1. Amelia Earhart
Everyone has heard of Amelia Earhart and her disappearance in 1937, right? In case you haven’t, here’s the story. She was the first female aviator to fly alone across the Atlantic Ocean, for which she received the US Distinguished Flying Cross award. He also broke other records and wrote books about his experiences. She also helped form Ninety-Nines, an organization for women pilots.
In 1937, he took off on a flight around the world. It sailed from Oakland in California on May 20 and after several stops, reached Lae, Papua New Guinea on June 29 and left for Howland Island on July 2. She never reached her destination. Earhart and his Lockheed Model 10 Electra aircraft were never seen again. The theories about what happened to her varied enormously, from returning to the United States and assuming a new life under another name to being a spy who was killed by the Japanese.
2. Glenn Miller
Miller is another name that many people will have heard of. He was a famous big band musician, songwriter and bandleader of the swing era and one of the best-selling artists from 1939 to 1943. Some of his most famous songs were ‘In the Mood’ and ‘Moonlight Serenade’.
He was also a pilot and on the day of his disappearance he planned to fly from England to France to play with the soldiers stationed there during World War II. He was flying a single-engine UC-64 Norseman and left RAF Twinwood Farm at Clapham, Bedford, on December 15, 1944. Miller, not a trace of his plane, has even been discovered.
As with Amelia Earhart, theories abound about what happened to the musician. Some said it was the victim of friendly fire, shot down by Lancaster bombers who had to dispose of the bombs before returning to land. Another theory claimed that Miller was accidentally shot down by a gun battery in Folkstone, England. But the truth may never be known.
3. Flight 19
Flight 19 was actually five aircraft, TBM Avenger Torpedo bombers, which disappeared over the infamous Bermuda Triangle on December 5, 1945. They had departed from Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale, Florida with 14 airmen on board, none of them which was found.
The general theory was that the planes had somehow become disoriented and sunk into the ocean after running out of fuel. But no remains were ever found. Adding to the mystery, a 13-man PBM Mariner seaplane involved in the search for the planes, which is supposed to have exploded in midair, also disappeared.
4. Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 2501
Flight 2501 was a DC-4 propliner that disappeared at an altitude of 3,500 feet above Lake Michigan, 18 miles northwest of Benton Harbor. The plane was on a regular route from New York City to Seattle and disappeared on the night of June 23, 1950.
The plane had requested a descent to 2,500 feet but abruptly disappeared from radar. The searches were carried out with sonar in addition to dragging the bottom of the lake from trawlers, but nothing was found. Some light debris, upholstery and some human remains were found, but never all of the debris. 55 passengers and three crew members were on board, and the loss of 58 people was the deadliest commercial plane crash at the time.
5. Cessna 310
On October 16, 1972, Nick Begich, a member of the House of Representatives, boarded a Cessna 310 with House Majority Leader Hale Boggs of Louisiana. They were traveling from Anchorage to Juneau with Begich’s assistant Russell Brown, and pilot Don Jonz was flying them.
The plane disappeared, leading to a 39-day search by the United States Coast Guard, the United States Navy and the Air Force, without success. Neither the plane nor the four men were seen again. His disappearance led Congress to pass a law that all civil aircraft must have emergency locator transmitters.
6. Frederick Valentich
Another who reads some paranormal blogs may have heard of Valentich’s disappearance. This was a 20-year-old pilot in a Cessna 182L light aircraft that disappeared over Bass Strait in Australia on October 21, 1978.
Valentich was a UFO fanatic who had radioed Melbourne air traffic control to indicate that he was being followed by a plane about 1000 feet above him and at the same time was having trouble with his engine. His final report said “It is not an airplane.”
Searches for the missing pilot continued until October 25, by which time searchers had covered 1,000 square miles, but nothing was found. The Department of Transportation concluded that the plane had crashed and that it was presumed fatal to Valentich.
Five years later, a piece of debris was found on Flinders Island. It was concluded that it could have come from the missing Cessna and some of the serial numbers on the part partially matched those of Valentich’s plane. But nothing else has been found.
7. Ian Mackintosh
Ian Mackintosh MBE was a Scottish naval officer, as well as a suspense writer and screenwriter for television. He published novels from 1967 to 1970 and worked on television shows such as Warship, Wilde Alliance, and The Sandbaggers.
In July 1979, he was flying over the Gulf of Alaska with a friend, Graham Barber and his girlfriend Susan Insole, when he sent a distress signal. The US Coast Guard responded to the signal and recorded the last known location, but no remains were found. No remains have been found since then.
8. Boeing 727-223
The disappearance of the Boeing 727 N844AA from Quatro de Fevereiro Airport in Luanda, Angola, on May 25, 2003, was attributed to a single man, although a worldwide search by the FBI and CIA has never been able to confirm this.
The plane was empty and on the runway, and the only person believed to be on board was Ben Charles Padilla, an aircraft mechanic, flight engineer and private pilot. He has not been seen or heard of since. The plane took off down the runway with the control tower trying to make contact, but received no response. The tracking transponder was turned off and no trace of the scene was found.
9. Air France Flight 447
Flight 447 was an Airbus A330 aircraft that took off from Rio de Janeiro on June 1, 2009 and crashed around 2:10 UTC in the Atlantic Ocean. It was the deadliest accident Air France has ever experienced and only the second and worst A330 accident. 216 passengers and 12 crew members without survivors were lost.
The main wreckage from the crash was found within five days after the crash, but it took nearly two years to find the plane’s black box. This meant that until he recovered, no one really knew what had caused the accident. In the end, authorities concluded that the ice crystals caused the autopilot to disengage, leading to crew errors and an aerodynamic stall that caused the plane to crash into the ocean.
10. Malaysia Airlines flight MH370
The story so far of the missing Malaysian flight is sadly well known. In case you missed it somehow, here is a brief summary of the known facts: The flight left Kuala Lumpur on March 8, 2014 bound for Beijing. The plane was a Boeing 777 with 227 passengers and 12 crew members. Just over an hour into the flight, air traffic control lost contact with the plane, prompting a search and rescue effort.
The initial search area was the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea and was later said to be one of the largest in history. The Straits of Malacca and the Andaman Sea were the next areas to be covered, but still without success. By the 15th, the researchers scoured the Malay Peninsula without success, while the next day, satellite images appeared to show debris in the Indian Ocean.
At the time of writing, more debris has been investigated without success and despite authorities claiming the plane has been lost, no concrete evidence of this has yet been found.