The classic borders of the Bermuda Triangle are from Bermuda to Miami, Florida to San Juan, Puerto Rico. Most of the mysterious disasters have occurred in its southern region from the Florida straits into the Bahamas. Well over a hundred sea and aircraft have vanished or been destroyed in the area, taking with them over a thousand men, women, and children, and no one yet knows why.
Because it isn’t exactly a dramatic revelation, human error makes only 10th place (they get more interesting). In terms of probability, those who have no interest in the supernatural — or as yet misunderstood science — will usually stop with all the ships and planes wrecking in the Triangle as a result solely of human error.
Humans make a lot of them. Even the most well trained, seasoned pilot’s concentration can momentarily lapse, and that is sometimes all it takes for disaster. The most famous plane wreck of the Triangle’s storied history is that of Flight 19, on 5 December 1945. The flight leader was Lieutenant Charles Taylor, a Naval Air Corps flight instructor. This story in particular will never let the Triangle’s mystique die, because Taylor was no rookie at the controls. They were supposed to practice dry bombing runs over the Florida keys, south of Florida, but somehow became so disoriented on the way home that they flew out over the Bahamas. Then all 14 airmen crashed into the open sea well northeast of Florida and were never heard from again.
A rescue party of 13 in a PBM Mariner was dispatched to search, but this plane is thought to have blown up in mid-air from an unknown cause. Extremely strange occurrences for professional military airmen, but it can always happen. Taylor’s radio transmissions have been preserved and indicate that his compass malfunctioned (see #5). Because he could no longer find magnetic North, he and his crew attempted to return West to the Florida coast by keeping the afternoon sun in front of them. This still did not succeed and the military’s explanation for the flight bewilderment is that Taylor mistook outline of the Bahama islands for the coastline of Florida.
