Into Thin Air: Aviation's Greatest Disappearances

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1:04That's a burger, fries, and a drink. They don't call it an extra-value meal for nothing. Get a big Mac meal only at McDonald's. Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing. Welcome to another episode of Friends.

2:25Okay, children. Sorry, Mom. Everyone have another day? Yes. Oh, that wasn't very convincing, would it? No, I have to go on family vacation this week. I know that sounds like a first world problem. It's a first world white person problem for sure. But it's not with my family, it's with my in-laws. I think everyone can come and collaborate with that. I really hope for some day your mother will... 16 days. I really hope some day an in-laws thumbles across this podcast and listens to it. I mean... It's a lot. Are you taking a plane or are you driving? Both.

3:25Taking a plane to Florida, driving around Florida, all over the giant state of Florida. And then planes, cars, and boats because we're doing a cruise too. Wow. If you would have substituted the boats for trains, you could have done the movie. I know. I got excited for a second and then I got on excited. But I got on excited. On planes falls right into tonight's topic. No, no. That's part of the reason why I'm hoping. I'm hoping. I can experience this episode first. I was going to ask you. I was going to ask you what side of the coin did you want that? Did you want to experience it or have them experience it? Oh, I didn't think about that. That's why we're friends. No, I think I want to experience it. I want to know what happens on the other side maybe.

4:26Hopefully it doesn't involve a big splash. If you're going to make a big splash, that's when you should do it. Might as well. So let's jump right into the episode. So are we? Yes, sir. I think it sounds more ordinary than airplane overhead. Most of us barely notice it anymore. A distant rumble above the house. A silver shape passing through the clouds. A blinking light crossing the night sky while the rest of the world sleeps below. We trust that plane is going somewhere. We trust that someone is watching it. We trust that even if something goes wrong, there will be a signal, a radar track, a distrust call, a floating piece of wreckage, a black box, a final answer. In a partridge in a pear tree. But sometimes there is nothing. No explosion seen from the ground. No Mayday. No emergency landing. No debris field waiting to be discovered at sunrise. Just the flight that lifts off.

5:26Climbs into the sky. And somewhere between the departure and destination slips out of the known world. Tonight on French Beyond Limits, we are following the flights that never came home. These are not just stories about aviation disasters. They are stories about absence. About empty runways where families waited. About search crews crossing oceans so vast. They might as well have been searching another planet. About pilots, passengers, military crews, cargo planes, commercial airliners, and legends that remain suspended in history because the final chapter was never found. Some of these aircraft vanished in the early days of flight when navigation was fragile and weather could turn the sky into a trap. Others disappeared in the modern age. When satellites watched the planet, radar scanned the skies. In a massive passenger jet was never supposed to be able to simply disappear. And yet, it happened.

6:26From Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 to Emilia Earhart. From flying Tiger Line Flight 739 to Pan Am Flight 7. From the forgotten giants of aviation history. To the most baffling disappearances still whispered about today. These cases all circle the same unsettling question. How does something as large as loud and is carefully tracked as an aircraft simply vanish? The answer may be hidden beneath miles of ocean. Buried in a wreckage known as ever seen. Or locked forever in the final moments of crews who never got the chance to explain what happened. So tonight we begin where the radar ends. We begin with the missing. We begin with the flights that enter the sky and never returned. So just let you guys know that I have three fears in life that I try to overcome whenever given the chance. One of them driving on roads that are basically cliffs off a mountain.

7:28Driving on bridges where I can't see the end of them. Like I just don't get worried ends because I can't see it. And flying. Those are my three fears that I deal with all the time. I didn't know you had a fear of flying. Yes, I do. So is this episode making your B-hole bugger? No, it isn't because I'm not in an airplane. I'm not basically a Greek story in a sofa tube in the sky flying. But funny, I'll tell a funny little story. So Missy and I went to Vegas. It was either it had even before we were married. And we're on the way back. And behind me, I was just two teenagers. And they're getting on my fucking nerves because they're like, oh, what if the plane drops altitude? And they're coming up with all these scary for me, scary situations. I want to bitch slap these motherfuckers.

8:29They don't shut the fuck up. So we take off for flying. And as we're flying, they're playing cards behind me. I can hear the shuffling and whatever. So you could not have timed this any better. The plane does like one of the little bit like bounces up and down, you know, like one of those bounces. Wait, what? You know how like how like it's flying and all of a sudden like does like one of these? Oh, like the air drops. Like it hits a pocket. Right, right. And at the exact same time, the person shuffled the cards behind me. And it felt like it was in my ear. It was so close. I jumped so fucking high. I see a sit near laughing at it. I want to say what she laughing. Did you squeak? Listen, if you're ever on an airplane and the plane does one of those things and you know, you hear that old that lady, whoo, in the back of the plane. That's me. That's me in the back of the plane making that sound. That's not an old lady.

9:29That's not me. Oh, yeah. Like whoo, you know, so. Yeah, but did you die? Yes, yes, I did. I had a heart. A little on the inside. Yeah. So yeah, but yes, I have a fear of flying. And I flown. I have flown to Italy twice. I flown to London. I flown to Mexico. I flown. I went to Arizona this year. That's true. You know, so like I try to conquer and overcome. It's so fucking hard. So anyway, that's my story. And I'm sticking to it. Nice. So there was time when losing an airplane made sense. In the earliest decades of aviation, pilots flew through storms with little more than a compass, paint for charts and dead reckoning. Fast stretches of ocean remain largely unmonitored, whether forecasting was primitive and redo communication was unreliable.

10:30If an aircraft disappeared in the 1930s or 1940s, investors often had little to work with beyond eyewitness accounts and educated guesses. But that world no longer exists. Modern commercial aviation is frequently described as one of the safest and most technologically advanced transportation systems ever created. Every commercial airliner undergoes rigorous maintenance, flight crews train relentlessly for emergencies, aircraft communicate constantly with air traffic controllers. Primary and secondary radar systems monitor their movements, satellites help crews navigate across oceans, powerful computers record thousands of flight parameters every second. While cockpit, voice recorders preserve the final conversations inside the flight deck. Even when an aircraft is flying over the most remote parts of the world, there are systems designed to ensure that someone, somewhere, knows where it is. Or at least, that's what most of us believe. The truth is more complicated.

11:30Large portion of the world's oceans remain beyond the reach of conventional radar. Aircraft crossing those regions follow carefully planned routes and report their positions at designated intervals. But they are not under continuous radar surveillance. Satellite technology has improved dramatically over the past two decades. Yet in 2014, many aircraft still relied on systems that were never intended to provide real-time tracking. Even in the ages smartphones, GPS, and space-based communications, there were still blind spots stretching across thousands of miles of open water. Few people realized just how vulnerable those gaps were. Then in the early hours of March 8, 2014, a routine overnight flight departed Koala, Lumpur, carrying 239 people from 15 nations. The pastures settled in their seats expecting breakfast and Beijing. Families waited for text messages announcing a safe arrival.

12:31Air traffic control has watched another ordinary flight climbing into the darkness. Nothing about that evening suggested it would become one of the greatest mysteries in aviation history. Within hours, however, however, an aircraft nearly the length of a football field had vanished. Not crashed in front of witnesses, not forced into an emergency landing. Not intercepted in a way that anyone could explain. It simply disappeared. The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 challenged assumptions that millions of people had taken for granted. It exposed weaknesses in global aircraft tracking, launched one of the largest and most expensive search operations in history, and left investigators with a mystery that remains only partially answered more than a decade later. If a moderate Boeing 777 could disappear, what else was possible? To understand why the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 continues to fascinate investigators, pilots, engineers, and the public alike, we have to begin with what should have been one of the most routine flights imaginable.

13:40March 8, 2014 began like countless overnight departures before it. Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, commonly referred to as MH370, was scheduled to operate a regularly scheduled international passenger service from Koala Lumpur, International Airport in Malaysia, to Beijing, Capital International Airport in China. The aircraft assigned to the flight was a Boeing 777-2H6ER, registration 9M-MRO, one of the most reliable long haul airliners ever built. Since entering commercial service in 2002, the aircraft had accumulated more than 53,000 flight hours and completed nearly 7500 flights. It had no history of major mechanical issues that was suggesting impending catastrophe. On board were 227 passengers and 12 crew members for a total of 239 people. They represented 15 different countries and territories, some were returning home after business trips, others were beginning vacations or traveling to visit family.

14:45Among them were students, engineers, artists, tourists, and young children. For every passenger manifest was another story waiting at the arrival gate in Beijing, a spouse, a parent, a child, or a friend expect new reunion only hours away. Commanding the flight was captain Zahir Ahmad Shah, a 53-year-old veteran pilot with more than 18,000 hours of flying experience. Serving beside him was first officer Farik Abdul Hamid, who was completing the final stage of his training on the Boeing 777. Under the captain's supervision, by every outward measure, this was an experienced flight crew operating one of the safest aircraft in commercial aviation. At 12.41 am, local time, MH-370 pushed back from the gate and departed Koala Lumpur on schedule. The client-acruising altitude was uneventful. Weather conditions along the planned route were favorable. There were no reports of severe thunderstorms, significant turbulence, or mechanical abnormalities.

15:47The aircraft level off at approximately 35,000 feet and continued northeast towards the South China Sea. For nearly 40 minutes, everything appeared perfectly normal. The crew communicated routinely with Malaysian air traffic control as the aircraft approached the boundary between Malaysian and Vietnamese controlled airspace. Nothing in a transmission suggested distress, confusion, or urgency. Then, at approximately 119 am, Malaysian controllers instructed the crew to contact Ho Chi Minh area control as they crossed into Vietnamese airspace. Captain Zahir acknowledged the instruction with what would become the most analyzed sentences in aviation history. Good night, Malaysian 370. The transmission sounded calm, professional routine. No hint of fear, no indication that anything was wrong. Those five words we've become the final confirmed radio communication ever received from anyone aboard Flight 370. Less than two minutes later, the aircraft's secondary surveillance radar transponder stopped transmitting.

16:53To aircraft, control MH370 had effectively disappeared. At first, there was little reason for alarm. Transponder failures, while uncommon, can occur for a variety of reasons. The controllers expected the aircraft to check in with Vietnamese air traffic control within moments. It never did. As Vietnamese controllers repeatedly attempted to establish radio contact, silence answered every call. What no one yet realized was that, while MH370 had vanished from civilian radar, it had not vanished entirely. Military radar installations in Malaysia continued tracking and unidentified aircraft making an astonishing maneuver. Instead of continuing north-east toward Beijing, as filed in its flight plan, the aircraft executed a sharp left turn crossback over the Malay Peninsula and headed west toward the strait of Malaka. This was not the route to Beijing. It was a deliberate deviation.

17:53Investigators related determined that the aircraft continued flying for several more hours after that final radio transmission. Although conventional radar, car perished, ended, engineers analyzing communications between the aircraft and then in Mar-Sat-Sat satellite discovered a series of automated electronic handshakes. These satellite pings were not voice communications or position reports. Rather, they were routine signals confirming the aircraft's satellite communication system remained powered and active. Those silent electronic exchanges occurred roughly once every hour. Each one confirmed a chilling fact. MH370 was still flying, hour after hour, long after the world believed it had disappeared. By analyzing the timing and frequency characteristics of those satellite signals, investigators concluded that the aircraft most likely traveled south into the remote reaches of the southern Indian Ocean. One of the most isolated and unforgiving expenses of water on Earth. No distress call was ever transmitted. No emergency locator beacon activated.

19:00No confirmed eyewitness observed the aircraft's final moments. Whatever happened aboard MH370 after the captain's final ords remains unknown. Once authorities realized the aircraft had not simply vanished from radar, but had likely continued flying for hours, the search expanded into an international effort unlike anything aviation had ever seen. Dozens of nations contributed ships, military aircraft, submarines, solar equipment, satellite imagery, and thousands of personnel. Initial searches focused on the South China Sea before military radar data redirected efforts toward the straight of Malaka. When the Inmerseat satellite analysis indicated a southern flight path, the operations shifted again. This time to a vast stretch of the southern Indian Ocean hundreds of miles off the coast of Western Australia. The search area ultimately covered more than 120,000 square kilometers of ocean floor, making it the largest and most expensive search for missing aircraft in history.

20:05Investigators employed side scan sonar, autonomous underwater vehicles, deep sea mapping technology, and specialized vessels capable of operating in some of the harshest conditions on Earth. They searched mountains beneath the sea taller than any peak sunland, deep trenches, volcanic ridges, and endless plains line yearly four miles below the surface. Despite years of searching, the aircraft itself was never found. No cockpit, voice recorder, no flight data recorder, no fuselage, no engines, no definitive crash site. Beginning in 2015 however, pieces of debris began washing ashore along the western Indian Ocean. The first and most significant discovery was a wing component known as a flapperon that washed onto a reunion island east of Metagascar. Over the following months and years, additional fragments consistent with Boeing, triple seven, were uncovered along the coastlines of Mozambique, Tanzania, South Africa, Metagascar.

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23:17And now you can go beyond imaging with 80 plus blood biomarkers that help complete the picture. Labor Day. Save $300 off your scan. When you book at pre-newvo.com that's P-R-E-N-U-V-O dot com. Save $300 now through September 8th at pre-newvo.com. Terms and conditions apply. Scar in Maritus. Several of these pieces were conclusively identified as originating from M-M-H-370. They approved the aircraft and entered the Indian Ocean. They did not reveal where nor did they explain why. Today, more than a decade after the disappearance, the families of the 239 passengers in crew continue to seek answers. Many have refused to accept that the mystery is over simply because official search efforts have been suspended. They have organized remembrance events advocated for renewed searches and continued pressing governments to release information they believe could help locate the aircraft.

24:19In 2018, the Malaysian government released its final safety investigation. The report concluded that investigators were unable to determine the cause of the disappearance, while the report acknowledged that the aircraft had been intentionally diverted from its planned route. It stated there was insufficient evidence to determine by whom or for what purpose. In the absence of the flight recorders, the main wreckage, many of the most important questions remain unanswered. And those questions are what continued to haunt this case. Why did the aircraft leave its planned route? Why were no invertebrates you call ever made? Who or what was controlling the airplane after its final radio transmission? Where is the main wreckage? Could the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorders still be lying silently on the floor of the Indian Ocean holding answers that no one has yet been able to hear? The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 3Sugney shattered the belief that modern airliners simply cannot vanish.

25:23As extraordinary as the mystery seems, however, it is that the first time an aircraft disappeared without a trace. To understand just how long this unsettling pattern stretches into aviation history, we have to travel back more than half a century to a flight carrying American military personnel across the Pacific Ocean, a crew that reported nothing unusual before disappearing forever. I can't believe that's been 12 years already. Isn't that wild? Yeah. It is super wild. Have you guys heard of any conspiracy theories behind that? The disappearance of the plane? No. No, have you? Yeah. So on that plane, we're supposed to like these three... Oh. These three tech guys... Yeah. Who were coming out with something, I think. Like, the secrets are something and that's why the plane was quote-unquote taken down.

26:25They were off. Then there's other theories... Just like the Titanic. Exactly. Exactly. And another one is that the plane actually landed in some small island that has a secret military base for some reason. There were reports of family members actually receiving text messages from like their loved ones' phones saying like, you know, we're... Oh, I've taken... I think I see something with that. Yeah. Which I don't know. I mean, again, I don't know how true any of that is, but it's interesting that... You know, on how it disappeared and then there's these alleged things coming out afterwards. Yeah. Yeah, I just can't believe it's been 12 years. Jeez. So by the time Malaysia Airlines lighted to be 70, disappeared. I love your transition. I know this is... They just suck. I know. So... So, disappeared in 2014. The world struggled to accept that a modern airliner could simply vanish.

27:26But history tells a different story. Long before satellites monitored aircraft, and long before computers recorded thousands of flight parameters, every second there were other... disappearances. Massive aircraft carrying dozens, sometimes more than 100 people, that slipped into the sky and were never fully accounted for. These are not merely for non-accidents. They are some of aviation's oldest unanswered questions. So if there is one disappearance that deserves to be remembered alongside a M-370, it is flying Tiger Line Flight 739. Unlike many aviation mysteries involving small, private aircraft or isolated bush flights, flight 739 carried 107 people aboard a large Lockheed L-1049H Super Constellation chartered by the US Military Air Transport Service. On board were 96 American military personnel. Most of them Army communication specialists headed to South Vietnam during the earliest stages of America's involvement in what would become the Vietnam War, along with 11 civilian crew members.

28:35The journey began on March 14, 1962 at Travis Air Force Base in California. The flight was bound for Saigon with scheduled refueling stops in Hanh Lulu, Wake Island, Guam, Clark Air Base in the Philippines, and finally South Vietnam. The first legs of the journey were largely unavailable, although minor engine maintenance delayed the aircraft during its stop in Hanh Lulu. After continuing through Wake Island, the Super Constellation landed safely at Guam before departing once again at 1257 GMT. What does GMT stand for? I never know. Do you guys know? Green mountain time. I think it was. Yeah, green which mean. Green which mean. Green which mean. Yes, it was. Yeah, green which mean. Green which or green which? Probably green. I don't know. We're doing the American way and saying green which. So green which mountain time on March 15 for the next leg to Clark. We're in America. So we pronounce it a mark. Merrick. I speak my work in everybody. I speak my work in the aircraft carried enough fuel for approximately nine hours, considerably more than the roughly six hours flight to the Philippines.

29:46For more than an hour after leaving Guam, everything appeared normal and approximately 22 green which mountain time. Captain Greg Reed, Thomas, friend of the earth, where we become the final confirmed communication from from flight 739. The message was entirely routine. He reported the aircraft's position approximately 280 nautical miles west of Guam and indicated nothing unusual about the flight. There was no indication of mechanical problems, bad weather, or in emergency of any kind. The crew was expected to make another routine position report a little over an hour later that report never came radio operators attempted repeatedly to establish contact with the aircraft but received no reply. At roughly the same time operators experienced periods of heavy radio static. Though investigators were never able to determine whether the interference had any connection to the disappearance. In the Russian-Bertchen vessel, operating hundreds of miles away, later reporting a brilliant flash in the night sky around the estimated time the aircraft vanished.

30:51The sighting fueled speculation that an explosion had occurred in mid-air. But investigators could never substantiate the report. No distress signal was received, no emergency radio transmission or intercepted, and no military radar tracked the aircraft after its final position report. Search that followed became one of the largest peacetime air and sea searches ever conducted over the Pacific Ocean. American military aircraft, Coast Guard units, Navy vessels, and civilian ships, searched more than 200,000 square miles of ocean. Hundreds of sordys were flown over eight days. Search crews looked for floating debris, lifer-as oil slicks, or any indication that the aircraft had entered the water. They found nothing, not a single confirmed piece of wreckage, no bodies, no floating luggage, no lifer-as. Nothing could conclusively place the aircraft anywhere after its final radio transmission. The official investigation ultimately concluded that there was insufficient evidence to determine what had happened.

31:56Without record or flight record recorders, technology that was still in its infancy at the time, the civil aeronautics aboard could not identify a cause. More than 60 years later, flight 739 remains one of the largest aircraft ever to disappear without leaving a trace. For the family of those aboard, there has never been a final chapter. There are no graves for many of the victims, no crash site to visit, and no definitive, definitive explanation to pass on to the future generations. Every anniversary serves as a reminder that a hundred and seven people departed Guam on what should have been an ordinary flight and simply vanished. The unanswered question remains hauntingly simple. How does an aircraft carry more than a hundred people disappear over the Pacific Ocean without leaving behind even a single confirmed piece of evidence? That's a weird one. Yeah. Especially like you don't really hear too many military planes doing that.

32:58No. You know, unless they're shot out of the sky. Right. But yeah, that's sucks. I feel horrible for the people that are left behind that just don't have an answer. I think that's almost as bad as losing the good loved one. It's just not knowing. Yeah, it's arguably worse, right? Yeah, I mean, I can see both sides, you know, but like there's just the. It's not being able to have that knowing what happens to your loved one not having that physical body saying if they're alive or not. Yeah. Yeah, there's the perpetual what if or do I give up on them, you know? You know, so just, yeah, I'll tell I'll tell the story. So just a side note. If anyone you hold your ever pass away, I recommend going and seeing the body that gives you so much closure.

34:00So when my dad passed away, he was pre-mated and he was in Texas. So the day after he passed my sister that lives down there, she facetime angles. Do you want to say goodbye to dad? And I was confused and I said to her, I go, did he come back? Because I don't know what he was. She was actually at the morgue with the body. So I'm like, yeah, sure. So I got to see it, but it's not the same as when you see it in person. Like I don't have that same closure I've had with every other death in my life. Because I just wasn't even though I have his ashes. Yeah. You know, like I just don't have that same type of closure because I didn't witness it for myself. Sure. So as much as you know, people say they don't want to see the, and that's fine. That's the right. I just feel though it in the long run, it's more beneficial than the shock of seeing it in person in the moment.

35:04Right. So that comes from someone who did not get to see his dad's body, but got to watch his mom die. You know, I got the best of both worlds, right? Yeah. So. All right. So I digress. That's something that light note. That's my. Yeah. I mean, I'm here. Public service announcement. Yeah. I enjoy, you know, sharing some uplifting tidbits like that. Yeah. So nearly 12 years before flying Tiger flight 739 disappeared. Another large commercial aircraft entered history under equaled mysterious circumstances. On the evening of June 23rd, 1950, Northwest Orient Airlines flight 2501 departed New York cities La Guardia Airport on a scheduled transcontinental flight to Seattle, while with plan stops and Minneapolis and Spokane. The aircraft, a Douglas DC-4, carries a 55 passengers and three crew members.

36:06At the time, it represented one of the busiest commercial routes in the United States. As flight 2501 approached Lake Michigan shortly before midnight, deteriorating weather began to complicate the journey. A powerful squall line stretched across the lake, producing severe turbulence in dangerous storm conditions. Recognizing the worst thing weather, Captain Robert Lynn requests a permission to descend from 3500 feet to 2500 feet in hopes of finding smooth air beneath the storm. Air traffic control denied the request, because another aircraft occupied the lower altitude. That transmission would become the final confirmed communication from flight 2501. Moments later, the aircraft disappeared from radar contact over south-eastern Lake Michigan. Even like MH370, there was no military radar to follow its path in no satellite network to record its final hours. Investigators had only witnessed accounts from people living along the shoreline. Several reported hearing engines squattering through the darkness, followed by what some

37:10described as a flash of light opening up the lake. Others heard nothing at all. The following morning, one of the largest search efforts in American aviation history began. The US Navy deployed solar equipment with vessels to search beneath the lake's surface. Coast Guard cutters combed the water while commercial fishing trawlers dragged heavy equipment across the lake bed in an effort to snag a wreckage. Aircraft searched from above while recovery crews patrolled miles of shoreline. Searchers eventually located floating debris, seat cushions, luggage, a poultry, fuel residue, and heartbreaking human remains. Yet, despite recovering evidence that the aircraft had indeed crashed into Lake Michigan, investigators never located the main wreckage. No engines were recovered, no fuselage was found. Even today, the aircraft itself has never been located. Modern expeditions continued searching the lake for decades, using side-scan sonar, remotely

38:11operate vehicles and increasingly sophisticated underwater imaging. Although promising targets had been investigated over the years, none have conclusively proven to be Flight 2501. After decades of searching, organized efforts were finally brought to a close in 2025 without locating the aircraft. The civil aeronautics board officially classified the cause of the accident as undetermined. Whether almost certainly played a role, but without the wreckage, there has never been enough evidence to explain exactly how or why the aircraft was lost. Flight 2501 remains one of the older America's oldest unresolved commercial aviation mysteries. So here's a question I have. They've been searching for the plane for 75 years, sorry. No, you're fine. 75 years. Yeah, that is crazy that an engine or the fuselage was never found. I agree. That is bonkers to me.

39:12But you found that it was your question. So my question was, how differently were planes built back then? Because nowadays they go up to 30,000 feet, don't they? They can go higher than that. They can, but nowadays a normal flight goes to 30,000, is it 10,000 feet? I don't know what the average cruising altitude is. But here, he's 35% to 10,000. Do you want to go lower, like was going up higher, not an option? Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like, why doesn't it matter if someone's lower than you when you're going higher? Wait, why? Because it says that he couldn't go higher because there is already another aircraft. No, he couldn't go lower. He couldn't go lower because he couldn't go higher. And he probably didn't want to go higher because he said there was a squal coming through, which is a sheered-off storm that pulls vertically and pushes it wall. No, no, I understand that.

40:12But what I'm saying is, couldn't it go high enough to be over the clouds over the storm? I don't know. I'm asking. I mean, it depends on the plane. Like, if it's a large plane, like the ones that go transatlantic, those planes are going to go 42,000 feet. But if this is just like a transcontinental flight, the smaller craft, so the ability to, and I'm not an aviation expert, but of all the flying that I do do when I'm on smaller planes, we tend to fly lower, the smaller the craft, the lower altitude. Yeah, don't sell yourself short. I think you are a aviation expert. Yeah, you know, I did say it a holiday in this press. Yeah, you have. I've been there. No, you haven't. No, I haven't. I don't remember the last time I said it a holiday. I don't know either. Well, I do remember the last time you stated it a holiday. You turn. So by 1957, Pan American World Airways had become synonymous with luxury international

41:16travel. It's Boeing 377, a straight accuser representing the pinnacle of long distance aviation, carrying passengers across from Pacific in comfort that rival the finest ocean liners. On the morning of November 8th, 1957, Pan Am Flight 7 departed San Francisco, bound for Hanalu with 44 people aboard. The weather forecast was favorable, and nothing suggested the journey would become one of the most puzzling accidents in Pan Am's history. For several years, the flight progressed normally, I'm sorry, for several hours, the flight progressed stormily across the Pacific Ocean. In approximately 5-04 pm, Hawaiian time, the crew transmitted what would become their final routine position report. There is no mention of mechanical trouble, fire, decompression, or any emergency. The flight continued westward toward Hawaii. Then the aircraft simply stopped communicating. As radio silence continued, concern quickly escalated.

42:17The Coast Guard and the U.S. Navy launched a enormous search involving aircraft submarines and surface vessels. At the time, it became the largest search operation ever conducted in the Pacific Ocean for a missing commercial aircraft. Search crews even instructed ships near Hawaii to illuminate their decks in the hope that the missing aircraft, if still airborne with navigation equipment problems, might spot lights below. During the search, several faint distress signals were reported on emergency frequencies. For a brief period, hope surge that survivors might still be alive aboard life routes. Investigators later concluded that those transmissions could not be reliably connected to flight 7, and were most likely unrelated. Nearly a week after the disappearance, search aircraft finally discovered bodies and floating debris approaching 900 nautical miles north east of Honolulu. Nineteen victims were recovered from the ocean. Several still wearing life jackets, strongly suggesting the crew had enough warning before

43:17impact to prepare at least some of the passengers. The watch is worn by several victims had stopped at approximately 5.27 pm, indicating the aircraft likely struck the ocean roughly 23 minutes after its final radio transmission. Although investigators recovered its scattered debris, the aircraft itself lay beneath nearly 16,500 feet of water, far beyond the recovery capabilities of the 1950s. The flight recorders, if they survived, were never recovered, and investigators could not determine with certainty what brought the straddle cruiser down. Over the decades, theories have ranged from catastrophic structural failure to sabotage, but no explanation has ever been conclusively proven. Unlike flying Tiger Flight 739, Pan Amp Flight 7 did leave behind evidence that confirmed its fate. Yet, the central mystery remains. Why did a healthy aircraft with an experienced crew and no reported emergency suddenly disappear

44:17from the sky? It is a question that has lingered for nearly 70 years, and as unsettling as these disappearances are, there are only part of the aviation's strange history. Some mysteries become legends, not because they involve the largest aircraft, but because they involve the most famous names. Some disappearances become investigations, others become legends, they outgrow the official reports that newspaper archives and aviation records. They become stories passed down by generations, retold so many times that the facts can become tangled with rumor, folklore and imagination. But these every legend is a real aircraft, a real departure, a real crew, and a final moment when the known world lost contact. On July 2nd, oh, that's my anniversary. July 2nd, 1937. Amelia Earhart. You've been married a long time. I know.

45:18It's a long time to suffer without dying. So, Amelia Earhart, an navigator, Fred Newton departed Leigh New Guinea in a Lockheed Electra-10E. They were attempting one of the most ambitious aviation feats of the era, a flight around the world near the equator. Their destination was Howland Island, a tiny speck of land in the central Pacific, only about two miles long and difficult to locate even under good conditions. The US Coast Guard Cutter, Itesca, was stationed near Howland to provide radio support. The flight was expected to cover nearly 2,500 miles of open ocean. By the standards of 1937, this was not simply a long flight. It was a test of endurance, navigation, radio discipline and luck. Newton was one of the finest navigators of his generation, but slushed-jill navigation of the Pacific-dependent visibility, timing and precision. Earhart, meanwhile, was operating an aircraft heavily loaded with fuel and dependent on radio

46:21communication that soon proved unreliable. As the electro-approached the Howland area, radio contact with Itesca was intermittent. The Coast Guard radio law records that Earhart reported difficulty communicating, stated that she was flying low and at one point indicated that she believed she was about 200 miles from Howland. The most haunted part of the disappearance is that Earhart was not instantly silent. She was close enough for Itesca to hear her. The problem was that she apparently could not hear the ship clearly enough to take useful bearing. At her proximity, 8.43 am local time, Itesca received what is generally treated as the final confirmation transmission from Earhart's aircraft. The surviving log records, the message is, we are online 157-337. That line has been studied for decades. It likely referred to a navigation line of position, a line across the ocean along which Earhart and Newton believed they were flying.

47:23If Howland Island lay somewhere along that line, they still had a chance. If it did not, then the electric has already running out of options. No military radar existed to track them. There were no satellite pings, no flight data recorder, no cockpit voice recorder, and no underwater locator beacon. Once the radio fell silent, Earhart and Newton became two people in a silver aircraft somewhere over a vast empty ocean. The search that followed was enormous for its time. The US Navy and Coast Guard launched what the National Archives described as the largest air and sea rescue search conducted up to that point. Ships and aircraft searched the waters around Howland Island and nearby islands in Greece. Later, theories would focus attention on Nika Maru, firmly gardener island, where some researchers believed Earhart and Newton may have landed or survived temporarily as cast the ways. Other researchers maintained that the simplest explanation means the original one.

48:23The electro-missed Howland exhausted its fuel and crashed into the Pacific. No confirmed wreckage has ever been recovered. Nobody's have ever been found. No verified final landing site has ever been identified. In 1939, Emilia Earhart was legally declared dead, but the mystery did not end. The family's researchers, historians, aviation groups, and private expeditions have continued searching for answers across generations. In recent years, newly released National Archives material and renewed private search plans have kept the case alive, but no discovery has yet conclusively solved it. The unanswered question is not simply where Earhart went down. It is one of the world's most famous missing aviator died in the ocean near Howland Island, survived for a time on a remote island, or left behind evidence that still waits somewhere beneath the Pacific. That sucks. I was a fan. I was a fan of Emilia Earhart when I first learned about her back in school.

49:25Yeah. She was American hero. Absolutely. Yeah. It's too bad. Do you think we'll ever know? I don't think so. Yeah. I think too much time has passed. The Pacific is so vast and deep that that plane could be anywhere. You know, needle in the haystack situation. Yeah. I would like to. I would like to think that someday we would find something. I mean, 1937, what, what, 90 years? Yeah. Well, maybe if the oceans of, you know, Pangaea starts up again and, you know, kind and start a drift, maybe, maybe they'll get pushed up somewhere. Okay. Yeah. That's all. Yeah. That's what you think. I hope it comes true. So 10 years after Earhart vanished over the Pacific, another aircraft disappeared in a very different kind of wilderness.

50:25This one did not vanish over open ocean, it vanished in the mountains. On August 2, 1947, a British South American Airways Avro-Locastrian named Star Dust, registration G-AGWH, departed Maureen Airport near Buenos Aires, Argentina, bound for Santiago Chile. The flight was the final leg of BSAA flight CS59, which had begun in London several days earlier. On board were six passengers and five crew members. One passenger was a British diplomatic career known as a King's Messenger, a detail that later helped fuel speculation about secret documents and sabotage. The route from Buenos Aires to Santiago required crossing the Andes, one of the most dangerous mountain barriers in the world. The aircraft had to pass over a train where weather could change quickly. Clouds could conceal peaks and high altitude winds could dramatically alter an aircraft's true progress.

51:26For most of the flight, nothing suggested disaster. At 5.41 pm, radio operator Dennis Harmer sent a Morse code message to Santiago recording an estimated arrival time of 5.45 pm. The aircraft was believed to be only minutes away. Then came the word that made this case statement. Everyone knows winter is the real mess maker. You don't need weather tech floor liners for summer, unless you hit the beach and half the beach ends up back in your car, or the campsite dirt ends up in your trunk. Then you'd want a cargo liner, or a road trip goes sideways, lemonade spills, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those weather tech secret techs, so just to be clear as the mud you're inevitably going to step in this summer, you don't need weather tech. Unless you plan on doing summer, visit weathertech.com today. If you like YouTube, you'll love YouTube Premium. It's destroying, athlete, creator, and YouTube Maxor. YouTube Premium enhances how I use YouTube with awesome features like offline downloads, so I could download my favorite training videos before I hit the gym.

52:28So no Wi-Fi doesn't turn leg day into loading day. Plus I get ad free videos, background play, and so much more. YouTube Premium is like YouTube got some extra gains. Try YouTube Premium for two months free at youtube.com slash premium. Trial eligibility varies, terms apply, cancel anytime. One of you can see what's happening inside your body. Pre-newvo's whole body scans screens for hundreds of conditions, including many solid tumors as early as stage one, all in under an hour. And now you can go beyond imaging with 80 plus blood biomarkers that help complete the picture. This Labor Day, save $300 off your scan when you book at pre-newvo.com. It's P-R-E-N-U-V-O dot com. Save $300 now through some Temporate that pre-newvo dot com. Terms and conditions apply. Parents, have you heard your kids say, I'm not a math kid. Well, with Mathnasium, every kid can be a math kid. They customize their math instructions so kids who are struggling are able to catch up and get ahead. And advanced kids are challenged to reach higher.

53:29Mathnasium makes math fun, so kids learn to love it. Parents say that Mathnasium has not only improved their kids' grades. It's given them a new level of confidence in math and in school overall. Visit Mathnasium.com to find a location near you. The final message included the mysterious term, Stendek, ST-E-N-D-E-C. It was reportedly received clearly, repeated, and still not understood. Four minutes before landing, Star Dust appeared to be almost home. It never arrived. No further radio transmissions were received. There was no radio track, no satellite record, no black box. Search teams from Chile and Argentina combed the area and BSAA pilots participated in the search, but nothing was found. Don Bennett, the head of BSAA, personally directed in unsuccessful five day search. For more than 50 years, Star Dust was one of the aviation's great unsolved disappearances.

54:31With no wreckage, the series multiplied, some suggested sabotage, some pointed to the diplomatic career. Others imagined espionage, smuggling, or even more exotic explanations. The strange final word, Stendek, gave the mystery of voice. Then in 1998, the mountains began giving back what they had hidden. Two Argentine mountain years climbing Mount Tupengado discovered records emerging from a glacial ice at about 15,000 feet. In 2000, an Argentine army expations found more debris, including propeller and wheels. Human remains were also recovered. By 2002, DNA testing had identified several of the victims. The evidence changed the story. Investigators came to believe that Star Dust had not been destroyed by sabotage or taken by some impossible force. It had most likely crashed into Mount Tupengado after an navigation error.

55:32One leading explanation is that the crew encountered powerful high altitude winds associated with the jet screen, a phenomenon not well understood in 1947. If the aircraft's actual ground speed was slower than expected, the crew may have believed they had already crossed the Andes when they were still east of the mountains. According to Santiago, they may have begun descending into cloud-covered terrain. The records were likely buried by snow and ice almost immediately. Then carried slowly through the glacier until pieces began emerging decades later. Today Star Dust is no longer a disappearance in the same sense that it once was. The aircraft was found. The likely crash light was identified, a probable explanation exists, but one piece remains on the result, Stendek. Was it a garbled, morse transmission? Was it a mistaken spacing of dots and dashes? Was it an antagram of descent?

56:33I'm sorry, anagram of descent sent by a radio operator under stress or hypoxia? No explanation was been universally accepted. The legend of Star Dust survives because it reminds us that sometimes an aircraft is not lost forever. It's hidden and sometimes even after the record just found, the final message remains a mystery. I don't think if somebody's panicking, they're thinking of morse coding out an antagram. Just putting that out there. I agree. Were they trying to type out Star Dust? Maybe. Yeah, I mean... That would be my guess. I mean, no, it's... I mean, yeah, I have no idea. That's sad. Like that happened actually. There's been a few aviation disasters of them just not realizing where they are and crashing into something. That's sad. So if Star Dust is the legend that eventually returned from the ice, then Star Aerial is

57:33the legend that never came back at all. January 17, 1949, British South American Airways aircraft Star Aerial, registration G-A-G-R E, and Avro Tudor Mark IV departed Kinley Field in Bermuda, Bonfer, Kingston, Jamaica. It carried 13 passengers and seven crew members. The flight had not originally been planned in quite that way. Another BSA aircraft Star Line had suffered an engine failure on approach to Bermuda, so Star Aerial was pressed in the service to carry those passengers onward. At 8.41 am, Star Aerial took off. The weather was excellent, the aircraft climbed to 18,000 feet, and Captain John Cleatham McAfee chose the higher altitude because conditions appeared favorable. About an hour after departure, he contacted Kingston and reported the departure time, estimated arrival, altitude, visibility, and position.

58:34A few minutes later, at 9.42 am, the crew sent what became the final known message. They reported they had passed 30 degrees north and were changing frequency. After that, nothing, no distress call, no wreckage, no oil slick, no confirmed debris. The search began quickly. Another Tudor aircraft Star Panther was sent to fly out towards Star Aerial's route and follow it back toward Bermuda. Another aircraft flew 500 miles from Bermuda, then performed a lattice search on the return. A U.S. Navy task force assisted including the battleship USS Missouri and the aircraft carriers USS Kierscharge and USS Lady. By January 19th, the search area had expanded to roughly 55,000 square miles south west of Bermuda. By the time the search was abandoned in January 23rd, aircraft from Kinley Field had flown more than 1 million miles.

59:34They found nothing. The investigation only deepened the mystery. There was no evidence of bad weather. Reports indicated no abnormal meteorological conditions and investigators considered the chance of significant clear air turbulence to be almost nonexistent. There were no clouds above 10,000 feet along the route. There were, however, radio communication problems that day. Static, poor reception, and brief blackouts affecting some communications in the region. Others considered whether star aerial might have transmitted a distress message that was never heard. But because the aircraft left no wreckage, there was no way to test the most important possibilities. The official inquiry concluded that the cause was unknown due to lack of evidence. It found no evidence of mechanical defect before departure, no evidence that the aircraft was improperly loaded, no weather explanation, and no confirmed sabotage. The possibility of sabotage could not be completely eliminated, but investigators had no proof.

1:00:36After the loss, BSA withdrew its remaining chewed-er-four aircraft and service pending inspections, assigned up how seriously the disappearance shook confidence in the tight. Today, star aerial remains missing. Unlike star dust, no glacier has returned its wreckage. Unlike Pan Am Flight 7, no bodies are floating to pre-confer in the final scene. Unlike MH370, there were no satellite handshakes to sketch a ghostly path across the ocean. There was only a calm morning, a routine message, a frequency change, and silence. The disappearance of star aerial, together with the earlier loss of BSA star tiger, helped feed the mythology of the Bermuda Triangle. But even without the legend, the documented facts are unsettling enough. A functioning aircraft in good weather, flown by an experienced crew, vanished over a known route and left nothing behind. And that is what makes star aerial one of the aviation's purest mysteries. There is no final impact site, no recovered recorder, no survivor testimony, no official

1:01:42cause, just 20 people who departed Bermuda in daylight and were never seen again. Do you think they were their path took them somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle? Like I don't know where... That's part of the speculation. And I think that's where the Bermuda Triangle lore really started to sink in. Got you. Yeah. Oh, so one thing I do when I do get on a plane is I look around and I look at all the passengers and I look for like innocent lives, like babies, children, stuff like that cause I think to myself, well if there's enough innocent lives here, God will not have this plane crash. Yeah. So you basically want to fly to Disney all the time because those planes are just loaded with kiddos? Yes. I'm not good.

1:02:42I've never heard of a plane doing that on the way to Disney. Okay. So... Not that I would. Oh, so on the flight to Arizona this year? There were two dogs in the plane that kept barking and then when they finally stopped then the babies started crying and I'm like, oh, okay. Well those were your innocent lives, so... I know. I know. I wasn't too upset but it was annoying. Fifi and Fido and then Billy and Suzie. Yes. Like I never wished for a plane to crash so much than that flight. Oh, so mean. I know. So the legends endure because each one leaves us with a different kind of mystery. Amelia Earhart asks whether a human being can become larger than history itself. Star Dust asks how an aircraft can vanish for half a century and return from the ice with only part of a story intact. Star Ariel asks something even colder.

1:03:45What if the sky gives back nothing at all? The aviation mysteries we have explored so far share one important characteristic. Most of them became part of the public consciousness. Names like Amelia Earhart and Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 are immediately recognizable even to people with little interest in aviation. Other stories have been examined in books, documentaries, television specials and countless newspaper articles. Decades after they disappeared, they continue to attract researchers determined to answer questions that have remained unresolved for generations. Unlike the aircraft we've discussed previously, several of the flights in this section left investigators with almost nothing to examine. There were no survivors to interview, no wreckage, fields to reconstruct, no flight recorders to recover, and in some cases not even a single confirmed piece of debris. Entire aircraft along with every person aboard simply disappeared.

1:04:46These cases rarely received the attention given to the better known mysteries of aviation history, but they continue to challenge investigators for the same reason. There is remarkably little evidence from which to determine what actually happened. Without physical evidence, even the most experienced accident investigators can do little more than evaluate possibilities, eliminate what they can and acknowledge where the facts simply come to an end. Perhaps no case illustrates that frustration better than the disappearance of Varigflight 967. So among aviation historians, Varigflight 967 occupies an unusual place. It is seldom mentioned alongside Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 or Amelia Earhart's disappearance, that many researchers conserved it one of the most extraordinary unsolved aviation mysteries ever recorded. A modern Boeing 707 cargo aircraft departed one of Asia's busiest international airports,

1:05:47flown by an experienced crew carrying valuable cargo, operating in favorable weather, and following an established international route. Less than an hour after takeoff, it disappeared over the Pacific without transmitting a distress call or leaving behind a single-couple piece of wreckage. On January 30, 1979, Varigflight 967 prepared for departure from Noreda International Airport in New Tokyo, Japan. The aircraft assigned to the flight was a Boeing 707-323C freighter, registration Pp-VLU, operated by… Operated by Brazilian airline, Varig cargo. Although the aircraft was not carrying passengers, it was transporting a full cargo load scheduled for Rio de Janeiro with an intermediate stop in Los Angeles. On board were six experienced crew members responsible for one of the airline's routine trans-specific cargo operations.

1:06:48Among the freight were 53 paintings by the celebrated Japanese Brazilian artist, Manabu Meid. The artwork had recently been exhibited in Japan and was being returned to Brazil. At the time, the clutch noise value valued at more than $1 million US dollars, making it one of the most valuable art shipments ever to disappear a port commercial aircraft. The fate of those paintings would eventually become almost as mysterious as the fate of the airplane itself. Commanding the flight was Captain Gilberto Aruro Adujo, or Aruha Icaicancer de Silva. One of Varig's most respected pilots. His career already occupied a remarkable place in aviation history. Six years earlier, he had command in Varig Flight 820, which suffered a catastrophic onboard fire during his approach to Paris. Although that accident claimed 123 lives, Captain de Silva, actions during the emergency were widely credited with saving many others.

1:07:48By 1979, he had accumulated more than 23,000 hours of flight experience and was regarded as one of the airline's most capable captains. There was nothing about the crew, the aircraft, or the planned route that suggested this flight carried unusual risk. The Boeing 707, the Powdered Nareda, at approximately 23 pm local time. The client-to-cruising altitude was uneventful. The conditions were favorable and no significant turbulence or hazardous neurological conditions were reported along the initial portion other route toward the Pacific. For the first several minutes, the flight proceeded exactly as controllers expected. Approximately 20 minutes after departure, the crew made routine radio contact with Japanese air traffic control. The communication contained in no indication of mechanical difficulties, navigation problems, or any other abnormal condition. The crew sounded calm and professional and nothing in the exchange suggested they were dealing with an emergency. The transmission would become the last confirmed communication ever received from Barrett

1:08:52Flight 967. When the aircraft failed to make its next scheduled position report, controllers initially had little reason to suspect the catastrophe. Missed radio reports occasionally occurred during long over-water flights because of communication difficulties or equipment issues. As repeated attempts to establish contact went unanswered, however, concerns steadily increased. Before long it became apparent that Boeing 707 had disappeared somewhere near the reach of radio coverage over the Pacific Ocean. Japanese authorities immediately organized search operations over the waters east of Japan. Aircraft from Japan Coast Guard searched from the air while ships combed the surrounding ocean for any indication that the Boeing 707 had entered the water. Investigators considered every plausible explanation, including structural failure, onboard fire, explosive decompression, sabotage, hijacking, or an accident involving the Dalaiable cargo.

1:09:52Yet each theory depended upon finding at least some physical evidence. That evidence never appeared. Search crews expected that even if the aircraft had broken apart over the Pacific, at least some debris would eventually reach the surface. Investigators looked for floating cargo containers, fuel slicks, lifer-outs, insulation, luggage, or human remains. Despite an extensive search, none of these expectations proved correct. Now a single confirmed piece of the aircraft is cargo or its crew wherever recorded. As days became weeks, the search area continued to expand while the probability of locating survivors diminished. Eventually, with no confirmed crash location and no physical evidence to guide further efforts, the research was suspended. Berig Flight 967 joined the short but deeply troubling list of commercial aircraft that vanished without leaving investigators enough evidence to determine what had happened.

1:10:53Today, nearly half a century later, the Berig Flight 967 remains officially unsolved. The six crew members have never been found. The Boeing Selma 7 has never been located, and the missing collection of Manabu-made paintings has never resurfaced. One of those works of art west beside the aircraft somewhere on the floor of the Pacific Ocean, are met some entirely different fate remains unknown. The Berig Flight 967 demonstrates how completely ematering the commercial aircraft can disappear over the Pacific Ocean. The next case raises an equally unsettling question. What happened when an aircraft vanishes over North America along a well-traveled route and decades of searching still fail to locate it? I just want to make a completely unrelated observation that we can lose signal with craft flying over the ocean, but we can live broadcast from the moon.

1:11:53Oh, yeah, you didn't know that? Yeah, okay. I'm just interesting. Yep. I mean, listen, the moon and the ocean are different places, but I don't know. True. Yeah. What parallel are you trying to draw here? I definitely am. I said it's an unrelated, you know, thought observation. It just, yeah, I'm just okay. Okay. Okay, I'm not sure what speculation was going on there. Yeah. I mean, instant information from the moon is as plausible even 60 years ago. So yeah, yeah, especially the dark side, you know, dark side of the moon with a giant yeah. Anyway, I digress. Okay. Awesome. All right, here we go. I'm July 21st, 1951. Canadian Pacific Airlines flight 3505, the part of Vancouver International Airport. The aircraft was a Douglas CDASH 540A Skymaster, a military version of the DC-4 operating on

1:13:03the behalf of the United Nations during the Korean Air Lift. On board were 31 passengers and 6 crew members. The flight initially proceeded normally along the coastal route toward Alaska. Last on reported place placed in near the Cape Spencer intersection, approximately 90 miles from Anchorage. The crew estimated they would reach Yakutat, Yakutat, along midnight. Whether in the area was poor with heavy rain, icing conditions and visibility reported reduced to about 500 feet. After that report, nothing further was heard from the aircraft. There was no distress call, no confirmed emergency transmission, and no later radio contact. At 12.44 a.m. when the aircraft was overdue and emergency was declared. The United States Air Force in Royal Canadian Air Force launched an extensive search across the rugged coastal terrain and waters of Alaska. The search continued from once, but no confirmed wreckage, bodies or survivors were ever found.

1:14:04It was finally called off on October 31st, 1951. The disappearance remains unresolved and all 37 people aboard are presumed to have died. What makes Flight 3505 so difficult to explain is not that the investigators lacked possible theories. Icing, bad weather, train and unforgiving geography of Alaska all provide plausible explanations. The difficulty is that none of those theories can be proven without the aircraft itself. More than 70 years later, Canadian Pacific Flight 3505 remains one of the most haunting disappearances of the Cori and Air Lift era. That's all we heard from one. We would. Quick question. Yeah. Is there a reason why the next section is a different way? Yep. I'm fixing it for you. You just read way faster. I've been reading everything else. You beat her to it. Sorry, bad. I'm sitting there. I'm waiting for the punch line.

1:15:04It's like you stopped and I saw it too. I was like, is he now supposed to read it? Yeah, that's yeah. So. Well, so yeah. All right. Well, thanks. Perfect. Appreciate it. Yeah. Stand by. Do do do do do do do do do. Those are our technical difficulties. When we crash and burn, everyone hears this. All right. All right. On the afternoon of December 5, 1945, five US Navy Grumman, TBM Avenger Trapido Bombers, departed Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale for what should have been a routine navigation exercise over the Atlantic Ocean. The mission designated flight night followed a familiar training route that had been completed many times before. Fourteen men were aboard the five aircraft. Leading the formation was Lieutenant Charles Carroll Taylor, an experienced naval aviator and combat veteran. Although Taylor had accumulated thousands of flight hours, he was less

1:16:05familiar with the waters surrounding southern Florida than many of the instructors stationed at Fort Lauderdale. Flight 19 departed shortly after 2 p.m. The aircraft flew east toward the Bahamas, completed a scheduled practice bombing exercise, and continued along the planned navigation route. The report approximately the first hour and a half. Nothing suggested that the mission was in danger. The situation changed when radio operators overheard Taylor expressing uncertainty about the flight's position. He reported that both of his compasses appeared to be malfunctioning and indicated that he believed the formation was somewhere over the Florida Keys. Several of the student pilots reported, reportedly disagreed and believed that they were east of Florida over the Atlantic. But disagreement was critical. If Taylor was correct and the aircraft were over the Florida Keys, flying north east, could eventually return them toward the mainland. If the students were correct, the same course would carry the formation further into the

1:17:06Atlantic. Air traffic control was attempted to determine the flight's location and encouraged Taylor to fly west toward Florida. Radio communication, however, became increasingly inconsistent. Some transmissions were received clearly while others were obscured by static or faded before operators could understand them. During one of the most frequently coded exchanges, Taylor reportedly stated, we can't make out where we are. Everything is wrong, strange. We can't be sure of any direction. Even the ocean does a look as it should. As daylight faded, weather conditions deteriorated and the seas below became increasingly rough. The fuel was also becoming a serious concern. In one of the final transmissions, Taylor instructed the aircraft to remain close together and reportedly indicated that the formation with ditch as a group once the first aircraft was nearly out of fuel. Shortly after 6 pm, radio contact ended. Search operation.

1:18:07Weathertech is made right here in America and it's perfect for an American-made summer, because we can't in ball into summer. Like all over it, slide down it, camp in it. It's one ice cream covered sandy, silky wet mess of a season, which is why weathertech floor liners and seaprotectors are a must. We are road tripping, beach going, lake jumping Americans, and that's just how we summer. Weathertech made an America for an American-made summer. Visit Weathertech.com today. Hey, what's up guys? It's Hayley Bailey. Okay, I need to tell you about something. I just got YouTube Premium. I've got tons of awesome features like offline downloads so I can download my favorite videos before I travel and watch them whenever I don't have Wi-Fi, because we all know airplane Wi-Fi is the worst. I get to add free, I get back room play, and there's like a ton more in there. You should try it. If you like YouTube, you'll love YouTube Premium. Try it now for two months free at youtube.com slash premium. Try a eligibility varies, terms apply, camp plenty time. That's a mouthful. What if you can see what's happening inside your body?

1:19:09Free Nouveau's whole body scan screens for hundreds of conditions, including many solid tumors as early as stage one, all in under an hour. And now you can go beyond imaging with 80 plus blood biomarkers that help complete the picture. This Labor Day, save $300 off your scan when you book at pre-nouveau.com. That's P-R-E-N-U-V-O.com. Save $300 now through September 8th at pre-nouveau.com. Terms and conditions apply. Parents, have you heard your kids say, I'm not a math kid. Well with Mathnasium, every kid can be a math kid. They customize their math instructions so kids who are struggling are able to catch up and get ahead. And advanced kids are challenged to reach higher. Mathnasium makes math fun, so kids learn to love it. Parents say that Mathnasium has not only improved their kids' grades, it's given them a new level of confidence. In math and in school overall, visit Mathnasium.com to find a location near you. And almost immediately, a Martin PBM-5 Mariner flying boat carrying 13 crew members were

1:20:14dispatched from Naval Air Station Banana River to assist in the rescue effort. Approximately 20 minutes after takeoff, a nearby ship reported seeing a large explosion and flames on the ocean. Investigators later concluded that the Mariner likely exploded in flight. No survivors were found. The disappearance had now claimed six aircraft and 27 men. Over the following days, hundreds of aircraft and numerous naval vessels searched the vast sections of the Atlantic Ocean, the Florida coastline, the Bahamas, and the Gulf of Mexico. Search crews looked for oil slicks, life rafts, floating debris, or any evidence that the Avengers had successfully ditched. Nothing conclusively connected to flight 19 was ever recovered. The Navy's initial investigation suggested that navigational confusion and human error likely contributed to the loss. As a request of Taylor's family, however, the official finding was later changed to cause unknown.

1:21:14Without wreckage, the flight instruments or survivor testimony, investigators cannot establish exactly where the aircraft went down or reconstruct their final moments in the decades that followed. Flight 19 became one of the stories most closely associated with the Bermuda Triangle. Books and television programs proposed magnetic anomalies, time distortions, extraterrestrial intervention, and other extraordinary explanations. Now those theories have been supported by credible physical evidence. Many aviation historians believe that most likely explanation involves a combination of navigational disorientation, possible compass problems, deteriorating weather, fading daylight, and exhausted fuel. Yet because none of the five Avengers had ever been conclusively identified, an important question for me. Nearly 80 years later, flight 19 continues to capture the public imagination. Not because it proves that something extraordinary exists within the Bermuda Triangle, but because

1:22:16five military aircraft disappeared during a routine training mission and left behind no confirmed wreckage, no survivors, and no final explanation. That's probably the most famous Bermuda Triangle story. Yeah, I remember watching a documentary about that. Pretty crazy. Do you think it had something to do with the Bermuda Triangle or do you think it was just human error and whatnot? I don't know. I think it has something to do with Bermuda because there's so many stories of the Bermuda that people get so confused once they get hit that area. It will make sense why a lot of crashes or disappearances happen over that section. It's because there's probably something there like magnetic, whatever it is, is getting people disoriented and not knowing where they are, not losing their direction. I can see why there's so many disappearances, so many lost people, so many whatever crashes. I think the Bermuda Triangle thing is real. I think it's a legit excuse. I don't know.

1:23:16I like it. Also, I want to stay at Naval Air Station, Banana River. You know, I'm eating that. I thought I was in the middle of a cartoon because you have, it was that the other time, trying to read here real quick. I can't remember. I can't find it now. Yeah, I can't find it now. Oh, okay. So, after hearing these stories, it is tempting to search for one explanation that connects them all. The reality is almost certainly more complicated. These aircraft disappeared in different decades over different parts of the world, and under very different circumstances. Some encountered severe weather. Others flew beneath clear skies. Some may have been lost because of human error, mechanical failure, or deliberate action. Yet nearly every investigation eventually encountered the same obstacle.

1:24:16The evidence ran out. One of the greatest misconceptions about aviation is that every aircraft is continuously tracked from departure to arrival. Weighed our coverage has limits, particularly over remote oceans and wilderness. Once an aircraft travels beyond the reach of ground-based systems, investigators may have to rely on radio reports, satellite communications, or incomplete electronic data to reconstruct it's reach. Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, that means certain how significant those gaps can be. After its transpired or stopped transmitting, and the aircraft moved beyond conventional radar coverage, investigators were forced to use satellite signals to estimate its possible path. Those signals suggested where the aircraft may have traveled, but they could not reveal its final location. Even when investigators identify a likely search area, and finding an aircraft beneath the ocean remains extraordinary, extraordinarily difficult. Currents can carry floating debris hundreds of miles from a crash site, while records on

1:25:17the seabed may lie beneath miles of water among underwater mountains, deep trenches, and layers of sediment. Without an accurate final position, even the most advanced sonar equipment may spend years searching the wrong area. The aircraft themselves may also provide a few clues before disappearing. Aviation accidents are often caused not by one dramatic failure, but by several smaller problems occurring together. Fatigue, navigational confusion, deteriorating, weather, instrument problems, and miscommunication can gradually overwhelm even experienced crews. Mechanical failures, including fires, electrical malfunctions, structural damage, or decompression, may also become impossible to identify when the wreckage and flight recorders are never recovered. Other disappearance of inspired theories involving hijacking, sabotage, espionage, or criminal activity. Those possibilities cannot always be eliminated, but without physical evidence, they remain

1:26:18theories rather than conclusions. Then there are more extraordinary explanations. These as such as flight 19 in Star Ariel helped transform the Bermuda Triangle into one of the world's most enduring legends. Over the years, Writers have proposed magnetic anomalies, time distortions, extraterrestrial involvement, and other paranormal explanations. No credible evidence evidence has demonstrated that the region possesses unusual properties capable of causing aircrafted to disappear, and no verified evidence supports the paranormal explanation for any case explored in this episode. That does not make these mysteries any less compelling. It simply reminds us that unexplained is not necessarily mean unexplainable. Modern aviation is safer and more closely monitored than at any point in history. Radio, radar, satellites, and digital tracking have made it increasingly difficult for an aircraft to disappear unnoticed. Yet technology still has limits. The oceans remain vast, the wilderness remains unforgiving, and even the most advanced search

1:27:22equipment cannot recover evidence when investigators do not know where to look. Perhaps future technology will locate aircraft that have remained hidden beneath oceans, glaciers, forests, or remote wilderness for decades. History has already shown that possibility. Star dust emerged from a glacier more than 50 years after it disappeared, proving that some mysteries are not permanent. They are simply waiting to be found. Until then, these flights remain suspended between history and mystery. Remember its three final radial transmissions fading radar returns, unfinished journeys, and the families who continued waiting long after the search has ended. After nearly a century of aviation, humanity has learned to cross oceans, navigate around storms, and land-ailed craft near zero visibility. But every so often, despite all that knowledge, the sky keeps a secret. Yeah, all these aircraft aviation shit fucking gives me the heavy duties.

1:28:29I'm going to say after listening to this and learning that they're not watching the flights closely as I thought they were, it kind of shakes a little bit of my trust in aviation. So you guys want to take a flight to overseas somewhere? Signing up? Yeah, go ahead. Specifically over the beam we did triangle. Of course. At fly path? Actually, I would do that. Of all things, you would do that. Yeah, yeah. In the name of science. In the name of science. In the name of science. Yeah, so did you know that the conspiracy theory is to the masks dropping is to get you high and disoriented? They pump sort of like whatever they do the dentist when they get the laughing gas. Pure oxygen. So, breathing in pure oxygen gives you a euphoric feeling. Yeah. So, yeah, hold on.

1:29:31Here we go. Breathing pure oxygen side effects. So they're just trying to get you stoned. Yeah. So you're not screaming and freaking out as you plummet to your death. But then how are you going to get your life fest on? Exactly. They don't expect you to get your life fest on. No. Just like my mom always yelled at me, she like, don't, well, she you see on me. You don't you dare wear flip-lops on a plane? What if the plane crashes? I'm like, it's like crashes. I'm dead, mom. Like flip-lops aren't going to see my life versus gym shoes because Lord knows like anytime someone like is an accident, they're gym shoes are left on the sidewalk in the person's like, yeah, 20 feet away. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If anything ever happens like that and I'm on the plane, I'm just just hit something hard. I don't want to limp away from this. Just just taking out right away. I'm done. So that's all I got. That was a fun little episode.

1:30:32And yeah, I like that. Bringing out all, you know, one of my three fears, that's great. Sweet. Okay. So now we have to do bridges and what was the other one? Like mountainous like cliff roads. Oh, the cliffs. Okay. Yeah. Oh, so you never watched vertical limit or whatever that movie was? I watched. I watched. He's never it's calm. I watched cliffhanger with the cliffhanger. That's maybe that's what I think. Yeah. Did you get the hibi jibis or those two people on top of the Empire State Building? Oh, yeah. Who? I got the eibi jibis. Oh, yeah. I was like, oh, I don't think you. He was too busy looking at catwoman. He's like, brown. I know. What just happened there? Did you just like, so I'm just fluing my face. I'm just surprised. I think you're being a mental break. There's a little mat in here. Wow. Got too close. I'm not afraid of height. You have heights. That's that. I'm fine with that. It's plummeting in the silver tube to my death that bothers me.

1:31:36So over a cliff or on a bridge. Yeah, exactly. So what about that guy who jumped out of the airplane without a parachute? A handful of years back. Debe Cooper? No, no. No, this is recent. Oh, I'm more recent history. And he landed in a net. Oh, no, that's not who I was. No, I've no idea who you're talking about. Oh, yeah. I don't know his name. There's a guy who jumped out of airplane. No parachute. OK. Just pray to God that he hit the net properly. That may miss the my goal, Lurch. Yeah, that's fine. Anyway, I think the only other point I want to add to this episode is I can't wait till we have the technology to see what's under the ocean. I don't know. The amount of shit deep down. Deep down. Where you can't the mystery of deep down. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, the shit we have down there. Sunken ships, the crashed planes, the bomb fragments, the drugs. Yeah. Definitely the drugs. I like drugs.

1:32:36Speaking of drugs, I know this is a really long episode. But OK, so you know like how they were blowing up the cartel boats in the water. Yeah. That were coming up from South America and stuff like that. Apparently all the fentanyl and all the drugs that are now floating around in our oceans are affecting the wildlife and the whales and stuff are becoming addicted. I see that to the drugs. That's fantastic. It's like the movie Cocaine Bear. Basically pretty much. That's cool. Cocaine, Willie. All right. Well, thank you for listening. That at note. Yeah. Just like share, review, follow, email me, fringe beyond limits at email.com. Let me know what your favorite airplane ride was.

1:33:37Anything else to add here, ladies, before we sign off? No, ma'am, sir. All right. Well, ma'am, sir. This is Malaysia fight, MH370, signing off. My name is Frank. My name is Marie. My name is on that. And you've been listening to Fringe Beyond Limits. From lashes for days with the viral liquid lash extensions mascara to awakening your eyes with a lift and color from the brilliant eye brightener, Thrive Cosmetics is the go-to

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