The Disappearance of Flight 19

I'm a big fan of Taylor, actually, but to say that Kusche is somehow guilty of libel is simply not true. All Kusche's conclusions of Taylor's actions that day closely match those of the US Navy's original findings, before they altered them to appease Taylor's family. Pure and simple, Taylor made mistakes no pilot with his experience should vave made and, because of his mistakes, men under his command died. He refused to admit that he was lost and he refused to listen to his men, many of whom were absolutely correct in their assessment of the situation. While the complete blame for the loss of flight 19 cannot by laid solely at Taylor's feet, he must bear the brunt and the majority of the blame. Navy documentation and radio transcripts prove this beyond a doubt.

I was the odd man out describing this book to co-workers enamored of the Bermuda Triangle and such. They had an unshakeable will to believe, with Disappearance described as "far fetched." When I asked another person to comment on the book after he had read it at my request, his emotional response was puzzling. He described flight group leader Charles Taylor as dishonest, citing Taylor's pulling "the wool over his mammy's eyes" and implicating Taylor's character as a cause of the tragedy. Later, I thought this person had probably hi-graded a cockpit clock during his World War II service and had been pricked by mention in Disappearance of a possibly stolen or perhaps otherwise missing clock (necessary for navigation) from Taylor's Avenger. The author implies that Taylor may have led Flight 19 north from the target area by mistake. A person would think, and almost hope, that one of the Avenger pilots would have said "The heck with this," turned his aircraft 90 degrees toward the west, and headed for the Florida coast. But it couldn't have been that simple. Those guys had to be smarter than I am, and they were all sadly lost. I thought one of the author's observations was very good: This took place during a particular "window" of technological development which, in effect, gave Flight 19 the ability to get in trouble but not out of trouble.

Flight 19 is in someways the 'Holy Grail' of Bermuda triangle buffs. 5 planes led by a experienced aviator disappear on a 'routine' flight in perfect weather. The first search plane also disappears in broad daylight. Mysterious and garbled radio transmissions that hint at well at anything the writer wants them to hint at. Books have been churned out reguritating theories from UFOs to Atlantis.Kusche simply does what a 'real' investigator should do. He does not simply recycle others' research, he goes to the source...the military records of the flight, the subsequent investigation and interviews with the surviving families. Like an onion, he peels backs the legends, the half truths, the out and out fabrications to review the knowable facts. He makes a strong case for what logically seems to have happened. A lost training flight in bad weather running out of gas in the dark. Ongoing confusion about exactly where they were and freakishly bad radio conditions both played a part. The rescue flight that was seen to explode in midair. A military review that skirted the issue of blame to alleviate the suffering of the victims' surviving families (especially the Taylors, the leader's mother).Clearly this was a personal tragedy but a great 'Mystery' sorry no.Kusche, to me, does not fall into the 'debunker' class, those who automatically reject anything that smacks of the bizarre. He does good research and states the knowable facts.