TIGHAR
Historic Aircraft Recovery and Preservation => War / Service Related Aircraft topics => Topic started by: david alan atchason on May 16, 2011, 08:03:38 PM
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Is TIGHAR at all interested in flight 19 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_19)? Does Ric subscribe to the theories of Gian Quasar in his new book about Flight 19? Just curious.
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Unless there is new evidence - not theories - suggesting that the loss of Flight 19 was anything other than a tragic but totally explainable training accident, the only value I can see in finding the aircraft would be to put another nail in the coffin of the myth of the Bermuda Triangle.
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I read Quasar's book and, quite frankly, found it wayyyyyy too heavy on Gian and what appears to be his considerable ego and a bit light on what may or may not have happened to Flight 19. Not to mention that despite his supposed superior knowledge of all things aeronautical relating to Flight 19, TBM Avengers and every one of the persons involved, the book was replete with small errors. And anytime you have to publish a book by yourself to get it in print - well, to me, that's a red flag. Not a huge one, but a red flag nontheless.
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The Youtube, that explains the loss of Flight 19 as being caused by mistaken position, is no longer available otherwise I'd post the link.
Jon F Myhre, by analysis of the Flight 19 flight plan and radio logs, concluded that Lt. Taylor had misinterpreted his position as being over the Florida Keys when he was actually 300 miles to the northeast over the Abaco islands in the West Atlantic. Lt. Taylor accepted a northeasterly heading by which to return to Ft Lauderdale, but which actually took him further out into the Atlantic.
After the Challenger loss, the wreck of an Avenger was found where Jon Myhre predicted the first of the Avengers had ditched.
This (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TI9SgRDFuTg)has turned up instead .
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Thanks for sharing that, Tim.
I remain fascinated by the loss of Flight 19 - very tragic, sad event - still not fully resolved except I guess there's a fair understanding now of what probably went wrong.
And still no airplanes found from that flight (if I remember right, the subject of the youtube piece turned out to be another Avenger loss, not part of Flight 19).
You might enjoy taking a look at a brief string that popped up here some time back on this (http://tighar.org/smf/index.php/topic,376.msg4165.html#msg4165). Ric makes a good point, which I appreciate. But I have to admit, I still yearn 'to know' and wish for these birds to be found - maybe out of a sense of wanting to know what happened to those young fellows for the sake of giving rest to the thing.
It strikes me that what is thought to have happened to cause the loss of that flight is a good example of confusion made worse by time running out and what people tend to do as they first follow 'convention' (follow the leader), and then something akin to panic (not saying they did, but they were human) sets in: too late those among the flight who may have had the better notion of placement split, but too late to save themselves.
It is interesting to hear from a contemporary in the film that Taylor had ditched twice during the war due to being lost and that his navigation habits may not have been as sharp as they should have been. Ironically, the students in his flight may have had the better idea of where the flight was after all. Very sad.
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Many thanks for the link Jeff. The radio logs serve as evidence to support mistaken position and the subsequent heading adopted, supported by a controller involved.
Subsequent to the link's date is this info. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dODhSjfWO70) Jon's procedures seem as thorough as TIGHAR's. He narrows down the aircraft numbers to those that were and weren't ditched.
In this video, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIBgDNTYnkw) Johnny Johnson, who knew Taylor and was present before the flight departed, alludes to him having been hungover and to have asked to be excused from the flight.
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Ah yes, Flight 19. Truly the epitome of Murphy's Law - Anything that could go wrong, did go wrong.
I have read all three major books on the subject. The main issue I have with Myhre's is that, to me, he seems to take the "dots" of evidence and then connect them backwards to a common, predetermined starting point. That and the Avenger that he found had the gear down and locked. Not what you'd do for a water landing. Of course, you could argue that the flap and gear levels are adjacent to each other in the Avenger's cockpit and, at night, in a stressful situation, the pilot could have accidentally dropped both unintentionally. But there is the mitigating fact that hundreds of Avengers were lost of the east coast of Florida - it was a major training area during and after WW II, and carrier landings and takeoffs by their very nature are very dangerous from the get-go and allow no margin for error. Finding one, even where he thought one might be, let alone the other group that found five close together, is not particularly meaningful to me at all.
Quasar also seems to want to connect the dots backward, to a predetermined result. Which is also a place that is impossible to check (Okefenokee Swamp). He also seems, to me, to base many of his deductions and assertions on what people might have done or should have done.
Kusche seems to me to be the most dispassionate of the three - Flight 19 was an intriguing mystery, nothing more or less. He demolishes the idea that Taylor was drunk by talking to the lead pilot of the training flight that left right before Taylor's, a man who was within touching distance of Taylor and would certainly have noticed if he was inebriated. He saw nothing of the kind.
Whatever their fate, they died in the service of their country. RIP.
LTM, who did a model of it,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP
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Nice analysis Monty. Where'd you learn how to think like that?
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Ah yes, Flight 19. Truly the epitome of Murphy's Law - Anything that could go wrong, did go wrong.
I have read all three major books on the subject. The main issue I have with Myhre's is that, to me, he seems to take the "dots" of evidence and then connect them backwards to a common, predetermined starting point.
What do you make of Jon's claim (5:25) that the type he located was a TBM-1C with an L209 marking on the outer left wing and that the other 2, of only 3, were not associated with accidents?
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Kusche seems to me to be the most dispassionate of the three - Flight 19 was an intriguing mystery, nothing more or less. He demolishes the idea that Taylor was drunk by talking to the lead pilot of the training flight that left right before Taylor's, a man who was within touching distance of Taylor and would certainly have noticed if he was inebriated. He saw nothing of the kind.
What do you make of the hangover and permission to step down claim by the eyewitness (23:30)?
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I think we need a Flight 19 thread.
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I think we need a Flight 19 thread.
Shall I meld the F19-relevent posts here into the existing F19 thread, or move them to start anew?
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No need to reinvent this wheel. Let's meld 'em.
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Nice analysis Monty. Where'd you learn how to think like that?
I will have you know that I received my degree from a most distinguished institution ... but I've misplaced the matchbook that had their name on it. Sorry.
LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP
P.S. - that, and hanging around with this distinguished company ;D
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Tim - I'm more of a pencil and paper guy. Might I suggest you read all three books, cover to cover? Then we can talk some more, since we'll have a common data set to debate.
LTM, who believes everything he sees on the internet *cough*,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP
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The located Avenger is recovered from the sea floor. (http://vimeo.com/62441691)
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*pinkie claps for the dedication needed to recover an aircraft from the seafloor* They found an Avenger. Nothing in that short film clip says it is one of the Avengers. Seeing isn't, as TIGHAR has learned over the decades, isn't always believing.
LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP
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As was mentioned before- gear down and locked says to me that this was most likely a training flight that bolted/missed the cables upon landing and went over the side of a carrier. Not much chance of regaining flight in those planes in that situation.
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Seems like there was a story about something like that - or perhaps even some Avengers that were dumped off the coast. Story needs chasing - answer is out there.
I think the Flight 19 birds remain unfound.
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*pinkie claps for the dedication needed to recover an aircraft from the seafloor* They found an Avenger. Nothing in that short film clip says it is one of the Avengers. Seeing isn't, as TIGHAR has learned over the decades, isn't always believing.
LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP
So far the parallels with TIGHAR are exact.
They go back to the radio logs, review navigation charts, make a sea floor investigation and videos about same. I think I even recognise one of the guys from Finding Amelia's "it's a rock" scene.
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I think the Flight 19 birds remain unfound.
As do hundreds of other wartime training losses. People obsess about these 5 aircraft because they got gathered up in the Bermuda Triangle nonsense and even made a cameo appearance in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Would finding Flight 19 dissuade those who believe in the Bermuda Triangle? Will finding NR16020 dissuade the Japanese Capture Crowd?
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Interesting celestial phenomenon theory. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeJPd6i8RI0)
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National Geographic has a YouTube video about the Bermuda Triangle too ... why not throw that in the mix as well? Quasar's quoted in that one as well, so that must make it the officially correct answer, right? Right???
LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP
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I think the Flight 19 birds remain unfound.
As do hundreds of other wartime training losses. People obsess about these 5 aircraft because they got gathered up in the Bermuda Triangle nonsense and even made a cameo appearance in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Would finding Flight 19 dissuade those who believe in the Bermuda Triangle? Will finding NR16020 dissuade the Japanese Capture Crowd?
Good points, Ric. My dad had a friend in WWII - CBI theatre, who disappeared one day - so far forever, in a P38 Lightning-based photo ship (F-4 or F-5, not sure which at moment). Capt. Robert de Vlieg is memorialized at the American cemetery in Manila, but he and his lost ship have, so far, never been found. I'm sure he's more important in my dad's memory than Flight 19 would be, although he nor any of us would ever slight a war loss.
Good perspective, thanks.
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I had forgotten that a PBM Mariner was lost looking for the lost flight (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_19) that day, 13 souls lost.
Further to pursuit of the 5 lost Avengers, read what Graham Hawkes now thinks about what he found earlier and believed was not related to Flight 19 (http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/graham-hawkes-and-the-race-to-the-bottom-of-the-sea-20140114?page=3) -
They also, he says now, solved one of the most enduring riddles of the Bermuda Triangle. In May 1991, they discovered five Grumman Avenger fighter-bombers lying in a group on the ocean floor. At the time, the discovery caused a media frenzy. Hawkes was questioned by a dockside scrum of cameramen and interviewers who all wanted to know if the planes were those of Flight 19, which took off from Fort Lauderdale on a perfectly clear day in 1945 and vanished without a trace somewhere over the Atlantic – one of the legendary disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle. Then, as quickly as it had started, the sensation evaporated when Hawkes announced that further investigation revealed that the planes' tail numbers did not match those of the long-lost flight, implying that he believed the five planes must have crashed separately.
Hawkes has since changed his story. Now he says both he (because his investors didn't want to waste valuable time on an investigation) and the Pentagon (because they had more important things to worry about) had an interest in making the story go away. He admits that while he didn't find conclusive evidence that the planes were the same group that went missing in 1945, he consulted a statistician to establish the probability that they were not. "He said, 'You've got Flight 19,' " Hawkes says.
Read more: http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/graham-hawkes-and-the-race-to-the-bottom-of-the-sea-20140114?page=3#ixzz3EYeEFPf1
Follow us: @mensjournal on Twitter | MensJournal on Facebook
One never knows until this is re-visited...
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I hold a special admiration for people like Jon and Ric, best expressed by Teddy Roosevelt:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
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Well said by TR and aptly quoted here, Tim - it is hard to beat those who insist on moving the game forward, whether one fully agrees or likes the risk or not. Without that, nothing happens.
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Some additional information about the Myhre Avenger: http://www.history.navy.mil/branches/org12-7f.htm (http://www.history.navy.mil/branches/org12-7f.htm)
"Two examples include a TBF Avenger recovered off the Florida coast in a mistaken belief it was from the lost Flight 19 ..."
This also illustrates what can happen if you don't have the paperwork in order. TIGHAR does. There won't be any problems about ownership or whatnot when Niku VIII scores next year.
LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP
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And something else fairly recent, related to Myhre and another Flight 19 sleuth that he collaborated with: http://www.aeroquest.org/tbm-3-avenger-buno53118.html (http://www.aeroquest.org/tbm-3-avenger-buno53118.html)
It was a TBM-3, same model as Taylor's, it crashed in the Everglades, the Navy had to record of any other missing TBM-3s, so that must be the one, right?
Well ... no. It's usually not a good idea to try and force the evidence to fit the available facts. Gotta' admire their doggedness, though.
LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP
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I was about to say "it would be nice if the navy would clean these things up at the time so we wouldn't have all the confusion later" - and then it dawned on me that it is actually kind of cool irony that a 'new' mystery emerged from a forgotten wreck to be solved, simply because they didn't. Had this not happened, I'd not know of that airman who lost his life and his story. It is as if the fates wanted a later generation to know of him and appreciate him, RIP.