Airline industry all over the world witnessed different tragic plane crashes and disappearances over the past years. Even though there have been several technology advancements, these mysterious airplane disappearances kept investigators clueless as they remain unsolved until now.
Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Model 10 Electra
On June 1, 1937, Emila Earhart, an aviation pioneer, and navigator, Fred Noonan left Miami to start their final voyage to circumnavigate the globe. However, on July 2, 1937, Earhart and Noonan went missing. The Lockheed Model 10 Electra - used by Earhart and Noonan - was never found, though it is believed to have been crashed in the Pacific Ocean somewhere in their target destination, Howland Island.
The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) has made a significant step about the mysterious disappearance of Earhart. The group searched the isolated South Pacific Island known as Nikumaroro since 1989. Experts assumed that this is the resting point of Earhart and Noonan's plane. There are few items gathered by the group such as shoe remnants, improvised tools, as well as aircraft wreckage.
In 2014, researchers found a portion of the missing aircraft in the southwestern Pacific Ocean and considered to be the first ever recognized fragment from Earhart's plane. TIGHAR examined the piece of metal fixed on Earhart's plane. The government reportedly spent $4 million on searching for Earhart, but she was officially declared dead in January of 1939.
Flying Tiger Line Flight 739
On March 16, 1962, the Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation propliner built by the U.S. military disappeared in the Western Pacific Ocean. The aircraft was carrying 3 South Vietnamese and 93 U.S. soldiers from Travis Air Force Base, California to Saigon, Vietnam, with 11 crew members on board.
The search for the missing plane lasts for eight days with 8 sea vessels and 48 aircraft to seek for 200,000 square miles of the ocean to find the plane. However, since there are no found clues regarding the whereabouts of the people on board and the plane, the search operation was called off.
Flight MH370
The Malaysian Airline Flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur flying to Beijing suddenly disappeared on March 8, 2014, and the 239 people on board went missing. Search operation starts just hours after it has lost contact to the air traffic control. The radar of the plane went off upon traveling to the southern part of the Indian Ocean, in which investigators concluded that it may probably crash in the isolated part of the ocean.
China, Australia, and Malaysia continue to conduct a search operation for the plane but the hunt was reportedly dismissed earlier this year as there are no traces of people and plane despite efforts for more than two years.
Bermuda Triangle Incidents
There have been several incidents of disappearing ships and planes in the triangular area of the Atlantic Ocean or the Bermuda Triangle over the past decades.
One of the most famous and shocking incidents of all time was in 1945 when five training flights from Florida naval base disappeared after flying over the Bermuda Triangle. The planes and the people on board were never found, and the Martin Mariner flying boat sent in the Bermuda Triangle for search operation went missing as well.
Some experts are still trying to solve these mysterious airplane disappearances, though reasons remain unknown. Only several conspiracy theories were made, like hurricanes destroying aircraft, fog engulfing an aircraft, or simply human error.