrumentation ever malfunctioned. He thinks the planes crash-landed east of Florida and the airmen died on impact or drowned in the stormy waters. And the Mariner? That type of plane had such a history of accidents it was known as the "flying gas can," he said.
