Missing Flight For Monday Mystery...!

We don't often have a mystery involving planes as much as we do boats and ships, so today lets fix that.

This one is different due to the fact that when the plane went down, it's location was known. But then, it disappeared. How strange is that? Here is the story about this missing flight.

Transatlantic C-124 Flight

Photo credit: Walker Aviation Museum

This is a strange one. On the late afternoon of March 23, 1951, a US Air Force Douglas C-124 Globemaster II on its way to England ditched into the ocean. An explosion in the cargo hold and the ensuing fire forced the pilots to put the plane down in the Atlantic, a few hundred miles from Ireland. The exact location was radioed by the pilots, and the ditching itself was successful.

The 53 passengers and crew aboard the flight donned life preservers and climbed aboard well-equipped emergency rafts. A B-29 had already been en route with the intention of aiding the plane in its navigation to the nearest airfield. When it arrived at the location transmitted by the pilots, the crew of the B-29 observed the passengers and crew in their rafts. It seemed everyone was okay.

The B-29 then had to return to base, as it was running low on fuel. However, when rescue crews arrived, the plane and the stricken passengers had all disappeared without a trace. All that was left was a piece of charred plywood and a briefcase. Nobody knows what happened in those hours while help was on the way.

It just seems strange to me that in the time it probably took for the rescue plane to refuel, the downed plane and the passengers just vanished. Plenty of things could have happened, I guess, but it still seems strange to me.

Coffee out on the patio this morning, while it's still sort of cool.