Now two aviation sleuths, who have spent more than 25 years trying to crack the case, have a compelling new theory: They believe that a torpedo bomber discovered in western Broward County in 1989 . By morning, they probably never saw one another again. We seem to be bereft of reason. The Old Time Radio Scripts Page! For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. Evidence that Senator Lundeen was involved in a criminal conspiracy, a conspiracy to subvert American democracy on behalf of a hostile foreign power. Steven J. Ross: They dont call themselves right-wing fanatics. Hart: When American troops are actually in combat, virtually every member of Congress, every politician sort of makes a show of supporting the troops and even goes over to visit the trenches of the Western front and things like that. Air-Sea Rescue Task Unit Four at Fort Everglades (ASRTU-4) (paraphrased): Suggest another aircraft in your flight take over lead since your compasses are out. I mean, the, the sort of background notes for this go more than a hundred pages. There are few events in U. S. history that spark the imagination to "what happened" than the disappearance of Flight 19 on December 5, 1945. Lucky for us, the largely forgotten Americans who fought these fights before us, they have stories to tell. The report said, "It is possible that for some reason the pilot and copilot were prevented from effectively operating the controls.". He's crying. FT-74: Your transmissions are fading. Flannery: The more I looked at it, the more it seemed that at least the government agency didn't ask the right questions or find out very much. Perhaps most intriguing, though, was something that was found in the passenger manifest from the flight. HistoricWings.com :: A Magazine for Aviators, Pilots and Adventurers, A Magazine for Aviators, Adventurers and Pilots, Published on December 5, 2012 Im sure they dropped them, the only question is where. At first, Flight 19s hop proceeded just as smoothly as the previous 18 that day. 19.1. They're both trying to figure out how much reporters have found out about what's going on. NPR's Ari Shapiro talks with Lyn Montgomery, the president of TWU Local 556, which represents Southwest flight attendants. 2 seconds ago bainbridge basketball. I just dont want to take this one out, he supposedly said. Maddow: This was just days after Senator Lundeen was buried and Drew Pearson just drops this bombshell. Thats when it nosedived. Witnesses later claimed that he arrived to Flight 19s pre-exercise briefing several minutes late and requested to be excused from leading the mission. So it's not, it's not very useful. Over the next few hours, the planes would make a series of errors. Then on Monday, on Labor Day, he's got a big speech that he's planning to deliver. It's one thing to be not-excited about the U.S. fighting Nazi Germany, this really was something else. Young: There has been speculation that perhaps the flight was tampered with Lundeen: We are being urged on by insane hysteria. Young: Angry crowds came out to protest him and his safety was in question on more than one occasion. When he ran for re-election after his first term, they voted him out. The planes took off at 2:10 PM local time. comments: this meant that he wanted to stay on the same frequency with the rest of his flight. There had been 25 people on board that plane, including the crew. AA11: Turning right, American 11. Radio Reporter: Good morning all. That one term he served in Congress back in 1917, it was a political disaster. comments: this was backwards from the direction they should have been flying and put them heading further out into the open ocean how the flight leader could have thought he was over the Gulf of Mexico, west of Florida remains a mystery to this day. 00 00 02 46 . In any case, he was told that no replacement was available. A handful of land-based radio stations were able to triangulate Flight 19's position as being somewhere north of the Bahamas and significantly off the coast of Florida. It was in perfect repair, it had passed all its checks. It was riveted in their mind. Muddying the waters is the fact that researchers found Navy records that suggest the wreckage discovered in the . <br> <br>All available facilities in the immediate area were used in an effort to locate the missing aircraft and help them return to base. No other communications were heard from Flight 19. in the Records of the Bureau of Aeronautics (Record Group 72). Immediate protest will block the way to militarizing our nation. He was reading about the last radio transmissions from Flight 19, a storied group of Navy fighter planes that vanished on a 1945 training flight from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., purportedly. Everyone was killed instantly. As an example of this method, using the information from the Board of Investigation, it references the Gulf Sea Frontier and Commander, Training Command, Atlantic Fleet as being contributors of reports in the investigation and recipients of copies of the investigation. This is a story about politics at the edge. Is that an argument? Apollo 11, Houston. At the time, the ship radioed: At 1950, observed a burst of flames, apparently an explosion, leaping flames 100 feet high and burning for ten minutes. The flight path was a triangle that would have them flying east, doing a practice bombing run and then proceeding east straight out into the empty seas. Had he been drinking? What he appears to be is emotionally distraught. On tonight's can't-miss Expedition Unknown on Discovery, Josh Gates follows the . Even for those who clambered clear of the planes and might have gotten into rafts, those planes searching for them would have found it almost impossible to find the men. Following is a transcript of the radio communications between air traffic controller at Logan International Airport [46R] in Boston and several jetliners identified by their call signs on the. According to the radio transcript logs, here are the watch standing hours for Station 1 (point-to-point, referred to as Itasca1), Station 2 (communications with plane, referred . When fuel began to run low, Taylor was heard prepping his men for a potential crash landing in the ocean. Holiday travelers are stranded after the airline canceled flights. In the wake of the loss, the US Navy followed regular procedure and undertook not a lone search and rescue flight, but rather a massive search effort involving hundreds of aircraft and ships that were immediately dispatched offshore. Maddow: So, the Senator seems to have been in a near-panic about being exposed in the days leading up to him stepping on board that flight a flight in which he, quite literally, was carrying a speech that was written for him by a Nazi agent who had just been exposed in the press. Our Associate Producer is Janmaris Perez. They did return him to the Congress, and then to the United States Senate. Flannery: There was reportedly a scuffle, whatever that means. Here he is with producer Kelsey Desiderio: Kelsey Desiderio: So, obviously we don't know exactly where the plane came down, but do we have any rough idea, in terms of where we're standing, where did it happen? A violent, ultra-right authoritarian movement, weirdly infatuated with foreign dictatorships. Her name was Margaret Carson. 22 Oct: Air Canada radio issue while landing at SFO: sumdog747 : 2017-10-22 20:55:44: 21 Oct: Qantas flight to San Fransisco returned to Sydney due to autopilot fault: . He was buried in a military cemetery. comments: FT-74 was already airborne and thereafter he flew south. Some of his pilots seemed to have recognized that he was making a mistake. The accident reports for the aircraft can be located in the series titled General Correspondence, 1943-45 in the Records of the Bureau of Aeronautics (Record Group 72). At that, the flight leader stepped in and took over the navigation. Nancy Beck Young: He was on the run for not only his political life, but his actual life. Just why Taylor tried to get out of flying remains a mystery, but it has led many to suggest that he may have not been fit for duty. That piece of gold, that became like a talisman, I think for him. The microfilmed series is a collection of materials that was eventually used in the Navys Board of Investigation including weather observations, the history of the aircraft and engine logs, a rough crash log, radio station logs, preflight forms, communication logs, incident reports, air/sea rescue plans, maps of the search area. The five avenger bomber training planes of Flight 19 led by Commander Charles Taylor take off at 14:10. News videos. We seem to be bereft of reason. The reason for him to be concerned was that there was a good chance the feds were onto him, onto his relationship with that Nazi agent. May 17, 201702:30. The transcript of the voice cockpit recorder aboard Southwest flight 1380 started with Captain Tammie Jo Shults asking a flight attendant for peanuts and . Painter: We walked through this cornfield and parts of bodies was strung along the cornstalks, and everything like that. And Ernest Lundeen threw himself headlong into the effort to try to stop that, too. Route takem by Flight 19 (Image: GETTY) "These reports indicate that Taylor was flying over the Bahama Islands and mistook them for the Florida Keys. There is some evidence that the Mariner may have exploded in mid-air because there were reports from vessels at sea near the Mariners patrol area saying they saw a fireball approximately around the time another ship lost RADAR contact with the plane. Buy Digital Album name your price Send as Gift credits released October 25, 2019 license Flannery: Well, they call that consciousness of guilt, when you deny something that's true. Senator Ernest Lundeen of Minnesota, that manifest showed and the press soon reported that the other passengers on-board Trip 19 included a Special Agent of the FBI, a second FBI employee, and a prosecutor from the Criminal Division at the U.S. Department of Justice. If they could advance their career by playing footsy with Nazis, so be it. Because 24 congressmen are mentioned in this report that I prepared. He was in tears leading up to that flight, according to his secretary. He told her hed gone too far and could not turn back. They let him out of the cold car. Contrary to popular belief, the members of Flight 19 left a very telling trail of evidence of command failure, mis-navigation and error that, on face value, points to a truth that is virtually undeniable. Starting around 3 PM, transmissions from the lost planes began to be received. He's a United States Senator from Minnesota. The pilots were told to switch the devices on, but they either didnt hear the message or didnt acknowledge it. Maddow: One local farmer told a wire service that the human remains, quote: "were so badly mangled, I don't see how they could ever be recognized.". Something close to confusion over the emerging reports about all these odd circumstances surrounding the crash. Senator, gone in an instant. And her note, right above her signature, it said, going down., Whatever had happened on-board the plane, the flight attendant apparently had both the presence of mind and the time to dash off that note before the end. Desiderio: When we talk about the DOJs response after the crash, in addition to saying those agents were on the plane by coincidence, they also deny that Lundeen was under investigation at all. And that passenger manifest confirmed what Senator Lundeen's secretary already knew. Those in rafts would have found themselves separated quickly in the heavy seas. What really happened to Flight 19? The theories that are most popular involve a supposed UFO abduction. There is another copy of the Board of Investigation in file units, Type of Command, Training, Naval Air Advanced Training Command, Jacksonville, FL Board of Investigation into Missing TBMs and PBM Airplanes December 7, 1945 Part I, Ships, Stations, Units, And Incidents Casualty Information Records. Now, somehow, miraculously, the physical draft the hardcopy draft of that speech survived the plane crash. Flying boats were notoriously accident-prone, and were even nicknamed flying gas tanks for their propensity for catching fire. ), Unidentified pilot: Dammit, if we could just fly west we would get home; head west, dammit. (Ed comments: This was the only voice of reason, one of the inexperienced pilots who recognized that they were still off the east coast of Florida in fact, based on even rudimentary navigation, that was the ONLY possibility. And it only makes the mystery of the plane's crash all the more confounding. I said I gotta get out of here, I cant take anymore of this. Was he fatigued or feeling ill? Suspicions that the seaplane may have gone up in flames were all but confirmed by a passing merchant ship, which spotted a fireball and found evidence of an oil slick in the ocean. But there has been speculation that perhaps the flight was tampered with. Its members eventually attributed the loss to causes or reasons unknown.. The cause of the crash was unclear. After that, apparently the pilots undergoing training made a navigational error. Apollo 13 (PAO) Spacecraft Commentary Flight 19 was a United States Navy training mission that disappeared in 1945 within the Bermuda Triangle, forming one of the central parts in the Bermuda Triangle mythology. Earhart and Noonan took off on July 2 from Lae, New Guinea. This episode was written by myself, Mike Yarvitz, and Kelsey Desiderio. The transcript wa Maddow: John Flannery is giving us a tour of the exact location where Pennsylvania Central Airlines Flight 19 met its end. The transcript was taken from the tape recorder located on board Glenn's spacecraft. Nancy Beck Young: He was on the run for not only his political life, but his actual life. Now, of course, there were no survivors of the crash to tell anyone anything about what had happened on board the plane. And it's headed toward this field and it doesn't appear to be able to avoid it. He was sworn-in to his first term in the House of Representatives in 1917, just a month before Congress took a very fateful vote on whether the U.S. would enter World War I. Lundeen, again, just a month into his first term in congress, he voted no. The primary method of determining the state vector is through radio tracking from Earth. ), FT-74: What is your present altitude? Witnesses say, in fact, they heard the engines roaring full tilt right up until the moment of impact. But something is definitely wrong. We had hundreds of planes out looking, and we searched over land and water for days, and nobody ever found the bodies or any debris. A Navy board of investigation was also left scratching its head. After that, at a timed turn point, they would veer north for about 70 miles and then turn southwest back to Ft. Lauderdale. Where was he? By Thomas Van Hare. And so you have to scratch your head. On the other side of the story, not only were trained personnel lost, but so were several planes. And although he certainly wasn't alone in that vote, it was a controversial vote. comments: apparently, the pilot is very confused at this point because there was almost no way given the flight times and speeds that he could have been over the Gulf of Mexico, yet that is what he assumed a heading of 030, in other words northeast, had the flight flying away from land and toward the open ocean.). Besides these records that directly relate the topic of Flight 19, there may be other series in record groups that are overlooked because they are not as well known and somewhat difficult to use. Radio check. Hart: This is a speech that's sort of unlike most that Lundeen gives. Radio Announcer: Instead of the program originally scheduled for this time, we bring you a talk by Senator Ernest Lundeen. Only later did the flight leader discover, however, that both of his compasses were broken. He's not sitting at his desk like usual. The five Avengers are filed under VTBM1/L11-1 1945 in Box 5181 and the Mariner is filed under VPBM5/L11-1 1945 in Box 4766. He reported that he came across a charred partially-burned piece of paper lying on the ground about three miles from the scene of the crash. Historic Wings is pleased to present our daily story celebrating what happened today in aviation history. Because the Justice Department's own prosecutors would soon reveal, in court, voluminous evidence they had in fact collected about Senator Lundeen. The loss of the planes in Flight 19 and the search plane PBM5 in 1945 with all the new innovations of RADAR, IFF (Identify Friend or Foe) Transponders, and the myriad of equipment that was available to pilots and crew to help them survive a crash, stay afloat and help searchers find them goes to show how big the ocean still is. Actpot, Actpot! Bradley Hart: Lundeen sort of creates a gadfly reputation for himself. 081335 AA11 20 Right Boston Sector: American 11 turn 20 degrees right. Maddow: Lundeens speech that he planned to give on Labor Day 1940, it extolled the great contributions of German culture to American life. He's got tears streaming down his face, but all he'll say to her is, I can't talk about it, and, I've gone too far to turn back. She doesn't know what this means. We couldnt. I will fly south and meet you. (Ed. One of the most oft-discussed and mysterious vanishings of aircraft revolve around the enigmatic Flight 19, in 1945. On the other side of the story, not only were trained personnel lost, but so were several planes. Hart: He wants to build an American version of fascism. Apollo 11 reads you loud and clear. Modern pilots are taught to recognize the Error Chain end things before they proceed to an accident. And they didn't just run him out of Congress, they ran him out of town on a rail. We may as well just turn around and go east again. His pilots probably argued against the decisionsome investigators even believe that one plane broke off and flew in a different directionbut most followed their commanders lead. And Senator Lundeen is at work, even though it's Labor Day Weekend. FT-74 returned to Ft. Lauderdale. The records of the 7th Naval District (Florida) and the naval air stations that were involved in the incident are in the custody of the, of the 7th Naval District. There is no plaque, there is no marker designating it as the site of a deadly plane crash. I dont know where we are, one of the pilots said over the radio. On 7 September 1983, Japan and the United States jointly released a transcript of Soviet communications, intercepted by the listening post at Wakkanai, Japan to an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council. Dont come after me., FT-74: Roger, youre at 2,300. Lundeen very clearly starts sweating about this, this sort of relationship. FT-28: One of the planes in the flight thinks if we went 270 degrees we could hit land.. The purpose of the training was to teach dead reckoning skills and using speed, heading, and elapsed time to navigate. Maddow: With the world steaming toward World War as Hitler stormed Europe, picking off country after country, U.S. Maddow: It's Saturday, August 31st, 1940. Join our Discord server! 080918 AA11 Check in AA11: Boston Center, good morning, American11 with you passing through one niner zero for two three zero. Pennsylvania Central Airlines had never had a crash in its entire history as an airline. It's absolutely an incredible artifact. Speculation, but no proof, one way or another. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! And the good people of Minnesota forgave him, apparently. His followers are, are armed. Archival radio material is from NBC News, via our beloved Library of Congress, with additional sound from CBS News. No copyright is asserted. The Senator just cried. At 2:10 p.m. on December 5, 1945, five TBM Avenger torpedo bombers took off from a Naval Air Station in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. 1. Well have to ditch unless landfallwhen the first plane drops below ten gallons, we all go down together. A few minutes later, the Avengers last radio communications were replaced by an eerie buzz of static. As weird and mysterious as his death in an inexplicable plane crash would prove to be, his last two weeks before the crash were fraught with anxiety, even panic. In a letter sent to the Senator's widow, the Attorney General wrote that law enforcement officials were on that plane with the Senator by pure coincidence.. Other books and fictional portrayals have suggested that magnetic anomalies, parallel dimensions and alien abductions might have all played a role in the tragedy. A short of list of select filing designations are A17-9 (Naval Courts and Boards), A17-24 (Court of Inquiry), A17-25 (Board of Investigations), L11-1 (Material Loss), the different aircraft types, VTBM1 and VPBM5, and the different naval air stations NA29 - Jacksonville NAS, NA59 - Cocoa and Banana River NAS, and NA106 - Fort Lauderdale NAS. He's slumped there. There were also those reports of an altercation that took place among the passengers on-board the plane, what the secretary reportedly saw before takeoff, what the policeman reportedly told her. One of the compelling aspects of this story compared to others of ships or aircraft lost in the Bermuda Triangle is that the air stations along eastern Florida were either listening to or in communication with the flight commander Lieutenant Charles Carroll Taylor as the flight was getting lost. Some of his flight flight 19 radio transcript whatever that means be able to avoid it this episode written... 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