List of Bermuda Triangle incidents

This is a list of incidents attributed in popular culture to the Bermuda Triangle.

Aircraft incidents

• 1945: December 5, Flight 19 (five TBF Avengers) lost with 14 airmen, and later the same day PBM Mariner BuNo 59225 lost with 13 airmen while searching for Flight 19.^[1]
• 1947: July 3, According to the Bermuda Triangle Legend a B-29 Superfortress was lost off Bermuda. Lawrence Kunsche investigated and found no reference to any such B-29 loss. In fact the aircraft loss was that of a Douglas C-54 which was lost in a storm off the Florida coast ^[2][3] Ironically a B-29 was lost in the vicinity of Bermuda-on November 16, 1949 a B-29 was lost in the Atlantic; 2 crewmen were missing but on November 19, 1949 18 survivors were rescued 385 miles northeast of Bermuda^[4]
• 1948: January 30, Avro Tudor G-AHNP Star Tiger lost with six crew and 25 passengers, en route from Santa Maria Airport in the Azores to Kindley Field, Bermuda.^[5]
• 1948: December 28, Douglas DC-3 NC16002 lost with three crew and 36 passengers, en route from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Miami.^[6]
• 1949: January 17, Avro Tudor G-AGRE Star Ariel lost with seven crew and 13 passengers, en route from Kindley Field, Bermuda, to Kingston Airport, Jamaica.^[7]
• 1962: January 8, A USAF KB-50 51-0465 was lost over the Atlantic between the US East Coast and the Azores^[8]
• 1965: June 9, A USAF C-119 Flying Boxcar of the 440th Troop Carrier Wing missing between Florida and Grand Turk Island^[9] The last call from the plane came from a point just north of Crooked Island, Bahamas, and 177 miles from Grand Turk Island. On July 18, 1965 debris from the plane was found on the beach of Gold Rock Cay just off the northeastern shore of Acklins Island.^[10]
• 1965: December 6, Private ERCoupe F01^[11] lost with pilot and one passenger, en route from Ft. Lauderdale to Grand Bahamas Island.^[12]
• 2005: June 20, A Piper-PA-23 disappeared between Treasure Cay island of Bahamas and Fort Pierce of Florida. There were three persons on board.^[13]
• 2007: April 10, A Piper PA-46-310P disappeared near Berry Island. Only the pilot was on board and no passengers.^[13]

Incidents at sea

• 1800: USS Pickering, on course from Guadeloupe to Delaware, lost with 90 people on board.^[14] {Possibly lost in a gale}
• 1814: USS Wasp (1814), last known position was the Caribbean, lost with 140 people on board.^[14] {Possibly lost in a storm}
• 1824: USS Wild Cat (1822), on course from Cuba to Tompkins Island, lost with 14 people on board.^[14] {Note lost in a Gale with 31 on board}
• 1840: Rosalie, found abandoned except for a canary.^[14] {Possibly the "Rossini" found derelict{?}^[15]
• 1918: USS Cyclops, collier, left Barbados on March 4, lost with all 306 crew and passengers en route to Baltimore, Maryland.^[16]
• 1921: January 31, Carroll A. Deering, five-masted schooner, Captain W. B. Wormell, found aground and abandoned at Diamond Shoals, near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.^[17]
• 1925: 1 December, SS Cotopaxi, having departed Charleston, South Carolina two days earlier bound for Havana, Cuba, radioed a distress call reporting that the ship was sinking. She was officially listed as overdue on 31 December.^[18]
• 1941: USS Proteus (AC-9), lost with all 58 persons on board in heavy seas, having departed St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands with a cargo of bauxite on 23 November. The following month, her sister ship USS Nereus (AC-10) was lost with all 61 persons on board, having also departed St. Thomas with a cargo of bauxite, on 10 December. According to research by Rear Admiral George van Deurs, USN, who was familiar with this type of ship from their service in the USN, the acidic coal cargo would seriously erode the longitudinal support beams, making these aging and poorly constructed colliers extremely vulnerable to breaking up in heavy seas.^[19] They were both sister ships of the USS Cyclops.
• 1963: SS Marine Sulphur Queen, lost with all 39 crewmen, having departed Beaumont, Texas, on 2 February with a cargo of 15,260 tons of sulphur. She was last heard from on 4 February, when she was in rough, nearly following seas of 16 feet, with northerly winds of 25-46 knots, and listed as missing two days later. The Coast Guard subsequently determined that the ship was unsafe and not seaworthy, and never should have sailed. The final report suggested four causes of the disaster, all due to poor design and maintenance of the ship.^[20]
• 2015: SS El Faro, sank off of the coast of the Bahamas within the triangle on October 1, 2015. The boat was missing for exactly one month until search crews identified the vessel 15,000 feet below the surface.

Incidents on land

• 1969: Great Isaac Lighthouse (Bimini, Bahamas) - its two keepers disappeared and were never found.^[21] (A hurricane passed through at the time of the disappearances)

References

1. Flight 19 Department of the Navy, Naval Historical Center - The Loss Of Flight 19
2. Harro Ranter (3 July 1947). "ASN Aircraft accident Douglas C-54G-1-DO Skymaster 45-519 Florida coast, USA".
3. Find a grave memorial
4. The Milwaukee Sentinel November 20, 1949
5. G-AHNP Aviation Safety Network - Avro 688 Tudor 1 G-AHNP
6. NC16002 Aviation Safety Network - Douglas DC-3DST-144 NC16002
7. G-AGRE Avro 688 Tudor Mk.1 G-AGRE c/n 1253 - Jack McKillop
8. Harro Ranter. "ASN Aircraft accident 08-JAN-1962 Boeing KB-50K Superfortress 51-0465".
9. ASN database
10. The Milwaukee Journal August 11, 1965
11. [The Legend lists plane loss as a "Cessna" But see NTSA report]
12. NTSB Record as NTSB Identification: MIA66A0065
13. "Recent Disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle". lovetoknow.com. Retrieved November 4, 2016.
14. Berlitz, Charles, and J. Manson Valentine. Without a Trace. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1977. Print.
15. "The derelict Rosalie". www.bermuda-triangle.org. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016.
16. USS Cyclops Department of the Navy, Naval Historical Center - Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships
17. Simpson, Bland (2005). Ghost Ship of Diamond Shoals. UNC Press Books.
18. "Mails and Shipping". The Times (44157). London. 31 December 1925. col D, p. 18.
19. Rob Fisher. "Naval History.ca - History of the Royal Canadian Navy - Canadian Merchant Ship Losses, 1939–1945".
20. Marine Sulphur Queen Coast Guard Report Summary of Findings
21. Rowlett, Russ. "Lighthouses of the Bahamas". The Lighthouse Directory. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

External links

• The Bermuda Triangle: A Selective Bibliography
• United States Coast Guard casualty reports