December 5, 1945
Today in World War II Pacific History
Day by day chronology

WEDNESDAY, 5 DECEMBER 1945

USN: Five TBM Avengers of "Flight 19" took off from NAS Fort Lauderdale on a training for "Navigation problem No. 1" to conduct bombing and navigation flight eastward to Bermuda and went missing over the "Bermuda Triangle" and resulted in the loss of all five aircraft: TBM Avenger 23307, TBM Avenger 46094, TBM Avenger 45714, TBM Avenger 73209 and TBM Avenger 46325.

When it became clear "Flight 19" was lost, at 6:00pm a PBY Catalina took off to search for the flight and guide them back, but was unable to find the Avengers. After dark, two PBM Mariners took off from NAS Banana River and instead of flying a scheduled training mission were diverted to perform a search flying square patterns over the area to the west of f Lat 29°N Long 79°W were "Flight 19" was last reported. Lost was PBM-5 Mariner 59225 after a routine radio message at 7:30pm.