Airplanes That Disappeared One of the things which has puzzled us for many years is why there are so many missing planes. It is hard to fathom even more as technology advances. Many believe one of the reasons is some type of sabotage in some cases. Others think there is some type of extraterrestrial involvement. Still others think the missing planes have their locations known, but they are being kept secret for some reason, but it isn’t only missing planes it is also missing ships. While the planes hit the news more frequently it is probably because there are so many planes in the air. Over the years it seems one of the reasons planes might disappear is they are either shot down by accident or on purpose. One of the most famous missing planes of all time was the plane piloted by Amelia Earhart. The plane has become a legend and people have been saying they discovered the plane for many years since it disappeared. The truth is the plane has never been discovered and probably crashed into the sea. Before planes, people flying balloons sometimes disappeared. In December 28, 1856 a balloon being flown by Matias Perez disappeared. The balloon was of the hot air type. He was flying over Florida and it is believed he was lost just over the Atlantic Ocean. As time marched on airships began to appear. On October 18, 1910 an airship named America, which was a blimp, suffered engine failure and was lost over the Atlantic ocean. While the craft was lost, the crew was rescued. In 1910 an airplane was lost over the English Channel. It had tried to win the Baron de Forest Prize. This very early plane could easily had almost any type of problem staying in the air. Engines were not that reliable and the early planes were very fragile. The aircraft was named the Cecil Grace. So began a long series of early planes disappearing, many of them when they were flying over water. One early fight which disappeared was very interesting to me since it was an unmanned flight. We tend to think of drones as a modern invention but this plane, which was really an early drone, was flying in 1918. The name of the plane was the Hewitt-Sperry Automatic Airplane. I don’t know if this plane was the very first commercial airliner to be lost, but it certainly was an early one. On April 24, 1924, a Fokker F.III was flying commercial routes for KLM airlines. Bet you didn’t know KLM has been around that long. The plane was carrying 3 people. It is presumed it crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. It was flying a route from Lympne to Rotterdam. It was decided early on a seaplane would be an advantage because there is plenty of water on this planet to land and takeoff from. In the late 1930s a sea plane known as the Hawaii Clipper was on a commercial flight with 15 people onboard. Unfortunately, the plane disappeared. It was believed it must have crashed into the Pacific Ocean. It was a Martin M-130 seaplane. During wars many planes disappear. Sometimes they are not even performing a military flight but something much more mundane, such as delivering mail. On November 27, 1940 a plane which was on the mail run to the following cities, Marseille, Bizerte, Beirut and Damascus was believed to be shot down over the Mediterranean Sea. It is believed it might have strayed into an air battle. During World War II women pilots were used to ferry planes. On October 26, 1944 Gertrude Tompkins Silver was flying a P-51 Mustang from Los Angeles to Palm Springs. She never made it. She was the only woman pilot lost during the war. It was believed the plane went down somewhere around Santa Monica Bay. Another very famous plane loss occurred in December 1945 when five TBM Avenger planes were on a training mission from Florida to the Bahamas. All five planes were lost and never found. Fourteen people died and many believe something happened because they were over the Bermuda Triangle. Canada’s wilderness is known for planes meeting their ends. In 1950 a Douglas C-54D Skymaster with 44 people on board disappeared somewhere near the Yukon. In 1953, on November 23, a F-89C Scorpion was dispatched to intercept an unknown object in the sky. It had been detected on radar. The plane never returned and the two men aboard disappeared. You can imagine the theories which accompanied this loss. The biggest being it was either destroyed or captured by a UFO. Some of the planes we lost were carrying very dangerous cargo. On March 10, 1956 a Boeing B-47 Stratojet Bomber went missing over the Atlantic Ocean. The crew of three was lost, but even worse was the fact it was carrying nuclear bombs which were lost. These are not the only nuclear bombs which were lost. The United States is said to have lost 11 nuclear bombs. You also have to add in the nuclear bombs lost by the Russians and maybe others. Not to forget those nuclear weapons lost on submarines. Sometimes planes disappear for bizarre reasons. Take the case of the Douglas DC-2 which disappeared on October 3, 1980. It only had a limited airworthiness certificate and was scheduled to be sent to a museum. It took off with two people onboard when it was unauthorized to. The runway was unrated and could have been damaged. The plane had no radio equipment and was believed to have gone down over the Atlantic Ocean. Some air disappearances are more famous than others and the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight 370 ranks right up at the top. The commercial flight, a Boeing 777-200ER, disappeared while flying from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia to Beijing, China. The flight took off on 8 March, 2014 and just disappeared. Its last transmission was over the South China Sea. One would wonder how an airliner could just disappear with all the radar from the surrounding countries and yet it did. There were many conspiracy theories some of which postulated China might have shot it down in error. Of course, there was always those UFO conspiracies but the most probable is it probably ran into trouble and went into the ocean, but why was there no radio communication about any problems? This just makes this case even more mysterious. Thousands of planes have probably disappeared since man has been flying, but it seems when you consider the number of modern airplanes in the sky, flying is the safest way to get around.
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