Flight 19: The Squadron That Vanished Into the Bermuda Triangle

"I don't know where we are. We must have got lost after that last turn." These were the words of Captain E.J. Powers, one of the pilots of Flight 19. On December 5, 1945, five U.S. Navy Avenger torpedo bombers took off from Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale in Florida on a routine three-hour training mission. They were scheduled to return before sunset. They never came back. The flight leader, Lieutenant Charles C. Taylor, was an experienced pilot with over 2,500 flying hours and combat experience in the Pacific. But something went wrong. Taylor reported that his compass and backup compass had failed. He became convinced they had been flying in the wrong direction. Despite the control tower's instructions to fly west toward the Florida coast, Taylor ordered the squadron to fly east, further out over the open Atlantic. The radio transmissions grew increasingly desperate. The weather deteriorated. Fuel ran low. At 6:20 PM, Taylor was heard calling for his men to prepare to ditch their aircraft. Then silence. A massive search was launched, covering over 300,000 square miles of ocean. Nothing was found. A rescue plane sent to search for the squadron also vanished, along with its 13-man crew. In total, six aircraft and 27 men disappeared that day. In "Flight 19," investigative journalist Alex R. Morgan presents a comprehensive, chronological investigation of one of aviation's greatest mysteries. Drawing on the Navy's 500-page board of investigation report, radio transcripts, and decades of research, Morgan examines: The men of Flight 19 and their fateful mission The radio transmissions and the pilots' final words The massive search that found nothing The official Navy investigation and its controversial findings The radar mystery of unidentified planes over Florida The Bermuda Triangle connection and how Flight 19 became the cornerstone of the legend The theories from alien abduction to magnetic anomalies to methane eruptions The families who waited for news that never came The unanswered questions that continue to haunt us