Flight 19?

snipped-for-privacy@aol.comedy (Keeper) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mb-m07.aol.com:

I saw it. They used partial panel numbers, tail numbers and various other details to show the planes went down in five separate incidents and prove it's not 19, but now they are puzzled why all five Avengers went down so close together. Hmmm. Maybe it's a main flight path?

TF

Thanks muchly! They looked like they were in restorable shape regardless of the salt water. Anyone got a floating crane? 8^)

The Keeper (of too much crap!)

Problem is, as soon as you haul them out, the Navy will have the FBI knocking on your door wanting the Navy's property back. That's why there have been no attempts to salvage that Douglas TBD that some Gent has found off Florida, or the one at the bottom of Roi Lagoon.

Bill shuey

Take an awfully big bubble of methane to do that- seems a little fishy to me (no fish fart pun intended).

think Blazing Saddles.....

They did experiments and discovered that right around 1% methane will kill a radial engine. They also had to speculate, though the speculation was proved to be plausible, that enormous erruptions of methane gas are more than possible in that area, large enough to change the density of air. Since altimeters read relative air pressure, if the air suddenly becomes thinner, two things happen-- the plane looses lift and the altimeter indicates a higher altitude. At night, with no horizon, a pilot relying on his altimeter might think he's suddenly climbing and push the nose over. Since he's actually losing altitude already, the plane dives and smacks into the ocean.

In the scenario where methane is not present in sufficient quantity to cause the pilot to dive, but is present enough to make the engine konk out, several pilots who survived these incidents did report sudden, unexplained engine failure. And since all 5 aircraft in question are located in an area known to have methane eruptions, this is probably the explanation.

The bit about ships foundering has to do with a ship entering an area just as one of these methane pockets erupts. The net effect is the water is momentarily no longer able to support the ship-- the bow or stern of the ship is swamped and the ship either breaks its back or capsizes.

Scott

Scott snipped-for-privacy@AOL.com

The problem with the methane bubble burst theory, like many others that leave out a major equation, is the radio conversation that went on for quite awhile.

The methane bubble could well explain the quick crash of all of the aircraft in the flight. It ignores the radio messages such as "Can't see land. It should be right there", "Compass going crazy" and the like.

The last radio messages overheard indicated one aircraft at a time ditching, not all at once.

Some day they'll find them. Another search for Amelia Earhart is currently underway near Howland Island. Bob Ballard recently stated that everything ever lost in the oceans of the world shall eventually be found.

Tom

I saw that methane stuff on TV, as usual its not flawed science, but flawed analysis of the science in an attempt to make something seem more likely than it really is. If you have dozens of ships and planes going down under such conditions, you should have many more dozens of survivors which did not catch the full impact of the event. It's fun stuff but not good science overall.

Jim Atk> Take an awfully big bubble of methane to do that- seems a little fishy to me

Actually, no methane bubbles are necessary to explain disappearances of ships and aircraft in the "Bermuda Triangle." It's just statistics--there's more traffic there, ergo more losses, a percentage of which will be to unknown, but not necessarily supernatural, causes. Like postulating a mysterious "I-95 Rectangle" to explain why there are more accidents there than Rural Route 8. GPO

They were not saying this is what happened to Flight 19. They were saying this was the most plausible explanation for what happened to 5 aircraft that ditched/crashed within an impossibly small radius of each other over a 3 year period-- several of which the pilots survived and reported sudden engine failure.

The percentage of methane was derived by using an identical radial engine on a test-bed and regulating the air mixture. Given that methane is odorless and colorless, the pilots would not have known it was present, especially if it only takes 1% to do the job.

Scott snipped-for-privacy@AOL.com

True, but this scenario has also been brought forward as an explanation for the dsappearance of Flight 19 on at least two televised programs.

Tom

The problem with that theory is the explanation of hindsight. Take five aircraft that are situated on a seabed and went down ridiculously close together. Must be something mysterious that caused that....if there were no other aircraft going down over the sea then that is certainly is outside the realm of coincidence. However, take thousands of flights in that period over the same area following the same basic course with similar aircraft....you indeed will find that many are in the water due to sudden engine failure (the most common cause of single engine aircraft going down over water) and that they are randomly situated....there will be many areas where there are no aircraft and others where are groups of aircraft. Often the simple explanations are more hard to figure out than the fantastic and it requires a huge input of data to find out just what may have been a common denominator (if there is one)...and no one has the resources to do that kind of study...so we go to the fantastic explanations. It could be mere coincidence, one in ten thousand or one in a million, but you are still stuck with the coincidence that someone will deny in order to sell a TV show or write a book.

My brother flew for twenty years in private aircraft much more reliable than Avengers and had one in flight engine fire (a twin engine aircraft fortunately) and two single engine aircraft in which the engines just quit. One he bellied into a field...the other is still at the bottom of Lake Ponchitrain. Maybe it went down because of methane gas (although considering he just refueled the aircraft ten minutes before he went down might have had something to do with bad gas)!!! Of course, he might have flown the other aircraft whose engine quit over a landfill...

Most of us have been in panic situations were suddenly our senses leave us....Poe described the human failing best, "

"And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;" (Raven)

Panic and fear are the worst enemy of anyone lost. Definitely a "mindkiller" (Dune)

These fantastic theories are fun, but not hardly worth tak> in