December 5, 1945
Lost in The Bermuda Triangle Part 5
That Flight 19 completed the first part of their navigation assignment and the glide-bombing task at Chicken Rocks we can be fairly certain. And to give you a better geographical perspective of the target practice area, those shoals and rocks are located about 16 miles north by northeast of North Bimini Island.
Following their bombing and strafing exercise Flight 19 was to continue east on the course of 091 degrees and at mile 67 the flight’s location would be northwest of the Berry Island chain and north of Great Harbor. At that point they should turn left and take a heading approximately north-by-north northwest on a course of 346 degrees for 73 miles. Following that heading they would cross the Grand Bahama Island and at mile 73 they would be over open waters some 21 miles west by northwest of the western tip of Little Abaco Island.
Then making their final turn for home they would take a heading of 241 degrees. Then some 45 miles later they would cross West End Point of the Grand Bahama Island and had they continued along that path they would arrive back at NAS Ft. Lauderdale sometime after 5:00 pm.
That was the course laid out for Flight 19’s training exercise that afternoon and it was followed as far as Chicken Rocks. Exactly what happened after they completed their bombing and strafing exercise is up to interpretation.
During the inquiry a fishing boat captain seemed to confirm the timing at Chicken Rocks when he told of seeing 3 or 4 planes flying east at about 3:00 o’clock in the afternoon.
Taking the fishing boat captain at his word, he said 3 or 4 not 4 or 5. He said he saw 3 or possibly 4 planes grouped together. Of course it’s always possible that one plane could be hidden behind another but assuming that he was correct that there were only 3 or 4, where was the other plane? Could that have been a distraction and added time to the second part of that first leg of the navigation problem? If they had to go in search of the wayward plane and then resume the course of 091 degrees how far off course would that have put them in relation to their starting point? Was cross winds or head winds a factor?
During the hearings it was determined that it was around 3:40 when various monitoring stations discovered that something was wrong with Flight 19. Had the flight been on schedule at 3:40 they should have been some 10 or 12 minutes into the north course, which would have put them over open waters. At that time chatter coming from Flight 19, transmitting on 4805 kc, someone asked Powers, one of the student pilots, what his compass read. Powers then said, “We must have got lost on that last turn.”
It would be reasonable to assume that the reference to “that last turn” was their turn to the north on the course of 346 degrees. The next question is, since they should have been over open waters at that point, how did they know that they were lost? I suspect they had drifted south of the 091 course and were more than likely flying over the eastern part of the Great Bahama Bank.
However, before we look at the geography I’d like to go back to the arrival of Lt. Charles Taylor at the Ft. Lauderdale NAS Operations office. Taylor asked the duty officer to replace him on the flight and was turned down. The hearings gave no satisfactory answer so we are left to speculate. The man was troubled by something, probably something out of his past. Now Taylor had just transferred to NAS Ft. Lauderdale from NAS Miami where he had flown many hours in and around the Florida Keys. Perhaps he was not comfortable flying into a new area, the Bahamas, or might he have possibly bought into the Bermuda Triangle syndrome. Could he have had a premonition about Flight 19 getting lost? If that was the case and the fear factor kicked in, it might give us some insight into Taylor’s state of mind. If he was in a near panic and Flight 19 had gotten down into the north end of the Berry Island chain, he could have possibly confused one of those islands with one similar to an island he had seen in the Keys.
To assist in the Power’s dilemma Lt. Cox, Fox Tare 74 heard the call and asked the person calling Powers to identify themselves. Fox Tare 28 came on the air and said both of his compasses were out, said he was trying to find Ft. Lauderdale, that he was over land, but it was broken. He also said, “I’m sure I’m in the Keys, but I don’t know how far down and don’t know how to get to Ft. Lauderdale.”
Had Taylor been completely coherent and actually thought he was in the Keys you would think he could identify the land he was flying over. After all he had flown many hours in the area while based at NAS Miami. And by extension he should have known that Ft. Lauderdale was just north of his old base.
Of course the talk about the compass problem might be valid for a number of reasons, instrument installation, calibration or something other than a man made error. It could be a more basic problem, the area itself is known to have a built in variation between true north and magnetic north. But assuming the flyers had their charts they would have to know that at the end of that first leg they needed to make a turn to the left, and that would simply put the sun on their port wing. Of course that is logical thinking and from the talk coming from the pilots of Flight 19 logic, at some point, had taken a powder.
To be continued)
Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle Amazon book page Click Here
Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter.
Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
www.RocktheTower.com
Of course the talk about the compass problem might be valid for a number of reasons, instrument installation, calibration or something other than a man made error. It could be a more basic problem, the area itself is known to have a built in variation between true north and magnetic north. But assuming the flyers had their charts they would have to know that at the end of that first leg they needed to make a turn to the left, and that would simply put the sun on their port wing. Of course that is logical thinking and from the talk coming from the pilots of Flight 19 logic, at some point, had taken a powder.
0 comments:
Post a Comment