As the world waits to find out what has happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, your mind can't help but wander. How does a plane just vanish? Airplane crashes are often terrifying and devastating, but what happens when you don't know where the plane went? Anxiety overwhelms you. The plane has disappeared into the abyss.
Every mystery garners a series of conspiracies. Was it hijacked, only to be reused for terrorism? Did aliens beam the flight into outer space? Did the flight just up and vanish into another dimension? Only time will tell.
Mysterious flights have vanished all over the world since the beginning of aviation. Check out some of these planes that went missing in the South Pacific and the Bermuda Triangle. Other mysteries of air travel include downed planes with multiple stories about why they fell. The sky is a mysterious place, if you aren't careful.
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Amelia Earhart
Amelia Earhart was an aviation innovator. She was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. She sought to top that record by circumnavigating the globe. In 1937, she left on the journey. In her last radio transmission, somewhere in the South Pacific, she said she couldn't find the airstrip and that she was almost out of gas. She was never heard from again, and her plane still has never been recovered.
EgyptAir Flight 990
In 1999, a Cairo-bound flight crashed sixty miles into the ocean off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts. 217 passengers were killed. They found the wreckage, but the mystery remains: Why did this happen? A U.S. National Transportation Safety Board reported that the crash was caused by a distraught pilot. The Egyptian Civil Aviation Authority disagreed and claimed that the crash was due to mechanical error.
Glenn Miller
In 1944, famous bandleader Glenn Miller's plane was last seen crossing the English Channel. It disappeared into the fog two minutes after taking off. This was the height of World War II, so some allege the plane was mistakenly bombed by the British Air Force. Others allege that it was a coverup for Miller's actual death in a French bordello.
Pan Am Flight 103
In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103, flying from Europe to North America, was blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland. 243 passengers, 16 crew members, and 11 people on the ground were killed by the damage. The question of who planted the bomb remained for many years. Eventually a Libyan intelligence operative was convicted of the crime. Though in March 2014, a former Iranian intelligence officer claims that the bombing was actually ordered by Iran in retaliation for a U.S. strike on an Iranian passenger flight.
TWA Flight 800
230 people were killed in 1996, when TWA Flight 800 crashed just outside of JFK. A report four years later suggested that the accident was probably caused by an explosion of flammable air vapors in the fuel tank ignited by a short circuit. Several witnesses allege that they saw the plane get hit by a missile.
Star Dust
In 1947, an English plane disappeared in South America. The British South American Airways Star Dust had left Buenos Aires heading over the Andes to Santiago. The plane never arrived, but along the way the crew delivered a cryptic morse code message: "STENDEC." Some allege that this was the work of UFOs, though experts suggest that the plane probably just crashed into the snowcapped mountains.
Flight 19
In 1945, five planes left from a naval base in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. 14 airmen disappeared. The military alleges that all of these planes became disoriented and crashed into the ocean after running out of fuel. Other people suggest that they were swept up into the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle. The planes have never been recovered.
Air France Flight 447
In 2009, an Air France Flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. 228 passengers and crew were all killed. For five days, the world waited for the mystery to unravel. Eventually, the search-and-rescue team found the wreckage. It took another three years for a report to reveal the cause of the accident: ice had caused the autopilot to disengage. To this day, 74 bodies still remain unaccounted for.
Malaysia Airlines MH370
March 2014: Malaysia Airlines MH370 is the current cause for concern. The flight left Malaysia on Friday, March 7, 2014. To date, the flight still hasn't been found. The latest news suggests that the flight veered away from its path, and could have disappeared somewhere en route towards India. New details constantly emerge, but the mystery remains.
The Star Tiger
The British South American Airways operated Star Tiger went missing somewhere between the Azores and Bermuda in 1948. The final communication from the flight asked Bermuda air control to send a signal. After delivering that information, the Bermudans did not hear back from the plane. The Star Tiger disappeared into the belly of the Bermuda Triangle.