Bermuda Triangle Mystery Solved
Atlantic Ocean Disappearances Have Logical Explanations
Sep 14, 2009
In the popular imagination, the Bermuda Triangle swallows up ships and planes without a trace. Suggestions for the disappearances range from alien abductions to changes in the laws of physics.
Bermuda Triangle Myth Born
The notion that something strange was going on in the western North Atlantic seems to have started with an article written by an Associated Press reporter named E.V.W. Jones. His story appeared in The Miami Herald and other newspapers on September 17, 1950.
Jones’ piece, entitled “Sea’s Puzzles Still Baffle Men in Pushbutton Age” told about a ship called the Sandra: “It was a 350-foot freighter which sailed with 12 men on board from Miami to Savannah. There 300 tons of insecticide were loaded for Puerto Cabello, Venezuela. The Sandra sailed - and disappeared without a trace.” That happened in June 1950.
British Passenger Plane Vanishes in Bermuda Triangle
Jones also wrote about a British plane, the Star Tiger that, on January 30, 1948,“ approached Bermuda with 29 people on board. The craft radioed its position several times. Then silence enveloped it, and mystery. To this day no trace has been uncovered.”
The official inquiry into the Star Tiger affair helped feed the imaginations of many when it said: “What happened in this case will never be known and the fate of Star Tiger must remain an unsolved mystery.”
Star Tiger Flight Mystery Solved
Now, journalist Tom Mangold thinks he has solved the puzzle of what happened to the Star Tiger. In a 10-part series produced for BBC Radio 4, and broadcast in September 2009, Mangold provided an explanation on what probably happened to that flight 60 years ago.
According to Mangold, the plane was an Avro Tudor IV, a model with a very poor safety record. It was operated by British South American Airways (BSAA), a company with an equally poor safety record. Mangold points out that in three years BSAA “had had 11 serious accidents and lost five planes with 73 passengers and 22 crew members killed.”
Mechanical Problems Noted before Disappearance
The Avro Tudor IV was on a flight from London to Bermuda. There was a refueling stop in the Azores, followed by a 2,000 mile flight across the Atlantic; the longest passenger non-stop flight in the world at the time.
Tom Mangold’s investigation found the plane’s “heater was notoriously unreliable and had failed en route.” To keep the plane and passengers warm, the pilot had descended to an altitude of 2,000 feet for the entire transatlantic flight. At such a low height the plane would have been using fuel at a faster rate than at the planned altitude. In addition, that long flight from the Azores to Bermuda put the aircraft at the limit of its fuel range.
Mangold’s explanation is that the plane simply ran out of fuel and plunged into the ocean.
All Bermuda Triangle Mysteries have Plausible Explanations
Since E.V.W. Jones’s article appeared, plenty of writers have made money peddling half-truths and inventions about missing ships and planes while trying to keep the Bermuda Triangle myth alive.
One of the most successful is Charles Berlitz, whose 1974 book The Bermuda Triangle was a bestseller. But research librarian Larry Kusche delved into Berlitz’s claims and found them all to be misrepresentations of the truth or outright fabrications. He wrote that “If Berlitz were to report that a boat were red, the chance of it being some other colour is almost a certainty.”
The Skeptics Dictionary puts all the weird stories to rest by noting, “The number of wrecks in this area is not extraordinary, given its size, location, and the amount of traffic it receives.” Many of the disasters claimed to have occurred in the area did not even happen in the Bermuda Triangle. As the Dictionary points out, “The real mystery is how the Bermuda Triangle became a mystery at all.”
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