(VTC News) – Throughout history, there have been numerous cases of military aircraft disappearances, with no satisfactory explanation found to this day.
The entire squadron vanished.
On the afternoon of December 5, 1945, five “Avenger” torpedo bombers of the United States took off simultaneously from a military base in Fort Lauderdale. The weather was sunny, and the conditions were ideal for the training flight. The flight team was assigned a mission: to follow the route to point A for bombing practice, then loop back to point B, make a turn, and return to the base.
The pilots were well aware of the flight path, and all the navigation points were visually double-checked. The training flight was scheduled to last for 2 hours, but the fuel tanks were filled with reserves enough for 5 and a half hours. At first, everything went smoothly according to the plan.
The ‘Avenger’ group identified the training target, dropped their bombs in a timely manner, and began their return journey around 3:30 PM. However, five minutes later, the squadron commander reported to the base that the planes were disoriented, and he couldn’t see the ground. The pilots changed their flight direction several times but couldn’t reach the coastline. The last communication signal was recorded at 7:00 PM, one hour before the planes would have run out of fuel.
The U.S. Navy command then launched one of the largest search campaigns in history, involving over 300 military aircraft and naval vessels, along with 21 warships. On land, every nook and cranny along the Florida coastline, the Florida Keys, and the Bahamas archipelago were meticulously examined. However, no traces were found. The search was called off after several weeks, and the crews of the ‘Avenger’ remained missing. This incident became one of the most mysterious aviation accidents in history.
The U.S. Navy Investigation Bureau concluded that the cause of the disappearance could be attributed to human factors and held Lieutenant Commander Carroll Taylor, the squadron commander, responsible. According to the hypothesis, this commanding officer might have mistaken the flight direction and led the ‘Avenger’ squadron into the Atlantic Ocean.
Several other theories have been put forward. It is worth noting that the squadron disappeared when flying through the Bermuda Triangle region, where unexplained anomalies frequently occur.
Down into the water, then vanished
On March 23, 1951, a U.S. Air Force Douglas C-124 transport plane carrying 44 soldiers from Walker Air Force Base in New Mexico to Mildenhall Air Base in England suddenly disappeared from the radar screen. Among the passengers was Air Force Major General Paul Thomas Cullen, who was traveling to England with his staff to establish the 7th Strategic Air Division there
While flying over the Atlantic Ocean, about 1,500 km southwest of Ireland, the cargo hold of the aircraft suddenly caught fire. The crew decided to ditch the plane into the water, and all the occupants of the cargo hold transferred to five life rafts.
However, when the rescue vessels and aircraft arrived at the location of the Douglas C-124 incident, 19 hours later, there were no traces of either the aircraft or the life rafts. The U.S. Air Force expanded the search area, but no results were found. What happened to the aircraft, the crew, and the soldiers on board the Douglas C-124 remains a mystery to this day.
At the time, there were rumors of the ‘hand of the Kremlin,’ suggesting that a Soviet warship had abducted the group of American soldiers. However, this hypothesis lacks evidence and has not been confirmed by either side.
A year-long search
On August 12, 1937, the long-range bomber aircraft DB-A of the Soviet Union, with tail number N-209, took off from Moscow’s airport heading to Arkhangelsk. Under the command of Chief Pilot Sigismund Levanevsky, the crew planned to make a transatlantic flight to the city of Fairbanks in Alaska.
Initially, everything seemed fine until August 14th when Levanevsky reported that the aircraft had encountered strong winds and dense clouds, with the cabin windows covered in mist and one of the engines malfunctioning. At that time, the plane was in the vicinity of Alaska. After this message, contact with the DB-A aircraft was lost.
Over the course of a year, pilots from the Soviet Union, Canada, and the United States were mobilized to participate in the search for Levanevsky’s aircraft, but no traces were found.
Several hypotheses were put forward, such as the emergency landing of the crew in the Endicott Mountain area of Alaska or the plane touching down on an ice floe and drifting into the Atlantic Ocean. However, these areas were thoroughly searched, and no results were obtained