Shadowing Practice: Why Planes Disappear in the Bermuda Triangle - Learn English Speaking with Video
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- At 2 :00 PM on December 5th, 1945, five US Navy torpedo bombers departed from the US Naval Air Station base in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
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These Navy aircrafts were flying out into a region known as the Bermuda Triangle, a section of the Atlantic Ocean stretching from Miami to Bermuda and down to Puerto Rico.
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Around this time in the 1940s,
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the Bermuda Triangle was finding its way in the news for having an unusually high number of aircrafts and ships the ocean.
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Researchers couldn't figure out as to why.
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Despite this alarming number of disappearances,
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these five US Navy torpedo bombers set out into the Bermuda Triangle for a routine training mission known as Flight 19.
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This training mission was led by Lieutenant Charles Taylor, who had over 2 ,500 hours of flight time considered very high for the time.
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Surely with a pilot this experienced, nothing could go wrong.
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you
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Flight 19's mission was to fly east from this air station
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and drop some bombs as a training exercise over a coral reef called Henson Chicken.
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After dropping the bombs here, the group of five aircrafts would then fly north over Grand Bahama Island, and then finally turn west and head back towards Fort Lauderdale.
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The weather was forecasted to be mostly clear with a slight chance of scattered showers.
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As a group of five bombers departed Fort Lauderdale, everything was going as planned.
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Flight 19 dropped their test bombs over the Henson Chicken Reef and then began heading north towards Grand Bahama Island.
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As Flight 19 began heading north, this is when very unusual problems began to arise.
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At approximately 3 :45 p .m., now an hour and 45 minutes after the flight first departed, Lieutenant Taylor began calling back to the Fort Lauderdale flight tower,
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sounding very confused and worried.
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Taylor said that he did not see land, referring to the Grand Bahama Island, and believed that Flight 19 had veered a very off course.
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The Fort Lauderdale flight tower then got on the radio and responded, "What is your position?" Then silence.
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- The flight tower at Fort Lauderdale was supposed to still be
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able to see Flight 19 out in the distance since it was a clear day
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and they weren't all that far from land.
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But as the ground crew at Fort Lauderdale looked out in the distance, there were no fighter jets to be seen.
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After a few minutes of silence, Taylor then radioed back to the flight tower and said, - We cannot be sure where we are.
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We cannot see land.
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- The air tower was attempting to radio back to Taylor and Flight 19, but for 10 minutes, Finally,
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a different pilot from Flight 19 got on the radio and called into the flight tower saying, "We cannot find west.
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Everything is wrong.
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Everything looks strange, even the ocean." There was another pause in communication,
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and then the flight tower learned that Lieutenant Taylor had turned over his command to another pilot for unknown reasons.
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This is all the Fort Lauderdale air tower heard though, followed by another 20 minutes of silence.
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was able to call into the air tower, now in a state of panic.
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We cannot tell where we are.
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Everything is, cannot make out anything.
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We think we may be about 225 miles northeast of the air base.
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For a few more moments, the pilot continued rambling, not making any sense, before finally making out.
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It looks like we were entering white water.
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We're completely lost.
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The Fort Lauderdale flight tower could now tell that Flight 19 was in serious trouble, so they sent out two other rescue jets out into the ocean to look for Flight 19.
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These two rescue jets were instructed to travel to Flight 19's last known location.
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Ten minutes after the rescue jets took off and checked in with the flight tower, these rescue jets also lost all radio transmission with Fort Lauderdale's flight tower.
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Now, six different aircrafts had all vanished over the ocean east of Florida within a span of just 30 minutes.
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In the coming days, the US Navy and Coast Guard sent ships
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and planes out to investigate what had happened to Flight 19
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and the two rescue planes that went out to search for them.
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The military searched over 250 ,000 square miles of the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf waters, but nothing was ever found.
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The 14 men in Flight 19 and 13 other men belonging to the two rescue planes were never seen again again.
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This mysterious disappearance was just one of the many different ships
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and aircrafts that had disappeared in this section of the Atlantic Ocean known as the Bermuda Triangle.
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But why here?
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Why have so many planes and ships disappeared in this section of the Atlantic Ocean, especially from expert pilots like in the case of Flight 19?
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Years after this disappearance, investigators came to believe that the pilots in Flight 19 were having problems with their compasses.
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Many pilots and sailors have actually also encountered this problem in the Bermuda Triangle, leading to many other crashes and disappearances.
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It was discovered that Lieutenant Taylor had believed he was actually flying over the Florida Keys and was heading west.
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He thought that if he flew northeast, this would take Flight 19 back towards Florida's mainland.
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Flight 19 was not over the Florida Keys though, they were actually very close to their original planned out flight path.
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Flight 19 was actually over Grand Bahamas.
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which many say looks similar to the Florida Keys, at least from above.
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In this state of confusion, Lieutenant Taylor directed Flight 19 to begin heading northeast with the goal of flying back to Florida's mainland.
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The reason for this confusion was that not only had Taylor's compass stopped working,
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but many other of the pilots in Flight 19 had strange things happening with their compasses as well.
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Shortly after making this decision to fly northeast,
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all along and argued that they should turn west back towards Florida.
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Taylor reluctantly agreed and Flight 19 began heading west back towards Florida.
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The only problem was they were already
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so far out in the ocean by this point
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that they had a long distance to go to make it back to Florida.
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Flight 19 continued heading west until at some point, Taylor decided that they had tried going west enough and then once again set Flight 19 on course to head back
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at this point and began running out of fuel.
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They likely crashed into the Atlantic Ocean somewhere north of Abaco Island and east of Florida, ending all 14's men's lives.
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As for the two rescue planes that went out to search for Flight 19, witnesses actually believed that they saw these two planes' final moments.
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Witnesses on ships nearby reported seeing an explosion far out in the distance.
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This rescue operation had a well -known fuel problem, and it's likely that some kind of fuel leak caused this mid -air explosion.
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But why did most of these pilots have broken compasses?
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This is actually a common issue in the Bermuda Triangle, where many sailors and pilots have reported that their compasses don't work as normal here.
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In this stretch of the Atlantic, compasses often point to the geographic North Pole rather than the magnetic
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and magnetic north pole are roughly 1 ,200 miles away from each other.
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Many believe the remains of an underwater volcano is what's throwing off the compasses.
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This underwater volcano is what formed the actual island of Bermuda millions of years ago.
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This volcano left a large amount of basalt, which is what forms when magma and lava cools.
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This basalt contains a very high concentration of iron and magnetite, which both have unusual magnetic properties.
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Magnetite is actually the the most magnetic naturally occurring substance on Earth.
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There is said to be 500 billion tons of magnetite around Bermuda concentrated in the basalt that the underwater volcano left behind.
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These magnetic properties in the basalt is likely what threw off the compasses of Flight 19's pilots,
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as well as many other pilots and sailors who have navigated through the Bermuda Triangle.
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Researchers have found that compasses can be off by 10 degrees due to the vast amount of magnetite in this area.
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Volcanic remains have been detected 200 miles from Bermuda, showing that a large area of this triangle could have unusual magnetic properties.
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Some argue
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that this magnetic interference is only a small reason as to why planes often go missing in the Bermuda Triangle, however.
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The next reason as to why planes often go missing here is actually never really talked about.
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I was having a difficult time finding research on this, though, so that's when I looked to Ground News to partner on this video.
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which articles are more biased towards the left and which ones are mostly right -leaning.
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has compiled 134 articles related to the recent plane crash in Alaska.
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The Anchorage Daily News dives into how investigators focus on the wreckage of the plane that crashed in Western Alaska, which may explain how this crash actually happened,
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while the New York Daily News is reporting that all 10 victims from the Alaska plane crash are identified, which goes more into who the victims of this crash actually were.
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By having a list of different articles covering the same topic, you're able to get good information from different sides of the political spectrum.
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- Another theory is that methane blowouts can occur in this Bermuda Triangle region.
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A methane blowout is when a sudden release of methane gas emerges from the seafloor.
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Many suspect that this sudden release of gas is what took down an actual passenger plane with 31 people on board.
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One of the very first airlines was known as British South American Airways, an airline designed by World War II pilots designed to connect Europe and South America.
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passenger planes that was large enough to make it across the Atlantic Ocean.
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The plane used for this journey was the Tudor Star Tiger.
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On January 28th, 1948, the Star Tiger took off from Lisbon, Portugal on its journey to Bermuda.
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The plane was scheduled to stop in Santa Maria in the Azores
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so that it could refuel before making it all the way to Bermuda.
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As the plane was refueling in Santa Maria, reports of dangerous storms were covering much of the Atlantic Ocean.
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The captain for this plane was an experienced pilot named Brian McMillan.
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Captain McMillan erred on the side of caution and decided to for the night to wait out the storm.
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The next day on January 29th, the winds over the Atlantic Ocean were still strong, but there were very few actual storms.
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Captain McMillan decided to give it a go and departed out across the Atlantic.
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The captain decided to fly at an extremely low 2 ,000 feet in altitude
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so that the plane would avoid the strongest winds blowing at higher altitudes.
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Captain McMillan was flying the Star Tiger across the Atlantic late at night the air tower at 3 :15 a .m.
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During this routine check -in, the captain confirmed the plane's current position and their estimated time of arrival.
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The ETA was confirmed at 5 :00 a .m., meaning there was just under two hours left in the flight.
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The Bermuda Air Traffic Control tried checking back in later around 3 :50 a .m., but surprisingly got no response.
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The air tower gave it some time, but then tried again around 4 :40 a .m., mind.
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Again, the Bermuda Air Traffic Control got no response, and now declared a state of emergency.
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The US Air Force, based in Bermuda, immediately set out to look for the missing Star Tiger.
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It was now long after 5 AM, and there was no sight of Captain McMillan and the Star Tiger aircraft, nor was there any distress call made.
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A massive search and rescue effort took place, involving 26 different military aircrafts flying around the Atlantic Ocean,
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totaling 882 hours of flight time looking for this star tiger.
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This search and rescue operation lasted five days, and no wreckage was ever found.
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As mentioned earlier, some argue that a methane blowout is what caused this plane to disappear.
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During methane blowouts, large plums of methane gas shoot up from the bottom of the sea.
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This methane gas is often trapped below the ocean floor in the form of methane hydrates.
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Under certain conditions, the shifting of tectonic plates, underwater landslides, or the warming of the seafloor can lead these hydrates to destabilize.
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firing up into the ocean.
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If a large enough level of this methane is released into the ocean at once, this can severely disrupt both ships and planes.
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As for ships, when methane gas is released, this reduces the density of water, creating a phenomenon known as water aeration, or foamy water.
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A ship caught in a large patch of foamy water can lose its buoyancy.
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Foamy water is not very dense, given it has a high level of air in it.
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is not able to support the ship's weight and will cause the ship to sink rapidly.
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In the case of planes, methane gas released into the atmosphere in large quantities could potentially lead aircraft's engines to burst into flames.
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Methane gas is extremely flammable and can cause engines to catch on fire.
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Researchers argue, though, that this plane would have had to be flying at a
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very low altitude in order for a methane burst to make it all the way up to the plane's engine.
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at only 2 ,000 feet in altitude to avoid the high winds, this makes the possibility of a large methane blowout much more reasonable.
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Still, a large methane gas burst would be much more likely
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to disrupt a ship's ability to float than it would be to cause a plane's engine to burst into flames.
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Another reason why this plane may have disappeared is
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because Captain McMillan may have forgotten that he was flying at such a low altitude.
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In all the position reports that McMillan broadcasted to the Bermuda Air Towers, that his plane was flying at an altitude of 20 ,000 feet.
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The plane was actually traveling at 2 ,000 feet, but Bermuda Air Traffic Control just assumed that this was a careless reporting error where McMillan forgot his zero.
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It is possible that when McMillan began descending into Bermuda, he forgot how low to the ocean he already was.
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It's possible that this plane could have kept descending until eventually it crashed into the ocean, not paying attention to the real altitude.
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While this disappearance likely could have been due to the pilot not paying close enough attention, another major passenger plane disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle in 1948,
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and it might not have been due to pilot air.
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A DC -3 plane had just landed at the San Juan airport in Puerto Rico.
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Like the Star Tiger, the DC -3 was also one of the very first ever passenger planes.
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This DC -3 had just come in from Miami
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and was only going to be in San Juan for a short time to drop off passengers
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and pick new ones up before heading back to Miami.
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Just a routine turn as they call it in aviation.
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While in San Juan, Captain Bob Lindquist reported to the airport's ground engineers
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that the light indicator for the landing gear had not come on at the time of his landing.
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immediately started doing maintenance checks, and found that the battery was weak on charge.
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The ground crew began refilling the battery and told the captain
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that it would take several hours before the battery was fully recharged.
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Captain Lindquist did not want to wait this long and had a different idea in mind.
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The captain said
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that he would prefer to just recharge the battery with the
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plane's generator once the plane had made it back up in the sky.
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Captain Lindquist seemed like he was in a hurry to make it back to Miami.
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The ground engineers agreed with this decision
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and then the new 28 passengers boarded the DC -3 to fly from San Juan to Miami.
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Right before the plane was about to take off, another issue arose was also not working properly, also due to a low battery.
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Captain Lindquist was able to receive messages, but he wasn't able to send any.
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This problem had to be fixed before the plane was allowed to take off, so the DC -3 waited at the end of the tarmac until the radio transmitter was fully recharged with a new battery.
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Now at 10 :03 PM, when all seemed to be working, Captain Lindquist and the DC -3 were allowed to take off with the 28 passengers and three crew members on board.
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Shortly after takeoff, the captain was advised to stay near the San Juan airport until a two -way communication was established with Miami.
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Commercial planes, even back in 1948, typically set up communication systems where they were able to stay in contact with more than one airport at a time.
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This was especially important for Captain Lindquist given he was recently having problems on the ground with his radio transmitter.
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The flight then circled San Juan for about 11 Army's air tower.
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Now the two -way communication was officially confirmed, and the DC -3 began flying northwest towards Miami.
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At 11 :23 PM, now a little over an hour into the flight,
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Captain Lindquist sent his routine radio transmission signal to communicate where the plane was on the route back to Miami.
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The flight was at 8 ,300 feet in altitude and had an expected arrival time of 4 :03 AM.
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This radio transmission signal was received at the Miami airport, roughly 700 miles away, but strangely enough,
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there was no radio transmission signal received at the San Juan airport, much closer to the plane's current location.
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Captain Lindquist then sent another radio transmission signal later in the
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flight to indicate their position as they were getting ready to descend into Miami.
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At this point, the DC -3 was 50 miles south of Florida and was scheduled to land in 20 minutes.
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Even stranger this time, the signal wasn't picked up at the Miami airport, but it was picked up at the New Orleans airport, roughly 600 miles away.
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The New Orleans airport, knowing that this message wasn't for them, then transferred the message over to the Miami airport.
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The Miami airport then attempted to reach out to the DC -3, but they didn't hear anything back.
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The Miami airport repeatedly tried sending radio signals to the DC -3, but all they got back was silence.
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The DC -3 never arrived at the Miami airport that night, and nobody ever saw its 28 passengers and three crew members ever again.
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The US Coast Guard and Navy launched an extensive search covering hundreds of thousands of square miles,
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Now, despite the investigations that have taken place to uncover what happened to this DC -3 and all its people on board, not much is known regarding where this aircraft eventually ended up.
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One theory is that this plane could have started experiencing low battery issues again, causing the radio and navigation instruments to fail.
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This would have left the pilots unable to communicate with anyone on land
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and would have made it difficult for the pilots to determine where their location was accurately.
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in the middle of the night, so it's even harder to determine where you are when everything looks black.
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If this DC -3 plane veered off course due to navigational errors, it could have run out of fuel and crashed into the ocean far from Miami.
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Many say that the reason most of these planes have disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle, though, isn't due to the magnetic interferences or even methane blowouts.
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Researchers often point to the fact that the Bermuda Triangle's frequent hurricanes as to why these planes have disappeared in this region.
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Many hurricanes that end up in the Bermuda Triangle form off the west coast of Africa.
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The combination of dry, hot air from the Sahara Desert meeting moist, warm air over the Atlantic creates a strong atmospheric instability.
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This instability is what creates thunderstorms and even produces hurricanes.
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From here, the hurricanes follow the ocean's currents and the global wind patterns, which sends them across the Atlantic Ocean, making their way towards the Bermuda Triangle.
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across the Atlantic, they're traveling over thousands of miles of warm, humid ocean air.
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This moisture in the air allows the storms to intensify even more, often leading to powerful hurricanes.
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By the time they make it to the West Indies and begin entering the Bermuda Triangle, they've already had over 1 ,000 miles to intensify.
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These hurricanes and powerful storms continue making their way through the Bermuda Triangle, intensifying as long as they are still traveling over warm waters.
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Once the storms make landfall, they then have less moisture to recharge themselves, and then slowly start dying off.
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The exact number of planes that have disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle is difficult to pinpoint,
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but it's likely that there have been 50 to 100 planes that have disappeared here in the past century.
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Many of these disappearances are anecdotal, where stories of small planes with only a couple people on board are harder to verify.
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It still appears that most of these disappearances were due to navigational errors in the earlier days
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when GPS wasn't as advanced as region.
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With this all being said, the size and shape of the Bermuda Triangle could be changing in the future.
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With the Earth warming and sea levels rising, this could one day impact our oceans.
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I made a full video on what the Earth would look like
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if the extreme were to happen and Antarctica completely melted one day.
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You can find that video right here.
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About This Lesson
In this lesson, you will practice your English listening and speaking skills through the fascinating story of Flight 19, a mysterious mission that took off from Fort Lauderdale and vanished in the infamous Bermuda Triangle. By engaging with this content, you will not only enhance your comprehension but also improve your pronunciation and fluency using the shadowing technique. This method involves listening to the transcript from the video and repeating the phrases in real-time, which helps you acquire a natural rhythm and tone in English.
Key Vocabulary & Phrases
- Bermuda Triangle: A region in the Atlantic Ocean associated with mysterious disappearances.
- Torpedo bombers: Military aircraft designed to drop bombs.
- Flight tower: The control center for managing aircraft movements.
- Veer off course: To stray from the intended path or direction.
- Confused and worried: Feelings of uncertainty and concern, especially in emergencies.
- White water: A term used to describe turbulent water, often signaling danger.
- Rescue jets: Aircraft sent to locate and assist others in distress.
- Mysterious disappearance: An event where something vanishes without explanation.
Practice Tips
To effectively enhance your English skills using this lesson, make use of the shadow speak method. Start by watching the video at its normal speed. Focus on how the speakers articulate their words and phrases. As you listen, try to repeat what you hear immediately, mimicking the tone and rhythm. The shadowing app can be helpful in this step, allowing you to pause, rewind, and replay sections as necessary.
When you encounter challenging phrases or sections, slow down the playback speed to better grasp the pronunciation. This is particularly useful for complex words like "lost" or "disappeared". Repeating these words multiple times can help you integrate them into your vocabulary. Also, take note of the emotion in the speakers' voices; capturing this aspect will improve your expressional speaking.
Lastly, consistency is key. Devote a few minutes each day to practice. As you grow more comfortable, increase the speed to match the natural pace of the speakers. This gradual adjustment will aid in developing your fluency. Remember, the goal is to make these words flow effortlessly in your everyday conversation by practicing in the shadows of the original speakers.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have actually also encountered · have broken · have reported |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | was led · was forecasted · be seen |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.