Currently, the aviation industry technically improved their airplanes with most improved flight tracking systems, updated black box with location tracking beacon. Despite all the technical efforts and improvements, some airplane mysteries still kept perplexed to the investigators for years. In the following discussion, five mysterious airplane disappearances and crashes in the aviation history are discussed.
The disappearance of Amelia Earhart:
It’s one of the most unexplained incidents in aviation history for which the US spent expensive $4-million for search and rescue operation. In 1937 an American aviation pioneer named Amelia Earhart attempted to circumnavigate the globe. On June 2, 1937, she went missing with her navigator Fred Noonan while they travel toward Howland Island, during her mission. However, some aviation expert believed that Earhart’s twin-engine Lockheed Electra crash-landed in the Pacific Ocean somewhere near their destination island.
In 1991, another expertise group called The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery argued that the exact crash location is a remote South Pacific island called Nikumaroro since 1989. However, the location of the wreckage or body still in a mystery that’s why further investigation still ongoing.
Flying Tiger Line Flight 739:
On March 16, 1962, a Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation propliner chartered by the United States military that mysteriously disappeared while flying over the Western Pacific Ocean. This military aircraft transporting total 107 passengers including 93 Us soldiers, Fear of Landing reported. This incident happened the aircraft was en route to Clark Air Base in the Philippines after refueling from at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam. All the107 passengers presumed to be dead and missing while no wreckage was found. However, US military conducted an eight days search and rescue operation and they search more than 200,000 square miles. It was one of the largest air and sea searches in the history of the Pacific.
The disappearance of Malaysian MH370:
This is one of the latest missing Airplane incidences when a scheduled international passenger flight disappeared from ATC radar on 8 March 2014. The passenger airliner was en route from m Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Malaysia, to Beijing Capital International Airport in China. The aircraft was carrying 12 Malaysian crew members and 227 passengers from 15 nations. On 5 October 2014, an SAR operation conducted by several southeast Asian nations and Australia with 19 vessels and 345 sorties by military aircraft searched over 4,600,000 square kilometers. This is most expensive SAR operation where authorities spending an estimated $150 million, reported by Rawstory. However, no strong evidence of wreckage of MH370 was found and the search was suspended on 17 January 2017.
1950 Douglas C-54D disappearance:
It’s one of the strangest airplane mysteries in US aviation timeline. A US army strategic command’s airplane Douglas C-54 Skymaster with serial no. 42-72469 vanished while en route from Alaska to Montana. However, the army conducted one of the largest SAR operations in military history with 85 aircraft and additional 75000 personnel. However, after searching 350,000 square miles of the Pacific Northwest no traces of the aircraft was found and all 44 passengers presumed to be dead. This is the strangest airplane mysteries where two officers stationed at Elmendorf AFB claimed about seeing unidentified flying objects just a week before the disappearance.
2003 Boeing 727-223 disappearance:
A Boeing 727-223, registered N844AA, was stolen from Quatro de Fevereiro Airport, Luanda, Angola on 25 May 2003. Its disappearance prompted a worldwide search by the United State’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Central Intelligence Agency. No trace of the aircraft has ever been found.
