First off, I would like to point out that Flight 19 had only one vaguely mysterious element to it. The facts of the incident are on record at the airforce base in Florida. The only reason the supposed mystery became so popular is because a lot of authors saw an opportunity to sell books on the subject (even Frankenstein was marketed as a “true story”). From there it spread until the very name Bermuda Triangle became synonymous with mystery and superstition.

Image via Wikipedia

So the story begins when a bunch of guys go off on a training flight. They were to go to a series of coordinates and then come back. After some time they radioed in to report that their navigational equipment was malfunctioning. This is the one unexplained element, we cannot say what caused it as we don’t have the wreckage to examine. There is supposedly a trend of navigational equipment failing in the Bermuda area, but we can’t be sure that isn’t normal without comparing the numbers with other locations.

After flying blind for some time, the leader of the flight assumed they were in the Gulf of Mexico and directed everyone to go East. I guess he paid attetion in the Boy Scouts. But he didn’t consider the risk of heading East if they weren’t in the Gulf of Mexico, which was the case. After nearly running out of fuel there was an argument among the pilots in which they decided that they were not in fact in the Gulf of Mexico. They headed back, but their fuel was far too low to reach Florida.The airbase prepared to rescue them.

After some delay a search-and-rescue plane was launched, but that too disappeared. People claim this is mysterious as well, but let’s consider the circumstances. This plane was made for long-range missions, so it carried a TON of fuel. Lots of fuel means lots of fumes. And some idiot was smoking in the engine room.

When a proper rescue effort was finally carried out the wreckage had washed away and/or sunk. It’s the ocean for peat’s sake.

Almost all Devil’s Triangle stories were just inspired by previous overblown incidents. More crahes happen over the continental U.S. than Bermuda (you can and should check). I don’t have the time or the motive to explain them all case-by-case, but for now I’m setting the record straight. That’s what happened.