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Tonight on History's Greatest Mysteries.

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The who-do-see, the graveyard of the Atlantic.

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Or, as we know it more commonly today, the Bermuda Triangle.

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I'm Lawrence Fishburne.

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Nearly 100 ships and planes have vanished into this enigma.

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On tonight's mystery, the case that made the Bermuda Triangle famous.

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The disappearance of Flight 19.

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In December 1945, in the months after World War II,

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a squadron of US Navy torpedo bombers took off from Florida

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on a routine training mission and never returned.

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Where did they crash? And why?

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Somebody has to know the truth.

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The only way we're going to solve this is to find an aircraft.

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Over the decades, there have been countless searches, but now a possible game changer.

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Bridge, standby. You're gonna die.

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Three groups of investigators joined forces in the biggest search for Flight 19 yet.

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Dead ahead, what is that?

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Deep-sea explorer Rob Kraft leads the most advanced research ship of its kind.

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That's an aircraft. No doubt.

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Scientist and wreck diver Mike Barnett investigates new clues along the coastline.

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We definitely have a mystery aircraft. Definitely a Navy.

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At researchers David O'Keefe and Wayne Abbott follow a trail of cover-ups,

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conspiracy, and missing evidence.

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Of course they're gonna whitewash it.

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From the deep, we're looking for F-28 to the swamps.

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That is a 50-caliber.

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All leading to a moment that could solve the mystery.

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Boom. Staring us in the face, a large propeller.

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Flight 19 could be in this area. This could be one of them.

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Have they finally found Flight 19?

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the

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Petrol is a very unique ship.

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We are outfitted.

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Unlike any other vessel, the ship itself is inherently designed and built for deepwater search operation.

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It's February 13th, 2020, day one of a search 200 miles off the Florida coast.

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Camera's coming up.

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Underwater explorer Rob Kraft has led the research vessel RV Petrel deep into the Bermuda Triangle.

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You're in.

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An infamous area between Florida's coast, Bermuda and Puerto Rico.

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Their hopes for finding Flight 19 are high.

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Here's the bottom. That is our way forward.

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RV Petrel's mission is to seek out the great shipwrecks of the world using an array of advanced technology,

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including ultra-high-deaf cameras that can be deployed to extreme depths.

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Since 2017, Kraft and Petrel have discovered over 30 World War II ships and the final resting place of thousands of servicemen.

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It's really about them and the service that these men gave for their country and paid the ultimate sacrifice.

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It's part of the reason we do what we do.

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And yet, this search will be Kraft and Petrel's greatest challenge.

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This is the biggest search project we have and will undertake.

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And the reality is, is there is no smoking gun here.

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There is no one piece of evidence that is going to put an X on a map and say they're here.

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It just doesn't exist.

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You really kind of have to put yourself back in 1945 and try and understand what these men were going through.

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The case of Flight 19 begins on December 5th, 1945 at the Fort Lauderdale Naval Air Station.

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It's 2.20 p.m.

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Five TPM Avenger torpedo bombers prepare to take off on a training mission designated Flight 19.

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Marshal bombs, one, two, seven, zero, twenty-three.

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One, five, zero, put the rocket.

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A choppy wind kicks up, but visibility was unlimited with blue skies.

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Keep the road right past, on course, three, four, five, four, five, four, five, four, five, four.

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The mission should have lasted just over two hours.

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Instead, these five planes carrying a total of 14 men disappear.

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Hours later, a Martin Mariner rescue plane with a crew of 13 goes looking for them.

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It too vanishes.

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The Martin Mariner also failed to return to base.

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It is so bizarre for us to try to comprehend.

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27 U.S. Navy sailors lost their lives.

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They disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle, and there has still never been an adequate explanation for what happened to them.

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It was a routine training flight.

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It was to take off, drop some bombs, shoot a little navigation, and then come back to base.

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So what happened to Flight 19?

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Did they crash somewhere near Florida's coast?

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Did they get hopelessly lost, ditching far out to sea?

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Or did they make it back to land, crashing in Florida?

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This is not a needle in a haystack. This is orders of magnitude more difficult than that.

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I mean, this was the largest Navy search ever conducted, and they found nothing out there.

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Fully fueled, the TBM Avengers lost on Flight 19 at a range of a thousand miles, creating a massive potential search area.

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No one has found anything. So really, all the cards are still on the table.

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Abort RV Petro. Kraft has invited David O'Keefe and Wayne Abbott to help narrow the search area.

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And I think you're right. I think that would be the area that we have to start at.

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David served in the Canadian Infantry and is now a military historian.

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I did two and a half years in uniform with one of the most famous regiments in Canada, which was the Black Watch of Canada.

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I was recruited from there to actually work as part of the official historical team.

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Going through old files and archives, that's my forte. That's what I love to do.

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There's nothing like it. I'm a veteran.

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Wayne is a historical investigator, obsessed with Flight 19 since he was a kid.

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I was early teens when Close Encounters of the Third Kind came out in the theaters.

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And that was really the first time I heard about the story of Flight 19, and it's an iconic opening.

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And these scientists are going through the dusty Mexican desert.

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All of a sudden you see five perfect planes from Flight 19.

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Who flies greats like these anymore?

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No one. These planes were reported missing in 1945.

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I don't understand.

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In the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Flight 19 is abducted.

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The plane is now in the air.

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I don't understand.

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In the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Flight 19 is abducted by aliens.

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To find out what really happened, Wayne and David are helping Kraft dig into the official report

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from the Navy Board of Inquiry that investigated Flight 19.

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This is all we have, so this is what we have to use.

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Nobody knew truly where the planes were.

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But there is a lot of evidence within the Board of Inquiry report of radio transmissions.

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And there's just great little tidbits of information.

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According to the report, signs of trouble began an hour and a half after takeoff.

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3.40 pm, Lieutenant Charles Taylor, the instructor leading Flight 19,

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radios one of the other pilots saying he thinks they're lost.

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Powers, do you copy? I think we got lost in that last turn.

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Back near Fort Lauderdale, another flight instructor, Lieutenant Robert Cox,

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overhears Flight 19's radio traffic.

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Both the compasses are out, we're lost.

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I'm sure we're over the keys, but I'm not sure how far down.

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How to get back to Lauderdale.

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According to Cox, Taylor was convinced Flight 19 was over the Florida keys,

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well off their flight path.

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Cox instructed Taylor to fly northeast till they hit Miami,

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and then on to Fort Lauderdale.

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But they never made it.

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Where were they?

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The flight leader, Charles Taylor, is completely confused about his position.

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The report says that at 17.50, military time for 5.50 pm,

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the Navy triangulated a rough position fix on Flight 19.

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And what we can see from the rudimentary data that we have

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is that the flight is actually progressing off the southeastern part of Florida.

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Charles Taylor thought he'd gotten badly turned around and was over the Gulf.

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But the location fix puts them north of the Bahamas.

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If Taylor did turn northeast, he would have been leading them

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even deeper into the Bermuda Triangle.

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This is the 17.50 fix that the Navy put them at.

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There is the 100 nautical mile radius.

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Kraft uses the bearings to calculate Petrel's search grid.

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It's an area more than twice the size of the state of Rhode Island,

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with an average depth of 3,000 feet.

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We were talking nearly 2,600 square nautical miles.

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And we're looking for a target that is, you know,

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the wingspan on an Avenger is 50 feet.

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But in London, Kraft begins the search.

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It starts with some of the world's deepest diving autonomous underwater vehicles,

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or AUVs, able to reach depths of more than 3 miles.

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It's a drone that we program on the surface.

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We tell it where we want it to go and what we want it to do.

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And it goes and does its mission all by itself.

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Once the AUV nears the sea floor, it follows a grid pattern

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and emits bursts of sonar to create a detailed undersea map.

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Any unnatural shapes it finds could be wrecks.

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We have been lucky enough to find targets on the first dive in the past.

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I do not feel that level of confidence here.

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There we go. Dive one.

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As the AUV begins the search,

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Petrel's chief technician and lead researcher, Paul Mayer,

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reviews what an aircraft in deep water might look like.

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Here is a 3D model of an F4F.

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This is in about 10,000 feet of water,

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so the paint is still in very good condition.

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This F4F Wildcat is part of the Petrel's 2018 discovery

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of the carrier USS Lexington.

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The team discovered 35 aircraft that went down with the ship.

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In this deep water environment, low oxygen levels reduce corrosion.

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These planes have been on the ocean floor for nearly eight decades,

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yet the paint still looks fresh.

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On this particular aircraft we have victory tallies here

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of how many Japanese planes were shot down.

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There's a bomb here representing that he did a bombing mission

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and then the insignia of that flight crew.

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If Flight 19 is in deep water,

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the chances of a positive identification are high.

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13 hours later in the dead of night,

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the AUV completes its first die.

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Craft reviews the data.

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He immediately spots something.

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It stands out.

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It's an extremely bright, high-congress target.

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It could be something man-made,

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so we need to go put some eyes on those and figure out what they are.

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Could Rob Craft's instincts be proven right yet again?

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Is this Flight 19?

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It's day two of the search for Flight 19,

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the Bermuda Triangle's greatest mystery.

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What happened to five torpedo bombers that disappeared

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in 1945?

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Aboard RV Petrol, explorer Rob Craft

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has detected a promising target.

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It stands out.

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It could be something man-made.

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To get a visual,

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he deploys a remotely operated vehicle, or ROV,

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fitted with an array of cameras.

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You're gonna die.

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You're in.

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All right, ready for some thrusters?

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Out the meters on.

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There you go, it's up.

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Would it be just a meter off the bottom?

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Sound speed still 15-22.

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Here's the bottom.

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I think you're about 70, 75 meters due north of this road.

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It's head over to the left. Did you see that?

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Hold your heading right there, Rudy. Just hold there.

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What is that?

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That's the squid.

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Oh, yeah.

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Look at all that biology.

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145, that is our waypoint.

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We're just coming up on it now,

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and it appears to be...

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You think it's a wheel?

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No, it's a rock.

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It's just some form of rocks.

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It's just a geological anomaly.

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Sonar, this sensitive, will produce some false targets.

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Box ticked. Box ticked.

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Long target. Bring it up.

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But for craft, there is a silver lining.

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It's not mountainous like we see in a lot of deep water environments.

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So it's fairly flat, so we've got a pretty good chance of identifying these targets.

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But search operations must now be halted.

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The weather has come up pretty fast and ahead of schedule.

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We've got to get the vehicle up, get it on deck while we still have this window.

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We're getting everything secured for sea, because it's going to be a rough ride in.

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We can start running at 10 knots, and it's going to get pretty lively out here.

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Petrol is being chased back to port by the Bermuda Triangle's freak and dangerous weather swings.

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These sudden and violent storms called white squalls have sunk ships

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and added to the Triangle's deadly reputation.

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You had a lot of incidences where planes went missing, boats went missing.

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So you have to respect it and you have to fear it.

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The Bermuda Triangle borders some of the Earth's most powerful forces.

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The Gulf Stream, the Atlantic's strongest current,

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known to carry disabled ships and planes miles from their reported positions.

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A mid-ocean area that is often eerily become,

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trapping many a stranded vessel in a slow death grip.

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And the Triangle is a superhighway for hurricanes.

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There's no doubt that this area is incredibly active.

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It is an area where there are anomalies that cannot be explained by physical science.

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And nowhere else has so many eyewitness accounts of paranormal activity.

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Malfunctioning instruments and strange lights attributed to aliens or the supernatural.

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The U.S. government recently revealed that in 2017, navy pilots flying over the Bermuda Triangle

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captured UFOs on camera.

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The facts are the facts.

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There are disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle that are unexplained.

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I don't think it's aliens.

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But no one's ever really discovered the smoking gun.

240
00:19:06,200 --> 00:19:09,200
While craft waits for the weather to calm,

241
00:19:09,200 --> 00:19:14,200
team members Wayne Abbott and David O'Keefe head inland.

242
00:19:15,200 --> 00:19:20,200
They're hunting for any evidence the planes crashed in Florida.

243
00:19:22,200 --> 00:19:28,200
There is one possibility that the planes that night actually decided to split up and go their own way.

244
00:19:28,200 --> 00:19:34,200
And if that's the case, then it is a possibility that some made it back to land.

245
00:19:35,200 --> 00:19:38,200
The theory that at least one plane made it back to land

246
00:19:39,200 --> 00:19:44,200
rests on cryptic evidence of possible dissension on flight 19.

247
00:19:47,200 --> 00:19:50,200
Intercepted radio calls indicate that one of the student pilots,

248
00:19:50,200 --> 00:19:53,200
possibly Marine Captain Ed Powers,

249
00:19:53,200 --> 00:19:59,200
disagreed with instructor Charles Taylor that the flight was lost over the Florida Keys.

250
00:20:00,200 --> 00:20:03,200
Powers argued they were over the Atlantic.

251
00:20:04,200 --> 00:20:07,200
He urged Taylor to fly west.

252
00:20:08,200 --> 00:20:10,200
Dammit, we need to fly west.

253
00:20:10,200 --> 00:20:14,200
If we fly west, we will get home.

254
00:20:14,200 --> 00:20:16,200
There was some dissension in the ranks,

255
00:20:16,200 --> 00:20:20,200
and a guy like Captain Powers just says, you know, screw it.

256
00:20:20,200 --> 00:20:23,200
Taylor, you've messed us around too long.

257
00:20:23,200 --> 00:20:26,200
I'm gonna head towards land, because I know where we are.

258
00:20:27,200 --> 00:20:29,200
So that easily could have happened.

259
00:20:31,200 --> 00:20:36,200
Wayne and David have recently tracked down new evidence that could back up this theory.

260
00:20:39,200 --> 00:20:44,200
Just west of Varro Beach, Florida, they've come to meet Graham Steichleather,

261
00:20:44,200 --> 00:20:48,200
who is taking them back to the site of a vivid boyhood memory.

262
00:20:51,200 --> 00:20:53,200
So how old were you at the time?

263
00:20:53,200 --> 00:20:54,200
I was nine.

264
00:20:54,200 --> 00:20:57,200
So this is similar to what you remember?

265
00:20:57,200 --> 00:20:58,200
Yeah, it is.

266
00:20:58,200 --> 00:21:01,200
The first thing that you passed was the tail section,

267
00:21:01,200 --> 00:21:06,200
and then probably another, gosh, 50 to 100 feet in front of there was the plane.

268
00:21:09,200 --> 00:21:14,200
In 1962, years after the disappearance of Flight 19,

269
00:21:14,200 --> 00:21:19,200
a nine-year-old Graham was brought here by his father to see a plane wreck.

270
00:21:21,200 --> 00:21:23,200
Graham's father, a Florida judge,

271
00:21:23,200 --> 00:21:28,200
discovered the wreck while hunting and reported it to the Navy.

272
00:21:29,200 --> 00:21:32,200
He was told it was from Flight 19.

273
00:21:33,200 --> 00:21:38,200
But the wreck was removed, and the Navy later denied any knowledge of the incident.

274
00:21:39,200 --> 00:21:42,200
What did your father do upon finding the wreck?

275
00:21:42,200 --> 00:21:45,200
The first place he called was Patrick Air Force Base.

276
00:21:45,200 --> 00:21:50,200
They finally did pull the plane out, and there were bodies in it.

277
00:21:51,200 --> 00:21:53,200
Where did your father take this story, then?

278
00:21:53,200 --> 00:21:58,200
He finally kind of hit a wall, and nobody talked to him anymore.

279
00:21:58,200 --> 00:22:04,200
What really raises a lot of mystery about this plane is the Navy told him

280
00:22:04,200 --> 00:22:06,200
that this was part of Flight 19.

281
00:22:07,200 --> 00:22:11,200
Unfortunately, no matter how much the judge went back to the Navy,

282
00:22:11,200 --> 00:22:13,200
he could not get any more information.

283
00:22:14,200 --> 00:22:17,200
As a researcher, you can't place too much faith in human memory.

284
00:22:17,200 --> 00:22:20,200
Human memory becomes fallible immediately after.

285
00:22:21,200 --> 00:22:24,200
You still needed some sort of concrete proof.

286
00:22:24,200 --> 00:22:26,200
Do you have anything that came from the plane?

287
00:22:26,200 --> 00:22:29,200
Yeah, I do. I do have pieces of plane and some bits.

288
00:22:29,200 --> 00:22:32,200
You have pieces of the plane that your father found?

289
00:22:32,200 --> 00:22:33,200
Yeah, absolutely.

290
00:22:34,200 --> 00:22:39,200
After his father died, Graham gave the plane pieces to a friend named Jimmy,

291
00:22:39,200 --> 00:22:41,200
who collects World War II memorabilia.

292
00:22:42,200 --> 00:22:45,200
Jimmy has agreed to meet Wayne and David.

293
00:22:46,200 --> 00:22:51,200
Are they about to uncover a piece of the legendary Flight 19?

294
00:22:51,200 --> 00:22:52,200
Here it is.

295
00:22:52,200 --> 00:22:54,200
Oh, here we go.

296
00:22:54,200 --> 00:23:01,200
Wayne Abbott and David O'Keefe are part of a team of Bermuda Triangle investigators.

297
00:23:01,200 --> 00:23:05,200
They're now in Florida to examine plane wreckage.

298
00:23:06,200 --> 00:23:07,200
Here it is, fellas.

299
00:23:08,200 --> 00:23:12,200
It was found on this spot and is allegedly part of Flight 19.

300
00:23:12,200 --> 00:23:13,200
That's a .50 caliber.

301
00:23:13,200 --> 00:23:16,200
That is a .50 caliber.

302
00:23:16,200 --> 00:23:19,200
Yes, this is an M2 and a .50 caliber.

303
00:23:19,200 --> 00:23:22,200
I believe would have been mounted in the wing of the aircraft.

304
00:23:22,200 --> 00:23:23,200
And this is the mount?

305
00:23:23,200 --> 00:23:28,200
That would be the forward mount that would have attached to this portion of the gun.

306
00:23:29,200 --> 00:23:33,200
David compares the parts to a schematic from a TBM Avenger manual.

307
00:23:34,200 --> 00:23:38,200
Looking at this picture, if you look right there, look it.

308
00:23:38,200 --> 00:23:39,200
There's the mount.

309
00:23:39,200 --> 00:23:40,200
That is.

310
00:23:40,200 --> 00:23:41,200
That is it.

311
00:23:42,200 --> 00:23:43,200
That is it.

312
00:23:43,200 --> 00:23:48,200
The TBM-3 Avenger had .50 cal machine guns mounted on its wings.

313
00:23:48,200 --> 00:23:55,200
This gun was used on many planes, but the small mount is unique to the Avenger.

314
00:23:57,200 --> 00:24:03,200
Making it likely this gun came off the same kind of planes lost on Flight 19.

315
00:24:05,200 --> 00:24:08,200
Are there any other markings on the plane?

316
00:24:08,200 --> 00:24:09,200
No.

317
00:24:09,200 --> 00:24:10,200
There are.

318
00:24:10,200 --> 00:24:14,200
The original markings from the factory and there is a serial number which...

319
00:24:14,200 --> 00:24:15,200
Yes.

320
00:24:15,200 --> 00:24:16,200
All right.

321
00:24:16,200 --> 00:24:17,200
This is great.

322
00:24:17,200 --> 00:24:22,200
This is great because all of these were logged, particularly when it came to armaments on

323
00:24:22,200 --> 00:24:28,200
planes and somewhere in the archives there is going to be a log of this.

324
00:24:29,200 --> 00:24:33,200
The big reason that having a machine gun is great is because it comes with a serial number

325
00:24:33,200 --> 00:24:37,200
and with the serial number it's going to be a log of this.

326
00:24:37,200 --> 00:24:42,200
This is the serial number and with the serial number we might be able to find out what plane

327
00:24:42,200 --> 00:24:43,200
this came off of.

328
00:24:43,200 --> 00:24:47,200
We might be able to find out who the pilots and the rest of the crew were.

329
00:24:47,200 --> 00:24:52,200
This is the best piece of hard evidence we've ever come across.

330
00:24:52,200 --> 00:25:00,200
As David follows the trail of the serial number, another member of the Bermuda Triangle

331
00:25:00,200 --> 00:25:07,200
team, seasoned explorer Mike Barnett is opening up a new search.

332
00:25:07,200 --> 00:25:12,200
His dive team will focus on the waters along Florida's coastline.

333
00:25:12,200 --> 00:25:17,200
I've been working in the Bermuda Triangle or as I call it the Bulls*** Triangle for 30 years.

334
00:25:17,200 --> 00:25:23,200
As a scientist Barnett believes these disappearances have a rational explanation.

335
00:25:23,200 --> 00:25:26,200
There's all sorts of theories about what's going on here.

336
00:25:26,200 --> 00:25:32,200
There's all sorts of paranormal phenomena, UFOs, time warps, Atlantis.

337
00:25:32,200 --> 00:25:37,200
In the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, another famous Bermuda Triangle disappearance,

338
00:25:37,200 --> 00:25:44,200
the ship called the Kodopaxi, was set down by extraterrestrials in the Gobi Desert.

339
00:25:45,200 --> 00:25:50,200
Barnett recently found the Kodopaxi and worked out what really happened.

340
00:25:51,200 --> 00:25:55,200
The Kodopaxi was caught in a storm on November 30th in 1925.

341
00:25:55,200 --> 00:26:00,200
She sank just over 100 feet of water about 40 miles off the coast of Florida.

342
00:26:02,200 --> 00:26:04,200
There's no need for additional drama.

343
00:26:04,200 --> 00:26:07,200
The weather can provide all the drama you ever would want.

344
00:26:07,200 --> 00:26:15,200
The weather can go from flat calm to raging 7 to 10 foot seas and 25 knot winds at a snap of a finger.

345
00:26:16,200 --> 00:26:21,200
To find Flight 19, Barnett's using the same approach he used to find the Kodopaxi.

346
00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:24,200
Follow the fish.

347
00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:28,200
Fish are after structure and habitat and shipwrecks provide great habitat.

348
00:26:28,200 --> 00:26:33,200
Shipwrecks are like mini reeds that make for rich fishing ground.

349
00:26:34,200 --> 00:26:37,200
There are hundreds off Florida's coast.

350
00:26:37,200 --> 00:26:42,200
And the fishermen who make their living off these wrecks can provide valuable leads.

351
00:26:43,200 --> 00:26:45,200
They know where the wrecks are. They don't know what the wrecks are.

352
00:26:45,200 --> 00:26:47,200
They know there's something there.

353
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:53,200
I've worked with all sorts of commercial fishermen, whether it be draggers and trawlers.

354
00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:58,200
Or in this case, I'm working with Captain Jeff Marenko, who is a commercial spear fisherman.

355
00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:09,200
Me and Barnett have been friends for a long time and we wanted to come out here and check out some wrecks off of North Florida that we've been talking about for years.

356
00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:14,200
A lot of these wrecks, a lot of people lost their lives.

357
00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:23,200
So anytime you can identify something and finish the equation of what happened to it, I think it's a good thing.

358
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:29,200
There's a mystery wreck the captain's told us about. No one knows what it is.

359
00:27:30,200 --> 00:27:36,200
The dive team includes Jimmy Godomsky and underwater cinematographer Evan Kovacs.

360
00:27:36,200 --> 00:27:38,200
What's the range, depth range?

361
00:27:38,200 --> 00:27:40,200
130 to almost 200 feet of water.

362
00:27:40,200 --> 00:27:47,200
They're rated to hit extreme depths of up to 500 feet, close to the limit for human divers.

363
00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:49,200
Just starting to mark the edge of the wreck now.

364
00:27:49,200 --> 00:27:56,200
We're starting to see some stuff. The bottom's at 160, 165, and we're seeing the fish up to 140, so it's definitely something here.

365
00:27:56,200 --> 00:27:59,200
I'm ready when you are if you want to try hooking right now.

366
00:27:59,200 --> 00:28:01,200
Go.

367
00:28:09,200 --> 00:28:15,200
Below they find not a plane, but a 200 foot shipwreck.

368
00:28:16,200 --> 00:28:22,200
Could this be an important piece of the Bermuda Triangle mystery?

369
00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:26,200
The Bermuda Triangle

370
00:28:29,200 --> 00:28:35,200
Mike Barnett is part of a team of investigators exploring the legendary Bermuda Triangle.

371
00:28:37,200 --> 00:28:43,200
Searching for a lost squadron of Navy bombers, they may have stumbled upon another of the Triangle's victims.

372
00:28:45,200 --> 00:28:47,200
A massive shipwreck.

373
00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:51,200
What is it?

374
00:28:53,200 --> 00:28:57,200
We found a wreck that's about 200 feet long, with a 24 and a half foot beam.

375
00:29:00,200 --> 00:29:04,200
We noticed it was carrying a very bizarre cargo, this white clay-like material.

376
00:29:05,200 --> 00:29:12,200
We took a sample of that, so we figured if we could identify the cargo, potentially we could identify the wreck.

377
00:29:13,200 --> 00:29:18,200
Barnett's team heads to the surface to try to work out what they found.

378
00:29:19,200 --> 00:29:22,200
This is a sample of cargo.

379
00:29:23,200 --> 00:29:27,200
It used to look like a white-graced clay, but it's just tons of it down there.

380
00:29:28,200 --> 00:29:30,200
So I'm curious what this is.

381
00:29:32,200 --> 00:29:39,200
After assessing the evidence, Barnett matches the wreck to a famous unsolved Bermuda Triangle disappearance.

382
00:29:40,200 --> 00:29:46,200
A cargo ship lost in April 1950 and never heard from again, the Sandra.

383
00:29:49,200 --> 00:29:57,200
The Sandra left Savannah with a 12-man crew and vanished, thought to have been swallowed by the legendary Bermuda Triangle.

384
00:29:58,200 --> 00:30:04,200
We found a record of a vessel called the Sandra that was lost in 1950, and it was carrying a cargo of DDT.

385
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:16,200
And when we actually analyzed the cargo, we found out it was Kaelin clay, which uses an insecticide or pesticide, as well as traces of DDT.

386
00:30:18,200 --> 00:30:25,200
We know when the Sandra left Savannah, Georgia headed south along the North Florida coast, it would pass right over where we were diving, where this mystery wreck is.

387
00:30:26,200 --> 00:30:30,200
In all the dimensions, all the machinery matched exactly what the Sandra was.

388
00:30:31,200 --> 00:30:38,200
We put all this evidence all together, cumulatively, it was overwhelming that the mystery wreck was indeed the Sandra.

389
00:30:39,200 --> 00:30:44,200
For the Bermuda Triangle investigation team, it's a major discovery.

390
00:30:45,200 --> 00:30:50,200
A 200-foot ship, thought to be vanished forever, is now found.

391
00:30:52,200 --> 00:30:58,200
But what or who buried the Sandra and her 12 sailors in this watery grave?

392
00:31:00,200 --> 00:31:06,200
Is there some unknown force behind this and so many Bermuda Triangle mysteries?

393
00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:13,200
With the sensational discovery, these questions can now be investigated.

394
00:31:14,200 --> 00:31:24,200
I mean, just serendipity, right? We're trying to find information on another Bermuda Triangle mystery, and yet we stumble into another one, which just shows you that's what happens when you go out exploring out here. You just never know where you're going to run into.

395
00:31:27,200 --> 00:31:36,200
But the mystery of the Sandra must wait. Barnett is eager to return to his primary mission, finding the missing planes.

396
00:31:39,200 --> 00:31:49,200
Forced into port by severe weather, Petrel is heading back to sea. Barnett joins team member Rob Kraft for the next leg of the expedition.

397
00:31:50,200 --> 00:31:51,200
Yeah, I really appreciate your opportunity.

398
00:31:52,200 --> 00:32:01,200
Mike Barnett is a NOAA Marine biologist and an avid diver. We're going to bring him on board and we're going to talk to him about the PBM Mariner aspect of Flight 19.

399
00:32:02,200 --> 00:32:06,200
Barnett is most interested in a lesser known aspect of the Flight 19 saga.

400
00:32:08,200 --> 00:32:11,200
The loss of the Martin Mariner search and rescue plane.

401
00:32:12,200 --> 00:32:22,200
In the process of trying to rescue these five aircraft, another search and rescue aircraft was dispatched to go find them. And it disappeared less than a half hour after taking off.

402
00:32:24,200 --> 00:32:27,200
So in an instant, we've doubled the men at EV rescued.

403
00:32:28,200 --> 00:32:33,200
7.30 PM, about an hour since the last transmission from Flight 19.

404
00:32:35,200 --> 00:32:41,200
A 13 man rescue team goes after the lost flight, like firemen running into a burning building.

405
00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:43,200
20-0-0 departure radar contact.

406
00:32:44,200 --> 00:32:48,200
Around 8.30 PM, the rescue plane suddenly drops off radar.

407
00:32:49,200 --> 00:32:59,200
A passing freighter, the SS Gaines Mill, reported a large fireball in the skies around that time.

408
00:33:00,200 --> 00:33:03,200
Did the plane explode mid-flight?

409
00:33:05,200 --> 00:33:11,200
No wreckage was ever found. And the true location of the incident is hotly debated.

410
00:33:12,200 --> 00:33:16,200
This is a site identified in 1989 during the search for Challenger debris.

411
00:33:17,200 --> 00:33:24,200
Barnett thinks he may have found the missing Mariner by digging through the archives of a seemingly unrelated event.

412
00:33:27,200 --> 00:33:30,200
The 1986 explosion of the Challenger Space Shuttle.

413
00:33:34,200 --> 00:33:39,200
Tragically, it exploded a few minutes after launch and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean several pieces.

414
00:33:39,200 --> 00:33:42,200
There was a major effort to go out and search for this debris.

415
00:33:43,200 --> 00:33:49,200
And they actually found what they identified as a DC-3, a twin-engine aircraft in this area here.

416
00:33:51,200 --> 00:33:56,200
Searching for the debris of the Challenger, NASA identified the wreck of a DC-3 aircraft.

417
00:33:58,200 --> 00:34:01,200
But the dive report states visibility was poor.

418
00:34:03,200 --> 00:34:05,200
So, did they get it right?

419
00:34:06,200 --> 00:34:09,200
Could this actually be the missing Mariner?

420
00:34:10,200 --> 00:34:11,200
How far offshore is this?

421
00:34:11,200 --> 00:34:13,200
This is about 30 miles.

422
00:34:14,200 --> 00:34:18,200
Okay, let's get on the phone and call the branch and give them that position.

423
00:34:19,200 --> 00:34:24,200
Rob Kraft adjusts course to head towards Mike Barnett's provocative target.

424
00:34:28,200 --> 00:34:30,200
It's early March, 2020.

425
00:34:31,200 --> 00:34:39,200
Rob Kraft and Mike Barnett have taken RV petrol over the very spot where NASA records document a mysterious aircraft wreck.

426
00:34:41,200 --> 00:34:44,200
Max gun, you'll be 133 meters.

427
00:34:45,200 --> 00:34:52,200
They suspect that it may be the PBM Mariner rescue plane that was lost along with Flight 19.

428
00:34:52,200 --> 00:34:59,200
We know the PBM was likely traveling it and out to 800 feet or so, so if it did crash, we should have large chunks of wreckage.

429
00:35:01,200 --> 00:35:09,200
Using the petrol sonar, they searched the ocean floor for half a mile in every direction and turned up.

430
00:35:10,200 --> 00:35:11,200
Nothing.

431
00:35:12,200 --> 00:35:14,200
Yeah, there's nothing there.

432
00:35:16,200 --> 00:35:21,200
Is the NASA data inaccurate or did churning undersea currents destroy the wreck?

433
00:35:23,200 --> 00:35:26,200
Whatever the explanation, there's no plane here.

434
00:35:27,200 --> 00:35:30,200
But for Kraft, this is still progress.

435
00:35:31,200 --> 00:35:35,200
When you rule targets out, that can help you focus your search.

436
00:35:35,200 --> 00:35:38,200
X rarely ever marks the spot.

437
00:35:40,200 --> 00:35:47,200
As Kraft steers petrol back toward deeper water, Barnett prepares another dive expedition along the coast.

438
00:35:48,200 --> 00:35:59,200
Meanwhile, back in Florida, the other members of the team, investigators Wayne Abbott and David O'Keefe, have uncovered a provocative witness.

439
00:36:00,200 --> 00:36:02,200
This is the first interview she's ever given.

440
00:36:02,200 --> 00:36:06,200
Yeah, I mean, 75 years later, it's going to be hard to find any eyewitnesses.

441
00:36:06,200 --> 00:36:08,200
And so she's about the closest thing we're going to get.

442
00:36:11,200 --> 00:36:14,200
My father was Lieutenant Robert Cox.

443
00:36:15,200 --> 00:36:19,200
He was in radio contact with Flight 19.

444
00:36:20,200 --> 00:36:23,200
Colby Cox is the daughter of Lieutenant Robert Cox.

445
00:36:24,200 --> 00:36:28,200
The first to realize Flight 19 was in trouble on that fateful day.

446
00:36:29,200 --> 00:36:31,200
Uh, hours? You copy?

447
00:36:32,200 --> 00:36:34,200
I don't know where we are.

448
00:36:35,200 --> 00:36:40,200
Cox was also the only person to have more than a fleeting contact with Flight 19.

449
00:36:40,200 --> 00:36:43,200
Please identify yourself so someone can help.

450
00:36:46,200 --> 00:36:50,200
Cox was sure he could find them, but he was low on fuel.

451
00:36:51,200 --> 00:36:55,200
He requested to land and swap into a ready plane that was on standby.

452
00:36:56,200 --> 00:36:59,200
This is FD-74 coming in low on fuel.

453
00:36:59,200 --> 00:37:02,200
Request permission to immediately disembark in ready plane.

454
00:37:03,200 --> 00:37:06,200
I think I got a pretty good fix on those lost fliers.

455
00:37:07,200 --> 00:37:10,200
But his request was inexplicably denied.

456
00:37:13,200 --> 00:37:17,200
Why wasn't Lieutenant Cox allowed to go back up after Flight 19?

457
00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:22,200
It's very sad that Dad wasn't allowed to go back up.

458
00:37:22,200 --> 00:37:24,200
Did it weigh heavily on him?

459
00:37:24,200 --> 00:37:32,200
My dad felt extremely strongly that he could locate the flight if he were allowed to go back up.

460
00:37:32,200 --> 00:37:38,200
And he was very frustrated that he wasn't allowed to go back up.

461
00:37:39,200 --> 00:37:41,200
What was the follow-up for your father then?

462
00:37:41,200 --> 00:37:49,200
My mother was always convinced that this adversely affected my father's career

463
00:37:49,200 --> 00:37:52,200
because my father told the truth.

464
00:37:53,200 --> 00:37:58,200
Robert Cox is one of the most crucial characters in the whole Flight 19 story.

465
00:37:58,200 --> 00:38:03,200
Now, Robert died a few years ago and his story died with him,

466
00:38:03,200 --> 00:38:09,200
but Colby Cox told us a story that is shocking.

467
00:38:10,200 --> 00:38:16,200
There was a huge party on the base that night from what I recall Dad saying.

468
00:38:16,200 --> 00:38:19,200
They couldn't even find the base commander.

469
00:38:21,200 --> 00:38:26,200
My father believed that the fact that there was that big party the night before

470
00:38:26,200 --> 00:38:30,200
definitely contributed to the loss of Flight 19.

471
00:38:32,200 --> 00:38:39,200
If Lieutenant Cox did testify to this base-wide party the night before Flight 19 was lost,

472
00:38:39,200 --> 00:38:42,200
it's nowhere in the Navy's official report.

473
00:38:43,200 --> 00:38:46,200
Did your father believe that they whitewashed, say, the Board of Inquiry?

474
00:38:46,200 --> 00:38:47,200
Yes.

475
00:38:47,200 --> 00:38:48,200
Wow.

476
00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:51,200
The Navy doesn't want to hear that.

477
00:38:51,200 --> 00:38:54,200
I grew up as a Navy brat.

478
00:38:54,200 --> 00:39:01,200
My father was in the service 24 years and knowing what I know about the Navy,

479
00:39:01,200 --> 00:39:05,200
of course they're going to whitewash it.

480
00:39:07,200 --> 00:39:10,200
Boy, did she just open up something.

481
00:39:10,200 --> 00:39:13,200
Do you think that they would have sanitized the Board of Inquiry?

482
00:39:13,200 --> 00:39:14,200
Well, it could have.

483
00:39:14,200 --> 00:39:18,200
I mean, let's just say the entire base was off its game.

484
00:39:18,200 --> 00:39:19,200
They were all hungover.

485
00:39:19,200 --> 00:39:22,200
Would the Navy really want that to come out?

486
00:39:22,200 --> 00:39:24,200
Especially with the loss of 27 men.

487
00:39:24,200 --> 00:39:27,200
Particularly with the loss of 27 men.

488
00:39:29,200 --> 00:39:37,200
The amount of partying that was happening is a bit surprising, shocking, but also understandable.

489
00:39:38,200 --> 00:39:41,200
My God, these guys just got home from fighting World War II.

490
00:39:41,200 --> 00:39:42,200
It's official.

491
00:39:42,200 --> 00:39:43,200
It's all over.

492
00:39:43,200 --> 00:39:45,200
It's total victory.

493
00:39:46,200 --> 00:39:53,200
The guns of World War II fell silent in August 1945 after the final Japanese surrender.

494
00:39:53,200 --> 00:39:58,200
Cameraman and reporters of many countries record this historic moment.

495
00:39:58,200 --> 00:40:04,200
Service men from all branches went from high alert to suddenly, unexpectedly, coming home.

496
00:40:04,200 --> 00:40:09,200
The American military did not look to the year 1945 and go,

497
00:40:09,200 --> 00:40:12,200
we'll wrap it all up then and then we'll all go home.

498
00:40:12,200 --> 00:40:14,200
That was not the plan.

499
00:40:14,200 --> 00:40:20,200
The American military had imagined a force of 305,000 American troops

500
00:40:20,200 --> 00:40:23,200
participating in amphibious landing on the Japanese home islands.

501
00:40:26,200 --> 00:40:29,200
I don't want to say that they suddenly became unprofessional

502
00:40:29,200 --> 00:40:32,200
and that they neglected their duties and responsibilities.

503
00:40:33,200 --> 00:40:38,200
But I am saying that there's a different set of priorities by December 5th, 1945.

504
00:40:39,200 --> 00:40:43,200
Even if there was a massive base party the night before,

505
00:40:43,200 --> 00:40:47,200
the men of Flight 19 were experienced aviators.

506
00:40:47,200 --> 00:40:50,200
Most had seen combat in the Pacific.

507
00:40:51,200 --> 00:40:55,200
None more than Flight Instructor Charles Taylor.

508
00:40:55,200 --> 00:40:59,200
His friends called him Cece and he was from Texas from Corpus Christi

509
00:40:59,200 --> 00:41:01,200
and he joined the Navy in 1941.

510
00:41:03,200 --> 00:41:05,200
He was a highly seasoned pilot.

511
00:41:07,200 --> 00:41:12,200
He had combat experience but he had also logged 2,500 hours of flying time

512
00:41:12,200 --> 00:41:14,200
mostly on the Avenger.

513
00:41:15,200 --> 00:41:17,200
He ditched twice while in combat.

514
00:41:18,200 --> 00:41:22,200
If there was anybody on Flight 19 who understood what it was like to land in the ocean,

515
00:41:22,200 --> 00:41:26,200
deploy the rafts and survive, it seems to have been Charles Taylor.

516
00:41:28,200 --> 00:41:31,200
So he was nowhere near in over his head.

517
00:41:32,200 --> 00:41:36,200
There must have been something that really threw him off that day.

518
00:41:37,200 --> 00:41:42,200
Could Flight 19 have run into something in the Bermuda Triangle that surprised them?

519
00:41:43,200 --> 00:41:47,200
In aviation, when we look at accidents, we look at reports,

520
00:41:47,200 --> 00:41:51,200
we look at things as a compound series of events.

521
00:41:51,200 --> 00:41:54,200
An accident doesn't just happen with one thing.

522
00:41:55,200 --> 00:41:59,200
Wayne and David have come to the Florida Aviation Academy.

523
00:41:59,200 --> 00:42:03,200
They're meeting U.S. Air Force pilot and accident investigator,

524
00:42:03,200 --> 00:42:06,200
Lieutenant Colonel Jason Harris.

525
00:42:06,200 --> 00:42:10,200
We need to be able to gain experience from somebody who's been in the cockpit,

526
00:42:10,200 --> 00:42:13,200
somebody who's been in situations like this before.

527
00:42:13,200 --> 00:42:17,200
Jason has a way to give David a pilot's eye view of Flight 19.

528
00:42:18,200 --> 00:42:21,200
Whoa, Dave, jeez, I didn't realize you weighed that much.

529
00:42:22,200 --> 00:42:27,200
They're lifting off in a flight simulator, programmed for December 5th, 1945.

530
00:42:28,200 --> 00:42:30,200
Are you ready? Let's go.

531
00:42:34,200 --> 00:42:36,200
So we're going to start climbing on them.

532
00:42:36,200 --> 00:42:37,200
Perfect.

533
00:42:38,200 --> 00:42:44,200
We know that the weather report here in Fort Lauderdale on that day was cavoo.

534
00:42:45,200 --> 00:42:48,200
Clear skies, visibility unrestricted.

535
00:42:49,200 --> 00:42:54,200
But the naval report shows that offshore conditions quickly deteriorated.

536
00:42:54,200 --> 00:42:57,200
And that is almost standard in this part of the country,

537
00:42:57,200 --> 00:43:00,200
that there might be clear weather here on the landmass,

538
00:43:00,200 --> 00:43:04,200
but the flight conditions over the entire route of the flight were not.

539
00:43:06,200 --> 00:43:10,200
In a time before GPS and with limited aerial radar,

540
00:43:10,200 --> 00:43:14,200
pilots relied on visual landmarks to correct for course drift.

541
00:43:16,200 --> 00:43:21,200
Flight 19's first landmark was a small island called Chicken Shoals.

542
00:43:22,200 --> 00:43:29,200
With poor visibility, Jason thinks Flight 19 was unable to find Chicken Shoals.

543
00:43:30,200 --> 00:43:35,200
Wow, when it comes in at first, you don't realize how quick you can lose your visibility to reference points.

544
00:43:35,200 --> 00:43:36,200
Absolutely.

545
00:43:37,200 --> 00:43:43,200
Unable to find the small island, Taylor would have turned to his compasses to stay on course.

546
00:43:44,200 --> 00:43:46,200
The Avenger had two.

547
00:43:47,200 --> 00:43:51,200
But turbulence and poor weather could lead both to read incorrectly.

548
00:43:52,200 --> 00:43:57,200
Even in a simulator, the feeling of being lost leads to a pilot's worst enemy, Pennin.

549
00:43:58,200 --> 00:44:00,200
This is it, this is serious, we're lost.

550
00:44:00,200 --> 00:44:05,200
And we have no idea where Chicken Shoals is, where our intended target is.

551
00:44:05,200 --> 00:44:06,200
This is not a good feeling.

552
00:44:06,200 --> 00:44:07,200
It's not.

553
00:44:12,200 --> 00:44:14,200
When you look at the transfer of the pilot,

554
00:44:14,200 --> 00:44:17,200
you can see that the pilot is in a very good position.

555
00:44:18,200 --> 00:44:21,200
When you look at the transcripts on Flight 19,

556
00:44:21,200 --> 00:44:29,200
you begin to realize that Taylor, the flight instructor, was clearly panicked because he was lost.

557
00:44:29,200 --> 00:44:31,200
You're running out of fuel.

558
00:44:31,200 --> 00:44:32,200
It's in the middle of the night.

559
00:44:32,200 --> 00:44:34,200
You've got rain potentially.

560
00:44:34,200 --> 00:44:37,200
You've got cloud cover, you've got turbulence, you've got winds,

561
00:44:37,200 --> 00:44:40,200
you've got instruments that you no longer can trust.

562
00:44:41,200 --> 00:44:42,200
I'd be panicked.

563
00:44:42,200 --> 00:44:45,200
I don't care how much experience I have as a professional pilot.

564
00:44:45,200 --> 00:44:48,200
Those are a recipe for disaster.

565
00:44:49,200 --> 00:44:53,200
From the simulator, Jason reconstructs one possible scenario.

566
00:44:56,200 --> 00:44:59,200
Unforecasted bad weather closes in,

567
00:44:59,200 --> 00:45:03,200
reducing visibility and causing Flight 19 to drift from their planned route.

568
00:45:05,200 --> 00:45:10,200
As panic sets in, Charles Taylor distrusts his compasses.

569
00:45:10,200 --> 00:45:15,200
And leads the squadron further out to sea towards certain doom.

570
00:45:17,200 --> 00:45:21,200
So there's the possibility that there was a lot of weather that day.

571
00:45:21,200 --> 00:45:22,200
There was a lot of stress.

572
00:45:22,200 --> 00:45:25,200
What I think happened is that these guys got lost.

573
00:45:26,200 --> 00:45:32,200
If Jason's right, that means Flight 19 is most likely deep out to sea.

574
00:45:34,200 --> 00:45:39,200
But now, on land, Wayne and David are on the same plane.

575
00:45:40,200 --> 00:45:44,200
They have uncovered a clue that could flip the whole case on its head.

576
00:45:44,200 --> 00:45:46,200
You have been misinformed about me.

577
00:45:46,200 --> 00:45:49,200
I'm very much alive, Georgie.

578
00:45:50,200 --> 00:45:54,200
Was there a survivor from Flight 19?

579
00:45:56,200 --> 00:45:58,200
Flight 19.

580
00:45:58,200 --> 00:46:02,200
It's the most legendary Bermuda Triangle disappearance on record.

581
00:46:04,200 --> 00:46:09,200
David O'Keefe and Wayne Abbott are part of a team trying to finally solve this mystery.

582
00:46:10,200 --> 00:46:15,200
They're now hunting for clues in the stories of the men who disappeared that night.

583
00:46:16,200 --> 00:46:20,200
This is about 14 men that took off that day and never came home.

584
00:46:20,200 --> 00:46:23,200
14 families that had to deal with that.

585
00:46:23,200 --> 00:46:27,200
Not to mention the other 13 men lost on the Martin Mariner that went out to rescue them.

586
00:46:27,200 --> 00:46:31,200
27 men died in one night.

587
00:46:31,200 --> 00:46:33,200
That's the real story.

588
00:46:34,200 --> 00:46:37,200
The trails led them to the suburbs of New York City.

589
00:46:37,200 --> 00:46:41,200
For years, I've been hoping that we could speak to somebody from the Panessa family.

590
00:46:41,200 --> 00:46:45,200
Yeah, they've got that one piece of cryptic evidence we have to take a look at.

591
00:46:47,200 --> 00:46:50,200
Wayne and David are meeting Bill Panessa.

592
00:46:50,200 --> 00:46:51,200
Hi, how are you?

593
00:46:51,200 --> 00:46:52,200
Good.

594
00:46:52,200 --> 00:46:53,200
Dave O'Keefe.

595
00:46:53,200 --> 00:46:54,200
Bill Panessa.

596
00:46:54,200 --> 00:46:55,200
Hey, Bill, Wayne Abbott.

597
00:46:55,200 --> 00:46:58,200
Bill's uncle was Flight 19 radio man George Panessa.

598
00:46:58,200 --> 00:47:01,200
I've got something to show you that's going to be peaking your interest.

599
00:47:02,200 --> 00:47:05,200
Today, Bill is the keeper of a family secret.

600
00:47:05,200 --> 00:47:07,200
Is this all related to George?

601
00:47:07,200 --> 00:47:14,200
All related to George, that my aunt Lou, who's the matriarch, took very good care of in communication.

602
00:47:14,200 --> 00:47:20,200
I also have some of his effects from Florida where he disappeared and also from the Pacific.

603
00:47:20,200 --> 00:47:23,200
Even the stencil from his locker.

604
00:47:23,200 --> 00:47:24,200
No way.

605
00:47:26,200 --> 00:47:30,200
George was my dad's brother and George was the youngest of the brothers.

606
00:47:30,200 --> 00:47:36,200
My dad was in the Army. George was Marines, flight aviator, gunner, and bombardier.

607
00:47:38,200 --> 00:47:43,200
The disappearance and the Bermuda Triangle always hung over the family.

608
00:47:43,200 --> 00:47:48,200
And something we have always wanted an answer.

609
00:47:50,200 --> 00:47:53,200
And his flight book, this was from the Pacific.

610
00:47:54,200 --> 00:47:55,200
He was on patrols.

611
00:47:55,200 --> 00:47:57,200
He was on convoy duty, dive bombing.

612
00:47:57,200 --> 00:48:01,200
They were attacking Japanese hilled islands, strafing.

613
00:48:01,200 --> 00:48:03,200
I mean, he saw some heavy combat.

614
00:48:03,200 --> 00:48:08,200
What is the family said about the night of December 5th with you?

615
00:48:08,200 --> 00:48:11,200
Well, they really thought there was a miscommunication.

616
00:48:11,200 --> 00:48:17,200
How could men who were experienced, seasoned pilots, get lost?

617
00:48:19,200 --> 00:48:22,200
Whatever happened, they wanted an explanation.

618
00:48:22,200 --> 00:48:30,200
Ironclad that tells them why this happened to a group of servicemen that went through the Pacific theater and came back to die in the Atlantic Ocean.

619
00:48:32,200 --> 00:48:42,200
In December 1945, as families around America prepared for their first Christmas together again after years of war, the Poneces received a series of telegrams.

620
00:48:44,200 --> 00:48:46,200
Your son is missing.

621
00:48:47,200 --> 00:48:49,200
The search has been discontinued.

622
00:48:50,200 --> 00:48:52,200
Your son was killed.

623
00:48:54,200 --> 00:49:02,200
And then, the day after Christmas, they received a telegram that appeared to be from George.

624
00:49:04,200 --> 00:49:13,200
One telegram that threw everybody for a loop was on December 26th, my uncle Joe received this telegram.

625
00:49:14,200 --> 00:49:16,200
So this is a bit strange.

626
00:49:17,200 --> 00:49:22,200
You have been misinformed about me. I'm very much alive, Georgie.

627
00:49:22,200 --> 00:49:27,200
And he spelled the G-E-O-R-G-I-E. That was his signature.

628
00:49:31,200 --> 00:49:38,200
The telegram was allegedly sent by my uncle and he signed it G-E-O-R-G-I-E.

629
00:49:38,200 --> 00:49:41,200
He was the only person that signed his name like that.

630
00:49:41,200 --> 00:49:51,200
So it was like, wait a minute, we got a letter from the government saying he's lost at sea, presumed dead, and we've given up on the search because it's been over 10 days.

631
00:49:52,200 --> 00:49:59,200
And yet we get a telegram from Georgie alleged that he's fine. Which one do you want to believe?

632
00:50:01,200 --> 00:50:10,200
This mystery telegram leads to so many questions with the strangest question being, did George survive?

633
00:50:12,200 --> 00:50:18,200
George Pinesa was Captain Ed Powers' radio man.

634
00:50:20,200 --> 00:50:32,200
Some speculate Powers realized Flight Instructor Charles Taylor was heading the wrong way and turned west toward land, ultimately crashing somewhere over Florida.

635
00:50:33,200 --> 00:50:36,200
If so, could Pinesa have survived?

636
00:50:37,200 --> 00:50:43,200
Was there discussion in the family like who would have done this as a hoax?

637
00:50:43,200 --> 00:50:50,200
No, no, no, no. This came from Florida. It came from the Western Union in Florida near the base.

638
00:50:50,200 --> 00:50:59,200
So this all had credence of its original, its authentic. It might not have been sent by Georgie, but it was sent by somebody.

639
00:50:59,200 --> 00:51:03,200
Any frustration or hurt or anger even over this?

640
00:51:03,200 --> 00:51:08,200
I think hurt from the standpoint of there wasn't any satisfactory answer that it seemed to be a cover-up.

641
00:51:09,200 --> 00:51:12,200
In the end, nobody had an answer.

642
00:51:12,200 --> 00:51:20,200
So you know what we're trying to do here is try to get down to the truth, the truth of what happened. And if we do succeed, what would the truth mean to you in this?

643
00:51:21,200 --> 00:51:29,200
Well, finalize everything for a family, for myself, but I think I already know the outcome, but it would be nice to, you know, to find the planes.

644
00:51:34,200 --> 00:51:42,200
I really feel for the Pinesa family because we don't really know what the situation was, whether that was a hoax. It kind of goes down as a hoax.

645
00:51:42,200 --> 00:51:49,200
But why would anybody do that? You know, why? I mean, I kind of lean on believing it.

646
00:51:49,200 --> 00:51:56,200
In other words, that, you know, maybe he deserted, maybe he had enough, maybe he wanted to get out.

647
00:51:56,200 --> 00:52:01,200
Maybe our search in land will discover something that ties that together.

648
00:52:04,200 --> 00:52:12,200
The Pinesa telegram could add more weight to the theory that one or more of the planes somehow made it back to land.

649
00:52:15,200 --> 00:52:21,200
Could this clue connect to the plane Graham Steichleather's father allegedly found in 1962?

650
00:52:23,200 --> 00:52:28,200
While Wayne and David may be on the verge of a major breakthrough.

651
00:52:29,200 --> 00:52:36,200
Back on RV Petro, frustration is mounting among the deep sea team members.

652
00:52:39,200 --> 00:52:47,200
That was a f***ing bad idea. That was a terrible idea.

653
00:52:47,200 --> 00:52:50,200
It's now mid-March, 2020.

654
00:52:50,200 --> 00:52:52,200
Hi, Eric, where are we?

655
00:52:52,200 --> 00:53:00,200
Rob Kraft and the crew have been scouring the Bermuda Triangle for weeks, looking for any sign of the Avengers.

656
00:53:01,200 --> 00:53:05,200
Nothing. Nothing but a barren wasteland.

657
00:53:07,200 --> 00:53:08,200
Here you go, Dine.

658
00:53:08,200 --> 00:53:11,200
Kraft knew this search would be a slow grind.

659
00:53:11,200 --> 00:53:13,200
Wait, something on the bellicle, buddy.

660
00:53:13,200 --> 00:53:15,200
But there is some good news at last.

661
00:53:17,200 --> 00:53:20,200
They have detected a promising new target.

662
00:53:21,200 --> 00:53:26,200
It's around a thousand meters or so, so it's not going to take long to get the ROV down there.

663
00:53:26,200 --> 00:53:31,200
We should be able to get a good look at this and decide whether it's one of our planes or not.

664
00:53:31,200 --> 00:53:32,200
Over there.

665
00:53:32,200 --> 00:53:33,200
Yeah.

666
00:53:37,200 --> 00:53:39,200
We'll start pushing towards the target, Rob, yeah?

667
00:53:39,200 --> 00:53:40,200
Yeah.

668
00:53:42,200 --> 00:53:44,200
Dead ahead. What is that, Rudy?

669
00:53:45,200 --> 00:53:46,200
There's something.

670
00:53:50,200 --> 00:53:55,200
As the target comes into view, it's clear it's definitely man-made.

671
00:53:56,200 --> 00:54:00,200
And it's clear it's definitely not a plane.

672
00:54:01,200 --> 00:54:05,200
Most likely it's a fridge thrown overboard as trash.

673
00:54:07,200 --> 00:54:09,200
Well, it's an adventure.

674
00:54:10,200 --> 00:54:11,200
You know what an adventure is?

675
00:54:11,200 --> 00:54:12,200
What?

676
00:54:12,200 --> 00:54:14,200
It's a poorly planned vacation.

677
00:54:15,200 --> 00:54:17,200
The team can still joke.

678
00:54:17,200 --> 00:54:21,200
They've proven they can detect even the smallest objects.

679
00:54:22,200 --> 00:54:27,200
And Rob Kraft is convinced that all they need to do is finish mapping their prime target area.

680
00:54:29,200 --> 00:54:33,200
To date, we've covered about 210, 220 square nautical miles.

681
00:54:33,200 --> 00:54:37,200
So it's really just the beginning of this search.

682
00:54:39,200 --> 00:54:41,200
It's just going to take a lot of time to cover it all.

683
00:54:42,200 --> 00:54:43,200
Breaking news tonight.

684
00:54:43,200 --> 00:54:47,200
The US and Canada are closing their borders as the coronavirus pandemic deepens.

685
00:54:47,200 --> 00:54:48,200
New shelter in place.

686
00:54:48,200 --> 00:54:51,200
What time is something Rob Kraft has just run out of?

687
00:54:51,200 --> 00:54:55,200
World Health Organization has officially named it COVID-19.

688
00:54:55,200 --> 00:54:58,200
Two waves of states are issuing stay-at-home orders tonight,

689
00:54:58,200 --> 00:55:01,200
recognizing the measures needed to control the virus.

690
00:55:01,200 --> 00:55:04,200
So we've had to cut the mission short.

691
00:55:04,200 --> 00:55:07,200
And there's a bit of craziness going on with this coronavirus.

692
00:55:07,200 --> 00:55:11,200
So we're going to shut it down right now and get everybody a chance to get home

693
00:55:11,200 --> 00:55:14,200
so they can get rested up and we can get back out here.

694
00:55:14,200 --> 00:55:19,200
Petrel is driven to port by the pandemic and lockdown.

695
00:55:19,200 --> 00:55:25,200
But with the discovery of a provocative new target, the search is just heating up.

696
00:55:28,200 --> 00:55:34,200
A team of investigators are on the hunt for the Bermuda Triangle's most famous disappearance.

697
00:55:35,200 --> 00:55:37,200
Flight 19.

698
00:55:39,200 --> 00:55:44,200
The COVID pandemic has thrown a wrench into the offshore search.

699
00:55:44,200 --> 00:55:51,200
But on land, David O'Keefe and Wayne Abbott are now following up on a tantalizing clue.

700
00:55:51,200 --> 00:55:56,200
A 50-caliber machine gun that could be from Flight 19.

701
00:55:57,200 --> 00:56:02,200
You've attempted to cross-reference the serial number with the reports written at the time.

702
00:56:02,200 --> 00:56:06,200
That's what I was planning to do. The problem is trying to find the reports.

703
00:56:08,200 --> 00:56:13,200
The gun was allegedly recovered by a Florida judge in the 1960s.

704
00:56:14,200 --> 00:56:20,200
Naval officials initially told the judge that the plane was part of Flight 19.

705
00:56:21,200 --> 00:56:26,200
But the Navy later denied any knowledge of the incident.

706
00:56:27,200 --> 00:56:31,200
The gun is the only evidence of the crash.

707
00:56:33,200 --> 00:56:40,200
But after an exhaustive search, David has failed to uncover any record of this serial number.

708
00:56:41,200 --> 00:56:50,200
I'm not going to call it a cover-up or anything, but the judge tried to get information out of the Navy once they cleared the rack, and he came up empty.

709
00:56:50,200 --> 00:56:55,200
Yeah, I can understand the 1960s. It was still kind of fresh. It was new. There were security classifications.

710
00:56:55,200 --> 00:57:03,200
But 75 years later? I mean, it should be relatively easy to get our hands on this information if it still exists.

711
00:57:04,200 --> 00:57:10,200
Typically, 50-caliber machine guns were carefully tracked, so the missing serial number raises eyebrows.

712
00:57:12,200 --> 00:57:15,200
Is there something the Navy is hiding?

713
00:57:16,200 --> 00:57:22,200
Or is there a less conspiratorial explanation for why David has been unable to locate the records?

714
00:57:22,200 --> 00:57:27,200
This is December 1945. There's a big giant war machine that is starting to gear down.

715
00:57:27,200 --> 00:57:32,200
And who knows? You know, who knows whether the people on the base took their eye off the ball a little bit.

716
00:57:32,200 --> 00:57:35,200
You're no longer at war. All you want to do is get home.

717
00:57:35,200 --> 00:57:39,200
Maybe your record keeping is not as good as it was.

718
00:57:40,200 --> 00:57:44,200
David still believes the serial number records are buried somewhere.

719
00:57:45,200 --> 00:57:48,200
But a definitive answer won't come anytime soon.

720
00:57:48,200 --> 00:57:52,200
The pandemic has shut down the archives.

721
00:57:56,200 --> 00:58:02,200
We are now locked down. We're shut out. So for the time being, this remains one heck of a mystery.

722
00:58:04,200 --> 00:58:08,200
And the news for Robcraft has gone from bad to worse.

723
00:58:09,200 --> 00:58:14,200
The pandemic has forced RV petrol off the water for seven months and counting.

724
00:58:15,200 --> 00:58:19,200
We had no idea that it was going to have the impact that it did.

725
00:58:19,200 --> 00:58:24,200
The boat went into the dry dock period, and so right now it's unavailable.

726
00:58:26,200 --> 00:58:29,200
Hopes of finding the missing Avengers are dwindling.

727
00:58:29,200 --> 00:58:33,200
But Robcraft has never been one to go down without a fight.

728
00:58:35,200 --> 00:58:44,200
With petrol's high tech tools off the table, he has assembled an ad hoc team to go after a provocative new lead, codenamed Target 77.

729
00:58:45,200 --> 00:58:49,200
This target was discovered by another team.

730
00:58:49,200 --> 00:58:52,200
The target was discovered by another team.

731
00:58:52,200 --> 00:58:56,200
And it was an incidental target. It was not something that they were actually looking for.

732
00:58:57,200 --> 00:59:03,200
While the target is outside Crafts' primary search area, it is well within Flight 19's range.

733
00:59:04,200 --> 00:59:09,200
And the sonar image matches the wingspan of a TBM Avenger.

734
00:59:10,200 --> 00:59:14,200
It's the right signature on sonar. It's the right size.

735
00:59:14,200 --> 00:59:17,200
It is definitely something we need to go look at.

736
00:59:18,200 --> 00:59:25,200
Robcraft and petrol's lead technician, Paul Mayer, are teaming up with Micah Eldred and Dan Taylor on this expedition.

737
00:59:26,200 --> 00:59:28,200
So what do you have on this target?

738
00:59:28,200 --> 00:59:34,200
We found this target doing a big survey out here within AUV, and this is going to be the first time we've got an ROV on it to see what's there.

739
00:59:35,200 --> 00:59:37,200
We found this target on the ground.

740
00:59:37,200 --> 00:59:44,200
We found this target doing a big survey out here within AUV, and this is going to be the first time we've got an ROV on it to see what's there.

741
00:59:45,200 --> 00:59:46,200
Excavate a little bit there.

742
00:59:47,200 --> 00:59:49,200
Dan and Micah are modern-day treasure hunters.

743
00:59:50,200 --> 00:59:51,200
Look at that.

744
00:59:52,200 --> 00:59:57,200
They search for lost ships, some known to have gone down with cargo worth millions of dollars.

745
00:59:58,200 --> 01:00:02,200
There's not a lot of people in the world that do this, particularly in the deep ocean because it's so expensive.

746
01:00:03,200 --> 01:00:10,200
For us, not independently wealthy, we needed to find targets that could potentially find commercial cargo that would be of value.

747
01:00:11,200 --> 01:00:18,200
Micah and Dan were conducting sonar scans in an area known for colonial-era shipwrecks.

748
01:00:19,200 --> 01:00:24,200
When they stumbled across what looked like an airplane, where an airplane should not be.

749
01:00:25,200 --> 01:00:27,200
I was like, hey, what's this airplane doing out here?

750
01:00:28,200 --> 01:00:31,200
It's not on a flight path where you would go with a single-engine aircraft.

751
01:00:32,200 --> 01:00:35,200
We came to the conclusion that this could be one of those adventures.

752
01:00:39,200 --> 01:00:45,200
With Petrol's future uncertain, this could very well be Kraft's best shot to find the lost squadron.

753
01:00:47,200 --> 01:00:53,200
We have to go identify this target, and this is all we can do right now. This is our last chance.

754
01:00:56,200 --> 01:01:00,200
As Kraft and the Go America head toward the mystery wreck in deep water,

755
01:01:03,200 --> 01:01:10,200
back on shore, like Barnett is meeting Wayne Abbott and David O'Keefe, to review a new series of targets.

756
01:01:11,200 --> 01:01:15,200
Well, I think our investigation has run its course, you know, for now.

757
01:01:16,200 --> 01:01:19,200
And I think it's up to you and Kraft to get out there and search that deeper water.

758
01:01:20,200 --> 01:01:26,200
Yeah, I think, you know, Rob has got a very worthwhile target he's going to be looking at, and I have that cluster of aircraft that we're going to check out.

759
01:01:27,200 --> 01:01:30,200
A cluster of plane wrecks, that's what we're looking for.

760
01:01:30,200 --> 01:01:34,200
When this fisherman told me he's got three, four aircraft within about five miles of each other.

761
01:01:35,200 --> 01:01:38,200
No way. It's just a pretty tight cluster when you're talking about 80 miles offshore.

762
01:01:39,200 --> 01:01:41,200
So we've got to focus on that now.

763
01:01:42,200 --> 01:01:48,200
Barnett's intel for this cluster of plane wrecks comes from spear fisherman Jeff Marenko.

764
01:01:49,200 --> 01:01:52,200
Warp speed, there's no secrets in the ocean.

765
01:01:53,200 --> 01:01:59,200
And I feel if it's in traveled water, somebody has a number for a Flight 19 wreck.

766
01:02:00,200 --> 01:02:03,200
It's just a matter of when it lands in the right hands.

767
01:02:09,200 --> 01:02:11,200
The team begins their descent.

768
01:02:15,200 --> 01:02:18,200
This time, they hit Paterton.

769
01:02:19,200 --> 01:02:22,200
The unmistakable outline of an aircraft.

770
01:02:24,200 --> 01:02:26,200
Could this be Flight 19?

771
01:02:30,200 --> 01:02:39,200
Deep in the waters off Florida's coast, Mike Barnett is part of a team of investigators out to solve the Bermuda Triangle's greatest mystery.

772
01:02:40,200 --> 01:02:46,200
Flight 19, a squadron of torpedo bombers that disappeared in 1945.

773
01:02:48,200 --> 01:02:51,200
Going down the water column, we actually had great visibility.

774
01:02:51,200 --> 01:02:56,200
We got down, the marine life came out, looked at us, realized they can't eat us, and they headed back to the wreck.

775
01:02:57,200 --> 01:03:01,200
So we followed them, and that's where we found an aircraft wreck.

776
01:03:05,200 --> 01:03:10,200
Any initial dive that I do on a new wreck site, I want to try to gather as much information as possible.

777
01:03:11,200 --> 01:03:14,200
The prop of an aircraft is three blades versus four blades.

778
01:03:15,200 --> 01:03:17,200
Basic size, how many engines.

779
01:03:17,200 --> 01:03:24,200
But as we look a little bit closer, the site is dominated by a large turbine jet engine.

780
01:03:25,200 --> 01:03:29,200
And so this is not World War II vintage, this is not what we're looking for.

781
01:03:32,200 --> 01:03:34,200
But this aircraft has a story to tell.

782
01:03:36,200 --> 01:03:39,200
Diving on sites like this, you have to keep your emotions in check.

783
01:03:39,200 --> 01:03:43,200
There could be very well a fatality associated with these sites.

784
01:03:44,200 --> 01:03:47,200
It's definitely a jet engine fighter aircraft.

785
01:03:48,200 --> 01:03:51,200
Most likely from the 1960s or 70s, or maybe even more recent.

786
01:03:52,200 --> 01:03:57,200
odds are US Navy probably has a report of this crash site right here, or at least an event in near vicinity.

787
01:04:00,200 --> 01:04:07,200
Barnett identifies the wreck as an F-8 Crusader, at one time the fastest vehicle in the world.

788
01:04:08,200 --> 01:04:14,200
Naval records reveal a deadly 1966 incident that's likely tied to this wreck.

789
01:04:15,200 --> 01:04:19,200
The Navy lost contact with a Crusader on patrol in this area.

790
01:04:21,200 --> 01:04:24,200
Later finding only an oil slick and some floating debris.

791
01:04:26,200 --> 01:04:29,200
The cause of the crash remains unknown.

792
01:04:32,200 --> 01:04:36,200
Barnett will report here that the wreck site is a wreck site.

793
01:04:37,200 --> 01:04:42,200
He will report his discovery to the Navy who can more fully investigate and inform the family.

794
01:04:45,200 --> 01:04:52,200
While this wreck is not from Flight 19, it's proof that Mike's intel is good and his approach is working.

795
01:04:53,200 --> 01:04:56,200
Just going out blindly and diving in the water is not very productive.

796
01:04:57,200 --> 01:05:00,200
Every hour you can spend in the library, in the archives, speaking to commercial fishermen.

797
01:05:01,200 --> 01:05:05,200
Every little piece of that puzzle can come together to solve the mystery.

798
01:05:08,200 --> 01:05:16,200
Back aboard Go America, shipwreck investigator Dan Taylor believes the key to the triangle mystery is a bizarre subsea anomaly.

799
01:05:19,200 --> 01:05:20,200
Methane bubbles.

800
01:05:22,200 --> 01:05:31,200
Naturally occurring gas seeps are not uncommon, but Dan seen evidence that in the Bermuda Triangle they can be lethal.

801
01:05:32,200 --> 01:05:37,200
On one of our surveys, we discovered huge crater-like formations.

802
01:05:39,200 --> 01:05:43,200
We had no idea what these things were. The largest one was 600 meters across.

803
01:05:45,200 --> 01:05:56,200
There is growing scientific consensus that when subsea methane deposits explode, they can create a massive bubble with the potential to displace water and sink ships.

804
01:05:57,200 --> 01:06:05,200
A 600 meter gas hydrate bubble would create a bubble on the surface of the ocean that's miles, miles wide.

805
01:06:06,200 --> 01:06:16,200
If you were a vessel and a bubble burst underneath you, then you would simply fall off the planet into the abyss and the water was swelling.

806
01:06:18,200 --> 01:06:22,200
Some even speculate they can create lethal turbulence and down aircraft.

807
01:06:23,200 --> 01:06:27,200
Could this explain the disappearance of Flight 19?

808
01:06:31,200 --> 01:06:38,200
Or is this another far-fetched explanation for what may have been a tragically simple disaster?

809
01:06:39,200 --> 01:06:45,200
This story took on a life of its own and people were connecting it to aliens and vortexes and, you know, different dimensions.

810
01:06:46,200 --> 01:07:00,200
Paranormal and supernatural explanations have proliferated. They include subsea crystal pyramids, alien abductions, time warps, and vortexes to alternate dimensions.

811
01:07:01,200 --> 01:07:08,200
When Flight 19 disappears out over the Bermuda Triangle, people want some bigger explanation.

812
01:07:08,200 --> 01:07:16,200
They want something better than the crew made of a navigational error because that seems so hard to reconcile.

813
01:07:17,200 --> 01:07:23,200
To lose someone for something so common and banal is just a little bit too painful.

814
01:07:24,200 --> 01:07:28,200
But if you lose them to supernatural forces, suddenly it all makes sense.

815
01:07:30,200 --> 01:07:34,200
Everybody's looking for the one reason why they got lost, the one reason they didn't come home.

816
01:07:34,200 --> 01:07:41,200
But it doesn't work that way. There are plenty of different reasons, all playing off of each other.

817
01:07:42,200 --> 01:07:47,200
And the only way we're really going to solve this is if we find an aircraft.

818
01:07:49,200 --> 01:07:55,200
On board the Go America, that's exactly what underwater explorer Rob Kraft is hoping to do.

819
01:07:56,200 --> 01:08:10,200
He is teamed up with modern-day treasure hunters Micah Eldred and Dan Taylor to investigate target 77, a wreck the size of the Avengers from Flight 19.

820
01:08:11,200 --> 01:08:17,200
It looks really good. It's the same size as an Avenger, so we got a pretty good shot here.

821
01:08:18,200 --> 01:08:28,200
They are 300 miles offshore in the heart of the Bermuda Triangle, on a vessel that has been retrofitted for deep-sea exploration.

822
01:08:29,200 --> 01:08:31,200
Is this digging in quite hard on the front? Gotcha.

823
01:08:32,200 --> 01:08:37,200
Rough conditions make it challenging to launch the remotely operated vehicle, or ROV.

824
01:08:38,200 --> 01:08:45,200
The boat's pitching and rolling quite a bit, so as soon as you pick that heavy vehicle up off the deck, it starts swinging.

825
01:08:46,200 --> 01:08:50,200
And once that happens, you can't really stop it, you've got to set it down and try again.

826
01:08:51,200 --> 01:08:54,200
Alright, great. Let's try the invention. Nice and easy.

827
01:09:03,200 --> 01:09:05,200
She didn't want to go, did she?

828
01:09:08,200 --> 01:09:10,200
Oh, he's at 950.

829
01:09:12,200 --> 01:09:13,200
We're off, Bob.

830
01:09:14,200 --> 01:09:15,200
Eagle has landed.

831
01:09:17,200 --> 01:09:23,200
Ahead, the ROV detects the unmistakable outline of an aircraft.

832
01:09:25,200 --> 01:09:27,200
Wing, wing, nose, tail.

833
01:09:28,200 --> 01:09:31,200
That's an aircraft. No doubt.

834
01:09:32,200 --> 01:09:38,200
Will this aircraft finally unlock the mystery of what happened to Flight 19?

835
01:09:43,200 --> 01:09:51,200
In the heart of the Bermuda Triangle, underwater explorer Rob Kraft watches as a remote vehicle approaches a mysterious plane wreck.

836
01:09:52,200 --> 01:09:59,200
He's searching for the Triangle's most famous victims, five Avenger torpedo bombers that vanished without a trace.

837
01:10:07,200 --> 01:10:09,200
Visibility is really bad.

838
01:10:10,200 --> 01:10:14,200
The current's really strong, trying to push me to port.

839
01:10:17,200 --> 01:10:18,200
You're on it.

840
01:10:21,200 --> 01:10:22,200
There it is.

841
01:10:27,200 --> 01:10:28,200
There's the prop right there.

842
01:10:30,200 --> 01:10:32,200
Is that the cockpit to the left?

843
01:10:34,200 --> 01:10:35,200
There's a windshield there.

844
01:10:37,200 --> 01:10:38,200
Looks like it's white, doesn't it?

845
01:10:40,200 --> 01:10:41,200
Nice. Stripes.

846
01:10:43,200 --> 01:10:44,200
Yeah.

847
01:10:46,200 --> 01:10:47,200
It's not our bird.

848
01:10:52,200 --> 01:10:55,200
Well, we definitely have an airplane boat.

849
01:10:55,200 --> 01:11:01,200
We've got some paint markings on this aircraft that indicate that it's commercial, it's not military.

850
01:11:03,200 --> 01:11:04,200
So it's not an Avenger.

851
01:11:08,200 --> 01:11:13,200
From the yellow and white paint, it's immediately clear that this is not Flight 19.

852
01:11:17,200 --> 01:11:18,200
So what is it?

853
01:11:19,200 --> 01:11:20,200
And how did it end up here?

854
01:11:21,200 --> 01:11:27,200
You can see the shapes and how this lines up with the window, it sets down below here.

855
01:11:27,200 --> 01:11:32,200
This little triangular window here is a really unique feature on this airplane.

856
01:11:35,200 --> 01:11:39,200
The team identify the aircraft as a Cessna Skymaster.

857
01:11:41,200 --> 01:11:45,200
A ditched Cessna can float hundreds of miles before sinking.

858
01:11:46,200 --> 01:11:51,200
This wreck is most likely tied to an accident report from 1982.

859
01:11:51,200 --> 01:11:57,200
The pilot ran out of fuel and ditched overseas before being rescued by the Coast Guard.

860
01:12:00,200 --> 01:12:04,200
We were excited to come out and rule out this target. It needed to be done.

861
01:12:04,200 --> 01:12:14,200
You know, we were always hoping to find an Avenger, but this would lead us to believe or reaffirm our theory that the flight is much further to the west.

862
01:12:16,200 --> 01:12:18,200
So it is kind of a bittersweet ending.

863
01:12:21,200 --> 01:12:25,200
Now, their last chance of finding an Avenger lies with Mike Barnett.

864
01:12:27,200 --> 01:12:31,200
So guys, we have an opportunity for one more dive before the weather really shuts us down for good.

865
01:12:31,200 --> 01:12:36,200
He and his team have been exploring a cluster of plane wrecks off the north Florida coast.

866
01:12:38,200 --> 01:12:43,200
They're racing to hit one last target before weather closes the door for the season.

867
01:12:45,200 --> 01:12:47,200
But it may already be too late.

868
01:12:48,200 --> 01:12:53,200
We have a hurricane to the east of us, we have a hurricane to the west of us, and here we are stuck in the middle.

869
01:12:54,200 --> 01:13:01,200
Being out there in 25 knots, 70 miles offshore, that's what's caused a lot of these shipwrecks out here. We don't want to become one of them.

870
01:13:01,200 --> 01:13:04,200
There's only a short window before dangerous weather moves in.

871
01:13:06,200 --> 01:13:11,200
Barnett's team decides to take advantage of the calm before the storm and go for it.

872
01:13:16,200 --> 01:13:21,200
As the divers descend, Captain Jeff Morinco closely watches the surface.

873
01:13:22,200 --> 01:13:28,200
With typical scuba diving, there's actually bubbles coming up that we would follow.

874
01:13:28,200 --> 01:13:32,200
However, when they're doing closed circuit rebreaters, there's no bubbles to follow.

875
01:13:33,200 --> 01:13:38,200
So basically I just have a timer running, approximate bottom time that they're trying to do.

876
01:13:40,200 --> 01:13:43,200
The team has only about 30 minutes on the sea floor.

877
01:13:46,200 --> 01:13:50,200
But to Jeff's surprise, they resurface way too early.

878
01:13:53,200 --> 01:13:55,200
Something has gone wrong.

879
01:13:57,200 --> 01:14:02,200
The tide on the bottom is running really hard. The storm is really stirring things up. It's really green water.

880
01:14:03,200 --> 01:14:06,200
Yeah, so the hook had pulled out, it had no sign of the wreck on the bottom.

881
01:14:06,200 --> 01:14:11,200
So I made a abort the dive and come up and try for another run at it.

882
01:14:12,200 --> 01:14:18,200
A whipping bottom current ripped out the line, securing the boat to the dive target.

883
01:14:18,200 --> 01:14:20,200
And they missed the wreck.

884
01:14:24,200 --> 01:14:29,200
With their weather window closing fast, the team can't afford another miss.

885
01:14:29,200 --> 01:14:34,200
Just makes things a little tougher, but that's been the theme of this, hasn't it?

886
01:14:34,200 --> 01:14:39,200
It's just been one hurdle after another. First COVID, now there's hurricanes.

887
01:14:40,200 --> 01:14:42,200
It just doesn't stop.

888
01:14:43,200 --> 01:14:45,200
Alright, let's try this again.

889
01:14:53,200 --> 01:15:01,200
This time, everywhere Barnett looks, fish, a sure sign he's close.

890
01:15:02,200 --> 01:15:06,200
That's them, they're on it for sure. This is good.

891
01:15:09,200 --> 01:15:13,200
Below, the wreck comes into view.

892
01:15:15,200 --> 01:15:17,200
But what is it from?

893
01:15:18,200 --> 01:15:23,200
One of the first things we see is there's this big chunk of debris metal that could have been from anything.

894
01:15:23,200 --> 01:15:28,200
It could have been garbage, pitched off a ship. It didn't really speak to me of an airplane.

895
01:15:32,200 --> 01:15:37,200
And the next thing we come across is a large section of flat metal with rivets.

896
01:15:39,200 --> 01:15:43,200
Looking through a rustle on the top, I saw what appeared to be black rubber.

897
01:15:43,200 --> 01:15:46,200
I'm saying to myself, maybe this is a tired.

898
01:15:49,200 --> 01:15:55,200
Time is our enemy right now. The clock is ticking. We gotta find something to reveal what we're diving on.

899
01:15:57,200 --> 01:15:59,200
Then boom.

900
01:16:01,200 --> 01:16:04,200
Right there, staring in the face, a large repeller.

901
01:16:09,200 --> 01:16:12,200
And right next to us, the engine.

902
01:16:16,200 --> 01:16:23,200
We are excited, we are stoked. We know we have an aircraft. We have a World War II vintage aircraft.

903
01:16:29,200 --> 01:16:35,200
Now we want to find proof positive of what this aircraft is. We want to find that smoking gun.

904
01:16:36,200 --> 01:16:44,200
And then we move on a little bit farther and we see this round piece of wreckage with, in the middle of it, teeth, like for gears.

905
01:16:45,200 --> 01:16:52,200
I'm thinking to myself, this looks like a turret. Emotions are running off the chart.

906
01:16:58,200 --> 01:17:01,200
Could this be an adventure?

907
01:17:06,200 --> 01:17:08,200
The next day

908
01:17:12,200 --> 01:17:17,200
Barnett meets up with Rob Kraft and Paul Mayer to share the exciting discovery.

909
01:17:17,200 --> 01:17:21,200
We checked out some targets and I can show you some of the footage. We definitely found an aircraft.

910
01:17:21,200 --> 01:17:25,200
It's spread out pretty wide and it's been busted up pretty good.

911
01:17:25,200 --> 01:17:31,200
Obviously this aircraft had a really bad day. I mean, its ending was catastrophic.

912
01:17:32,200 --> 01:17:41,200
To find out what the mystery wreck is, they're joined by Roy Stafford, a former Navy pilot and World War II aircraft expert.

913
01:17:41,200 --> 01:17:47,200
That a three-blade prop and this ball turret, which looks to me like it's definitely a ball turret.

914
01:17:47,200 --> 01:17:50,200
Sounds like you got a lot of convincing clues there.

915
01:17:50,200 --> 01:17:57,200
At first, I wasn't sure, you know, because there's so many World War II aircraft that had three-bladed props.

916
01:17:57,200 --> 01:18:01,200
The wreckage was kind of dispersed.

917
01:18:01,200 --> 01:18:05,200
One by one, Roy identifies each piece.

918
01:18:06,200 --> 01:18:08,200
The wing.

919
01:18:10,200 --> 01:18:13,200
The propeller and double radial engine.

920
01:18:16,200 --> 01:18:20,200
And the gunner's turret with a pane of bulletproof glass.

921
01:18:21,200 --> 01:18:28,200
But it is the first piece of wreckage that reveals what the aircraft is.

922
01:18:31,200 --> 01:18:36,200
This structure, almost overlooked on the dive, is a landing gear.

923
01:18:38,200 --> 01:18:42,200
And the design is unique to the Avenger.

924
01:18:43,200 --> 01:18:50,200
It was a perfect match because the TBM sat real high and had torpedo bay underneath it, just like the other.

925
01:18:50,200 --> 01:18:58,200
You take the landing gear, the bulletproof glass, serrated teeth on the gears of the turret, it's all there.

926
01:18:58,200 --> 01:19:02,200
I'm actually 100% at this point that it's a TBM.

927
01:19:02,200 --> 01:19:05,200
Roy looking at the footage, he's pointing out multiple things.

928
01:19:05,200 --> 01:19:07,200
And he's saying, oh, it's this, this, and this.

929
01:19:07,200 --> 01:19:09,200
And we're like, so it's an Avenger?

930
01:19:09,200 --> 01:19:11,200
He's like, oh yeah, now it's an Avenger.

931
01:19:11,200 --> 01:19:13,200
And that one was just exciting to know.

932
01:19:13,200 --> 01:19:15,200
You've made some amazing discoveries here.

933
01:19:15,200 --> 01:19:17,200
You found an Avenger, you've still got some other targets.

934
01:19:17,200 --> 01:19:20,200
And based on what we know, Flight 19 could be in this area.

935
01:19:20,200 --> 01:19:21,200
This could be one of them.

936
01:19:21,200 --> 01:19:24,200
It's an enticing discovery.

937
01:19:24,200 --> 01:19:33,200
A TBM Avenger torpedo bomber on the edge of the Bermuda Triangle, where all indications are, Flight 19 went missing.

938
01:19:34,200 --> 01:19:45,200
After 75 years, has Mike Barnett finally found the legendary Lost Squadron?

939
01:19:46,200 --> 01:19:50,200
December 5, 1945.

940
01:19:50,200 --> 01:20:05,200
Five TBM Avenger torpedo bombers and a Martin Mariner rescue plane fly into the Bermuda Triangle and disappear.

941
01:20:08,200 --> 01:20:12,200
75 years later, no trace of them has ever been found.

942
01:20:13,200 --> 01:20:16,200
That may be about to change.

943
01:20:18,200 --> 01:20:26,200
Mike Barnett's been invited to the Washington Navy Yard to share a promising discovery with Dr. Robert Nieland.

944
01:20:26,200 --> 01:20:29,200
This first one here obviously is a three-blade propeller.

945
01:20:29,200 --> 01:20:34,200
Nieland heads underwater archaeology in the Navy's history and heritage command.

946
01:20:35,200 --> 01:20:43,200
He and naval underwater archaeology expert Augustin Ortiz review Mike's dive.

947
01:20:43,200 --> 01:20:48,200
So I see here you were counting cylinders. How many were you able to count there?

948
01:20:48,200 --> 01:20:50,200
I think I saw seven. It's definitely two rows.

949
01:20:50,200 --> 01:20:56,200
This really looks positive that this could very well be an Avenger, but is it one of the Flight 19 Avengers?

950
01:20:56,200 --> 01:20:59,200
That's the question we need to answer.

951
01:20:59,200 --> 01:21:05,200
To be able to actually identify it to a specific one is really tough because it's broken up.

952
01:21:05,200 --> 01:21:11,200
It's very corroded. So you're looking for something that will tie it to a specific aircraft.

953
01:21:12,200 --> 01:21:15,200
The one thing they know for sure is where it was found.

954
01:21:17,200 --> 01:21:20,200
Could the Rex location match any known crashes?

955
01:21:20,200 --> 01:21:31,200
We found the record of TBM aircraft 73379 that crashed within the crash zone of this wreck site.

956
01:21:35,200 --> 01:21:45,200
The Navy's records now declassified reveal a botched carrier landing in February 1945, just three miles from Barnett's discovery.

957
01:21:46,200 --> 01:21:49,200
Luckily, the pilot was able to escape.

958
01:21:49,200 --> 01:21:58,200
We can't say for 100% that this is that aircraft without doing more exploration to see if there's some sort of marking that identifies it.

959
01:21:58,200 --> 01:22:05,200
Without identifiable markings, there's no way to be certain this plane is tied to the carrier crash.

960
01:22:06,200 --> 01:22:09,200
And key questions remain unanswered.

961
01:22:10,200 --> 01:22:17,200
Why is an aircraft that ditched while trying to land broken into scattered pieces like this?

962
01:22:19,200 --> 01:22:22,200
And what are the other nearby plane wrecks?

963
01:22:22,200 --> 01:22:26,200
There are other wrecks in this general area and we don't know what those wrecks are.

964
01:22:26,200 --> 01:22:33,200
That's really exciting and we look forward to continuing to work with you and we'd be very interested to see what you find next.

965
01:22:34,200 --> 01:22:42,200
If the nearby wrecks are also Avengers, that would strengthen the case that Barnett has indeed discovered Flight 19.

966
01:22:42,200 --> 01:22:52,200
This story with Flight 19 is important for the Navy to see resolve because it highlights the sacrifice and the service that military personnel have done.

967
01:22:52,200 --> 01:22:57,200
If it's other Navy aircraft out there, we need to know where these are located.

968
01:22:57,200 --> 01:23:03,200
With a dive season closed for the year, Barnett must wait to explore the nearby targets.

969
01:23:05,200 --> 01:23:16,200
For the moment, the Bermuda Triangle still holds its grip on this mystery, but the team is more determined than ever to find the planes.

970
01:23:17,200 --> 01:23:23,200
This is going to be a lifelong pursuit. We're not going to stop until we find the Martin Mariner and hopefully Flight 19.

971
01:23:23,200 --> 01:23:29,200
If the Avengers crashed in shallow water, Mike Barnett is convinced he can find them all.

972
01:23:30,200 --> 01:23:36,200
And the investigation still cannot rule out. The possibilities some of them made it back to land.

973
01:23:36,200 --> 01:23:43,200
We've been able to check off some of the boxes. There's a lot of them here and there's still more to check, but we've been able to get rid of some of them.

974
01:23:43,200 --> 01:23:48,200
Wayne Abbott and David O'Keefe believe the archives still hold secrets.

975
01:23:49,200 --> 01:23:56,200
Just when we think we're answering one question, a whole bunch of others pop up. But that's the mystery of Flight 19.

976
01:23:56,200 --> 01:24:02,200
And Rob Kraft was only able to map out a fraction of his primary search area.

977
01:24:02,200 --> 01:24:07,200
We spent a lot of time and effort to make sure that we were doing the right thing, and I think we were.

978
01:24:07,200 --> 01:24:12,200
If the planes are in deep water, Kraft is sure he can find them.

979
01:24:12,200 --> 01:24:15,200
We need to go back and resume the search where we were before.

980
01:24:15,200 --> 01:24:23,200
Despite the challenges, the team believes they've come closer to finding Flight 19 than anyone else.

981
01:24:23,200 --> 01:24:27,200
And it's just a matter of time before the mystery is solved.

982
01:24:28,200 --> 01:24:34,200
Officially, Flight 19 is still out there. But the net could be closing fast.

983
01:24:35,200 --> 01:24:41,200
I'm Lawrence Fishburne. Thank you for watching History's Greatest Mysteries.