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FILE: FLT-19.TXT
AUTHOR: Associated Press
DATE: 1990?
SUBJECT: Theory on the Fate of Missing Flight 19
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THEORY SURFACES ON FINAL FATE OF FLIGHT 19
MIAMI (AP)--A former air traffic controller is positive he has
unraveled the secret of Flight 19, five navy torpedo bombers that
vanished in 1945 and fed the Bermuda Triangle legend, but getting
proof is going to be expensive.
Jon Myhre's solution was videotaped for a segment on NBC TV's
"unsolved Mysteries" last week.
But doubters include the Navy, Smithsonian Institution, six
publishers who rejected his book manuscript and People magazine,
which held Myhre's story after buying exclusive rights to his account.
"I've given it my best shot. I've done everything i can do," said
Myhre, of Lantana, who has spent his life savings of more than
$100,000 to plot and pursue Flight 19's five Grumman TBM Avenger
torpedo bombers. "I know I'm right. I'm just not in a position to
prove it."
Myhre has videotape, shot from a mini-submarine in July, of an
upside-down Avenger sitting in 390 feet of water about 35 miles off
Cape Canaveral, but he doesn't have its serial number.
The plane, just 2.5 miles from where Myhre predicted Flight 19
went down, was originally spotted during the search for debris
from the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, but it was
ignored then.
Flight 19's disappearance became part of the legend of the
Bermuda Triangle, an area where ships and planes supposedly
disappear under mysterious circumstances involving UFOs,
magnetic fields and other such phenomena. Flight 19 even figured
in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," in which first the planes
and then the men were returned by aliens.
Myhre's answer to the puzzle came with a flash eight years ago
when he read the final radio transmissions form the warplanes,
which tool off from Fort Lauderdale for a training flight over parts
of the Bahamas on Dec. 5, 1945.
The squadron leader's reported that both of his compasses were
out of order.
At one point, the squadron leader plotted a northeasterly course
based on the assumption he has somehow reached the Florida
Keys, on the opposite side of Florida. Myhre thinks that was part of
the Bahamas' Abacos chain.
At another point he reported he was over an island an no other
land was visible.
Myhre, who has flown the region for years, believes that was
isolated Walker's Cay.
By re-plotting the flight form Walker's Cay, using the Navy
transcriptions of the flight's radio reports, Myhre came up with a
location where he thought Flight 19, its planes out of fuel, may have
ended.
The spot was east of Cape Canaveral. The Avenger he filmed was
found 2.5 miles away.
Mayhre learned of the plane spotted during the Challenger
search from news reports. This summer, with $25,000 raised by
two partners, he hired a small research submarine and located the
wreckage.
He was unable to locate a complete aircraft serial number on the
upside down wreck.
Footage of the Avenger shows the last three digits--209-- of a
five digit Navy service number on the left wingtip. Flight 19's lead
airplane number was 73209, and Navy records show only two other
Grumman TBM Avengers with a service number ending in 209, and
neither was lost at sea.
"The only thing we didn't get was a positive ID on the plane's
serial number," Myhre said, but raising the Avenger could cost
$250,000.
The plane's landing gear is extended, leading some to suggest
that plane was lost while trying to land on an aircraft carrier
instead of the squadron's suspected ditch.
But Myhre insists he has the right plane and knows where the
others are.
"The other planes are further north in much deeper water, I'm
certain," he said. "This was just the first to ditch. And the tragic
thing about it is he was only about seven minutes from land. If
they'd just kept going west..."