The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 shocked the world and as is the norm with a disappearance such as this the conspiracy theorist have been hard at work. With everything from passengers phones still ringing to stolen passports being used to board the plane. We look at some of the strangest disappearances either in or over the planets waters in history.
The Mary Celeste
Everything from piracy, mutiny, alcohol fumes and underwater earthquakes have been considered in the quest to find what actually happened the crew of the ill fated ghost ship which was eventually destroyed in 1885. In 1872 the ship was found sailing with no crew headed for the Strait of Gibraltar in what has baffled researchers for over a century now. Not that the ship disappeared, but losing a whole crew is sure as hell one disappearance too many to not have it on the list.
Flight 19 - 1945
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Lt. Charles Taylor and his 13 strong student crew went on a routine mission in five avenger torpedo bombers on December 5th 1945. An hour and a half into the flight the compasses stopped working. An experienced pilot Taylor was told to fly north toward Miami but the more the crew tried to get out of the Florida keys the more out to sea they actually went. As it got closer to night radio signals deteriorated and the five bombers have never been recovered.
Air France Flight 447 - 2009
The A330 flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris went down in the Atlantic Ocean in 2009, The disaster saw all 228 passengers and crew on board either killed or undiscovered with the bodies of 74 passengers remain unaccounted for. It took a full five days for rescue teams to find the wreck of the plane and three years for reports to define that ice crystals had caused the autopilot to disconnect.
Amelia Earhart - 1937
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One of the legends of aviation history, pilot Amelia Earhart disappeared in her twin-engine monoplane Electra while flying over the Pacific Ocean in 1937 in an attempt to fly around the globe. Not a trace of her plane has ever found even after a massive multi-million dollar search effort. Amelia Earhart was officially declared dead in 1939.
The Spray - 1909
Joshua Slocum, was the first man to sail solo around the world in 1895. His boat, the Spray, was an old fishing boat that he had rebuilt. In 1909, Slocum left the East Coast of the United States and headed to Grand Cayman for the winter. Slocum was never heard from or seen again. No one knows for sure where Slocum disappeared but Bermuda Triangle conspiracy hunters maintain it was within the devils three sided pool.
Flying Tiger Line Flight 739 - 1962
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A U.S. military flight left Guam in 1962 with more 90 personnel headed for the Philippines, but never arrived. The pilot never issued a distress call, and no trace of the wreckage has ever been found. A Liberian tanker ship’s crew claim to have seen an “intensely luminous” light in the sky at the approximate time of the flight, but the U.S. Civil Aeronautics board ruled it was “unable to determine the probable cause of the incident.”
Now you see me, now you don't - Piper Navajo 1978
On November 3, 1978, Irving Rivers left St. Croix to make a routine solo flight to position the plane in St. Thomas to pick up passengers. Visibility was good and temperatures were warm. During the flight, the control tower operator radioed a flight suggestion to avoid a small shower, and Rivers radioed his acknowledgement and made the adjustment. As he neared the airport in St. Thomas, the plane was cleared for landing and the controller saw the plane's red and green lights blinking as it made the approach. Soon after another plane made a planned departure, the controller found he could no longer see the plane's lights -- it had disappeared from the radar. An emergency search effort was launched, but nothing was ever found even though the flight was only one mile (1.61 kilometers) from landing.
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