List of Bermuda Triangle incidents

Date

This list shows events that are said to be connected to the Bermuda Triangle or the Devil's Triangle in popular culture.

This list shows events that are said to be connected to the Bermuda Triangle or the Devil's Triangle in popular culture.

Aircraft incidents

  • 1945: July 10, Thomas Arthur Garner, AMM3, USN, along with eleven other crew members, was lost at sea in a US Navy PBM3S patrol seaplane, Bu. No. 6545, Squadron VPB2-OTU#3, in the Bermuda Triangle. They departed Naval Air Station, Banana River, Florida, at 7:07 p.m. on July 9, 1945, for a radar training flight to Great Exuma, Bahamas. Their final radio position report was sent at 1:16 a.m., July 10, 1945, with coordinates 25.22N 77.34W, near Providence Island, after which they were never heard from again. A ten-day search by air and sea, including a carrier sweep, found no evidence of the plane or crew.
  • 1945: December 5, Flight 19 (five TBF Avengers) was lost with 14 airmen, and later the same day, PBM Mariner BuNo 59225 was lost with 13 airmen while searching for Flight 19.
  • 1947: July 3, a Douglas C-54 crashed near the Florida coast after the pilot lost control during turbulence.
  • 1948: January 30, Avro Tudor G-AHNP Star Tiger was lost with six crew members and 27 passengers, en route from Santa Maria Airport in the Azores to Kindley Field, Bermuda.
  • 1948: December 28, Douglas DC-3 NC16002 was lost with three crew members and 36 passengers, en route from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Miami, Florida.
  • 1949: January 17, Avro Tudor G-AGRE Star Ariel was lost with seven crew members and 13 passengers, en route from Kindley Field, Bermuda, to Kingston Airport, Jamaica.
  • 1965: June 9, a USAF C-119 Flying Boxcar from the 440th Troop Carrier Wing disappeared between Florida and Grand Turk Island. The last message from the plane was sent from a location just north of Crooked Island, Bahamas, and 177 miles from Grand Turk Island. On July 18, 1965, debris from the plane was found on the beach of Gold Rock Cay, near the northeastern shore of Acklins Island.
  • 1965: December 6, a private ERCO Ercoupe F01 was lost with the pilot and one passenger, en route from Fort Lauderdale to Grand Bahamas Island.
  • 2005: June 20, a Piper PA-23 disappeared between Treasure Cay Island, Bahamas, and Fort Pierce, Florida. Three people were on board.
  • 2017: February 23, Turkish Airlines flight TK183 (an Airbus A330-200) had to change course from Havana, Cuba, to Washington Dulles Airport due to mechanical and electrical problems in the Bermuda Triangle.
  • 2017: May 15, a private MU-2B aircraft vanished from radar and radio contact with air traffic controllers in Miami at an altitude of 24,000 feet. Wreckage from the plane was later discovered.

Incidents at sea

  • 1800: The USS Pickering was traveling from Guadeloupe to Delaware when it disappeared, with 91 people on board. (Possibly lost in a strong windstorm)
  • 1814: The USS Wasp was last seen in the Caribbean and disappeared with 140 people on board. (Possibly lost in a storm)
  • 1824: The USS Wild Cat was traveling from Cuba to Tompkins Island and disappeared with 14 people on board. (Lost in a gale with 31 people on board)
  • 1840: The ship Rosalie was found abandoned. (Possibly the "Rossini" was found abandoned)
  • 1881: According to a story, a ship called the Ellen Austin found an abandoned vessel and sent a crew to sail it to port. Two versions of what happened are: the vessel was either lost in a storm or was later found without a crew. Lawrence David Kusche, the author of "The Bermuda Triangle Mystery-Solved," found no newspaper reports from 1880 or 1881 about this event. He traced the story to a book by Rupert Gould titled "The Stargazer Talks," published in 1943. The Ellen Austin existed; records from Lloyd's of London show that a ship named Meta, built in 1854, was renamed Ellen Austin in 1880. There are no records of missing people from this vessel or any other ship at that time. One website mentions the story but notes that Rupert Gould discussed it on radio in the 1930s and that a 1906 newspaper story claims the event happened in 1891, though it does not cite a source.
  • 1918: The USS Cyclops, a collier, left Barbados on March 4 and disappeared with all 306 crew and passengers en route to Baltimore, Maryland.
  • 1921: On January 31, the five-masted schooner Carroll A. Deering, with Captain W. B. Wormell, was found stranded and abandoned at Diamond Shoals near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.
  • 1925: On December 1, the SS Cotopaxi, which had departed Charleston, South Carolina two days earlier for Havana, Cuba, sent a distress call reporting it was sinking. The ship was officially listed as overdue on December 31. In 1985, an unknown shipwreck was discovered off St. Augustine, Florida, and in 2020, it was identified as the remains of the SS Cotopaxi.
  • 1941: The USS Proteus (AC-9) disappeared with all 58 people on board in heavy seas after departing St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands with a bauxite cargo on November 23. The following month, its sister ship, the USS Nereus (AC-10), also disappeared with all 61 people on board after departing St. Thomas with a bauxite cargo on December 10. Research by Rear Admiral George van Deurs, USN, suggests that the acidic coal cargo likely weakened the ship’s support beams, making these older ships vulnerable to breaking apart in heavy seas. Both ships were sister ships of the USS Cyclops.
  • 1958: The 43-foot racing yawl Revonoc was lost with owner Harvey Conover and four others aboard during a hurricane between Key West and Miami. The only trace found was the Revonoc’s 14-foot skiff, near Jupiter, Florida.
  • 1967: On December 22, Miami hotel owner and yachtsman Dan Burack set out on his cabin cruiser Witchcraft with a priest named Patrick Horgan. The ship was taken one mile off the Miami coastline to view Christmas lights from the shore. That night, Burack sent a distress call to the Coast Guard, stating the boat’s propeller had struck something underwater and the vessel would need to be towed. The Coast Guard asked Burack to send a flare in about 20 minutes so the boat could be located. An official later noted that Burack did not seem overly concerned about the Witchcraft, a boat fitted with a special floatation device in its hull. When the Coast Guard arrived at the location, Burack, Horgan, and the Witchcraft were missing. A search covering hundreds of square miles of ocean was conducted, but the boat and its passengers were never found.
  • 2015: In late July, two 14-year-old boys, Austin Stephanos and Perry Cohen, went on a fishing trip in their 19-foot boat. Despite a 15,000-square-nautical-mile search by the Coast Guard, their boat was found a year later off the coast of Bermuda, but the boys were never found.

Incidents on land

In August 1969, during a hurricane at the Great Isaac Lighthouse in Bimini, Bahamas, two lighthouse keepers disappeared and were never found.

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