Flight 19 was the designation of five TBM Avenger torpedo bombers which disappeared on December 5, 1945 during a United States Navy authorized overwater navigation training flight from Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The assignment was called super navigation problem No. 1, a combination of bombing and navigation, which other flights had or were scheduled to undertake that day.
Trouble of an unknown nature plagued the senior aviator designated to observe Flight 19 during this assignment. First with a late arrival requesting to be relieved, then later with complete confusion and irrational fears which further worsened the students' situation by mistakenly leading them away from land. All 14 airmen on the flight were lost, as well as 13 crew members of a PBM Mariner flying boat, which exploded in midair while searching for Flight 19. Navy investigators concluded that Flight 19 became disoriented and ditched in rough seas when the aircraft ran out of fuel, while the PBM was a victim of mechanical failure. Some have questioned the Navy's version in the years since Flight 19 disappeared. Argosy, Charles Berlitz, and Richard Winer among others used elements first described in American Legion Magazine as well as their own research to publish accounts discussing the Bermuda Triangle.
A fictionalized version of Flight 19 is featured in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
