Top 10 Aviation Mysteries That Can't Be Explained

Of course, the Bermuda Triangle and aircraft mysteries go hand in hand. Said triangle is stretched between Bermuda, Puerto Rico, and the southern coast of Florida, and it’s said to be a hotspot of creepy disappearances. Many notable incidents have taken place inside the Bermuda Triangle, leading some to believe that the area is haunted or cursed. Others believe that it’s a region of strong alien activity, while some hold to more rational explanations, like haywire compass variations or something called methane hydrates. Yet others are confident that there is no mystery and that the area’s incident rate is not abnormal or extreme. Whatever the case, the phenomenon is both feared and well-documented.

A Boeing 767 was traveling from LAX to Cairo when it crashed into the Atlantic just off Massachusetts. The crash was investigated by the Egyptian Civil Aviation Agency and the National Transportation Safety Board. The ECAA called it a mechanical failure, but the NTSB believed that it was an intentional act performed by the relief first officer Gameel Al-Batouti. This was backed up by captain Hamdi Hanafi Taha. He claimed that the plane was carrying an executive who recently demoted Al-Batouti and that he crashed the plane to exact revenge. The NTSB requested for the FBI to take over, but the Egyptian authorities refused. As they did not have the investigative prowess of the FBI, the NTSB was unable to come to an official determination.

It was July 21, 1951, and a Douglas DC-4 was transporting six crew members and 31 passengers, most of whom belonged to the United States military. Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 3505 was flying from Vancouver to Tokyo with a stopover in Alaska. Unfortunately, the plane never reached the northern state. It was scheduled to arrive around midnight, and an emergency report was issued after about 45 minutes of silence. A massive search for the plane was undertaken and continued for months. But tragically, no trace of the plane was ever found, and the search was officially called off after three months. Some people think the icy conditions over Alaska are to blame, but no one actually knows what happened.

One of the most infamous names in aviation, D.B. Cooper entered the history books when he hijacked a plane on November 24, 1971. Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305 was flying from Portland to Seattle when it was quietly commandeered by Cooper. He privately threatened a flight attendant with a bomb and demanded $200,000 in cash. The plane landed without incident and Cooper received his money. He then instructed the now-empty plane to fly to Mexico City, but he parachuted out shortly after takeoff. A small portion of the money was recovered in 1980, but neither Cooper nor most of the cash have ever been found. The leading theory is that he died in the jump, but that has never been proven.

On March 10, 1956, Boeing B-47 Stratojet belonging to the United States Air Force took off from Florida carrying nuclear material. On board were three people - aircraft commander Robert Hodgin, observer Gordon Insley, and pilot Ronald Kurtz. The B-47 was headed across the Atlantic Ocean to the Ben Guerir Air Base in Morocco. It was scheduled to refuel near Algeria, but communication with the tanker was lost and the B-47 vanished from existence. While French news reported that the plane exploded, no one was able to find any pieces of the aircraft. The fate of the plane, or the reason behind its potential explosion, is unknown.

The Lockheed Constellation suffered its worst accident on March 16, 1962. The military propliner was carrying 96 passengers, all but three of which were soldiers of the United States Army. The plane was flying from California to Vietnam when it disappeared in the Western Pacific Ocean between the Philippines and Guam. It was declared missing by the Clark Field Rescue Coordinating Center, prompting what was at the time the largest search of the Pacific Ocean. The United States military scoured 200,000 miles of ocean, but to no success. There was a report that the plane exploded in mid-flight, but this was never corroborated and no debris was ever found. And even if it did explode, we don’t know why.

A small plane, this Avro Lancastrian belonging to British South American Airways was carrying eleven occupants in the afternoon of August 2, 1947. Flying from Buenos Aires to Santiago, Star Dust crashed into Mount Tupungato in Argentina, killing all eleven onboard. No trace of the plane was found for over fifty years. That changed in 1998, when two Argentine mountain climbers stumbled across some wreckage in a glacier. But one aspect of the case remains a mystery. Shortly before crashing, the aircraft sent a cryptic message through Morse code reading “STENDEC.” Various sound theories have been put forward regarding the meaning of “STENDEC,” but experts have been unable to come to a consensus.

This is perhaps the most famous disappearance within the Bermuda Triangle. What makes it so fascinating is that it involved multiple aircraft. Flight 19 was a group of five torpedo bombers that were flying over Fort Lauderdale on December 5, 1945. Received at 6:20 that evening, the eerie final message insinuates that they were ditching at sea. When the planes failed to return, a flying boat was sent to find them. This plane also disappeared, and 27 people were lost in total. The Navy published a report claiming that Flight 19 had been lost owing to a compass malfunction and that the flying boat exploded in mid-air. However, to avoid placing blame on the flight leader, they wrote that the cause was “unknown.”

This story is so famous that it has become legend. Amelia Earhart was an enormously popular figure in her time, being a highly accomplished pilot and best-selling author. In 1937, she attempted to circumnavigate the globe with her navigator, Fred Noonan. The two were flying in a Lockheed Model 10-E Electra when it disappeared near Howland Island in the Pacific Ocean. Most people believe that Earhart ran out of fuel and crashed. However, no debris has ever been found. Other, more conspiratorial theories exist, like crash landing on Gardner Island and getting captured by the Japanese. And, of course, there are the far-out-there theories, like Earhart being a secret spy or anonymously moving to New Jersey under a new identity.

The story of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is the biggest aviation mystery of our time. And until it is solved, it may be the biggest in history. The incident occurred on March 8, 2014, when the airplane flying from Malaysia to Beijing disappeared over the Indian Ocean. Thanks to modern technology, it’s becoming increasingly rare for airplanes to just disappear, but this one did. The search was massive, expensive, and lengthy, but despite the effort, the plane has never been found. Debris has washed up on shore, seemingly confirming that the plane was destroyed and that all 239 occupants are deceased. Countless theories have been put forth in an attempt to explain the bizarre loss, but no consensus has ever been reached.