PoetryMine Poetry Mine

Not long after the end of WWII, several British pilots, veterans
of the war, gathered together to create a new airline, planning
to provide service between England and South America with
previously untapped passenger and trade routes. The original
name of their transatlantic venture, British Latin American
Airlines, was changed to British South American Airlines,
commonly referred to as BSAA before the first operational
flight left London’s Heathrow Airport in March, 1946.

Primarily operating aircraft manufactured by Avro, the BSAA
offered flights to Bermuda, the West Indies, and the western
coast of South America. A bit short of two years after
the BSAA first took to the air, an Avro Tudor IV they had
named “Star Tiger”, departed London on January 30, 1948,
en route to Bermuda.

Star Tiger, a relatively new aircraft by airline standards,
having logged slightly more than 500 hours, was flown and
commanded on that fateful day by a well experienced pilot,
Capt. B.W. McMillan, and double co-piloted by just as
experienced Capt. David Colby and C. Ellison. Following a
brief fuel layover in the Azores, and back in the air at 3:15 A.M.,
Capt. McMillan radioed requesting a purely routine bearing
on Bermuda, without any reason for panic or cause for alarm.

After receiving his bearings, Capt. McMillan replied with an
estimated arrival time of 5:00 A.M. It was the last contact ever
with Star Tiger, the aircraft, crew and 29 passengers never
to be seen or heard from again. After 5:00 A.M., Bermuda went
on the alert, the Civil Air Ministry launching a fruitless search and
full scale investigation which turned up no clues.

The SS Troubadour, a merchant ship, had reported seeing a
low flying aircraft, with blinking lights, approximately halfway
between Bermuda and the entrance way to Delaware Bay.
If it was in fact Star Tiger, the aircraft would have been far
off-course of her proper bearing en route to Bermuda.  
                             
In a radio message before the disappearance, Capt. McMillan
had reported he was flying at an extremely low altitude, only
2,000 feet, ostensibly to avoid or control problems should the
cabin lose pressure, but that would have left him without any
time to send a distress call if forced to ditch in the deep sea
so closely below.

In 1948, without the precise radio navigation aids of today’s
aircraft, and with no visual references, flying in the wee
morning hours before sunrise, Star Tiger’s altitude would
have been determined by less than reliable barometric
altimeter. It’s not out of the question the aircraft was, in the
pitch black darkness, simply flown inadvertently into the sea
not far below. But no one knew then, and no one knows today,
what actually happened to Star Tiger and her most precious
cargo of all, 32 human lives.

Only days short of one year later, on January 17, 1949,
another BSAA Tudor IV aircraft named “Star Ariel”,
departed Bermuda with a destination of Kingston,
Jamaica, carrying a crew of 7 and 13 passengers.
At 8:41 A.M. her pilot, Capt. J. C. McPhee, radioed
an estimated time of arrival in Kingston of 2:10 P.M.,
and indicated he was currently flying at 18,000 feet
with good visibility.

At 9:37 A.M. the Captain radioed the last transmission ever 
to be heard from Star Ariel, “I am changing frequency to MRX”,
after which Star Ariel vanished forever. A search between
100 and 500 miles south of Bermuda was launched, involving
more than 70 aircraft and many ships including the aircraft
carriers USS Kearsage, USS Leyte, and the famous battleship
USS Missouri where, upon her decks, the U.S.-Japan WWII
treaty was signed. Upwards of 13,000 men took part in the
search, but found not a hint of debris, oil slicks, or wreckage.

Star Ariel had simply disappeared, never to be found.
As one might expect, the Star Tiger and Star Ariel incidents
prompted the discontinuation of the Tudor IV aircraft by
British South American Airways, although nothing was
discovered about the Tudor IV design or manufacture that
would help solve the enigma.

Both incidents, together with the unexplained vanishing
of a DC-3 southeast of Miami, Florida on December 27, 1948
as well as the disappearance of Flight 19 off Florida’s eastern
coast on December 5, 1945, gave rise to speculation by
theorists that, putting it as mildly as possible, “something
unusual” was occurring in the waters of the western
Atlantic Ocean.

Flight 19 was to be a routine training exercise for a total crew
of 14 U.S. Navy airmen flying in 5 TBM Avengers, but turned
out anything but routine when the aircraft and every man in
them disappeared from the earth without even a shadow,
“something unusual” indeed.

From these 4 flights, the legend of the “Bermuda Triangle”
was born. There have been several similar incidents since
the 1940’s, including lost ships as well as aircraft, and the 
baffling mystery of the Bermuda Triangle remains unsolved
to this day.