10 planes that disappeared without a trace

The fate of the Malaysia Airlines plane that disappeared in March 2014 still worries not only the relatives and friends of its passengers. But this flight was not the only missing flight in aviation history. Unfortunately, not all planes arrive on time to their destination, and some of them do not even leave traces of a wreck. Their mysterious fate is still shrouded in the darkness of obscurity.

MH370 Malaysia Airlines Flight Mystery

Pilot suicide? Technical malfunction? Hijacking? Until now, various versions of what actually happened to Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 on March 8, 2014 continue to appear.
A Boeing 777 with 227 passengers and 12 crew members disappeared from radar about an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia. The liner was heading to Beijing. Five hours after the loss of communication, the Malaysian government announced the disappearance of the plane. Its last location was at an altitude of about 11,000 meters, about 300 km southwest of the southern province of Vietnam. Four days after the disappearance of the flight, Malaysian investigators provided evidence that the plane had deviated significantly from its intended course and was flying towards the Strait of Malacca.
Experts believe that a catastrophic Boeing fall is unlikely, since the plane repeatedly changed altitude, first rising to 13,700 meters, and then smoothly dropping to 7,000, after which it flew for about six more hours. Most likely, the change in echelon was deliberate.
The search for the missing flight MH370 is still ongoing. At the moment, only a fragment of an aircraft has been found near the Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean. The reasons leading to the crash and its development on board are still unknown, just as the exact crash site of the Boeing has not been found.

On May 25, 2003, a Boeing 727-223 was stolen from the Cuatro de Fevereiro airport in Luganda, Angola.
At the time of the loss, the former American Airlines flight belonged to Miami-based Aerospace Sales & Leasing and was leased to TAAG Angola Airlines. Investigators managed to find out that at that time the plane was being repaired, which was carried out by flight engineer Ben Charles Padilla and his assistant John Mikel Mutantu, together with Angolan mechanics. None of them knew how to fly such an aircraft: Mutantu was not a pilot at all, and Padilla only had a private pilot's license. To operate the Boeing 727, a crew of three is required.
Nevertheless, after the completion of the repairs, Padilla and Mutantu boarded the plane and the liner began chaotic movement around the airfield without any communication with the dispatchers. As soon as 727 took off, its transponder was disabled and the plane disappeared forever.
It is believed that it was Padilla who was at the helm, since only he had at least some idea of ​​controlling an air vehicle. Some members of his family believe that he was simply fulfilling the task of Aerospace Sales & Leasing to take the plane from Air Angola for non-payment, while others suggest that Padilla could have been forced to kidnap Boeing against his will.

Disappearance of Flight 739 over the Pacific Ocean

On March 16, 1962, Charter Flight 739 Super Constellation with 96 US military on board and 11 crew members departed from Travis Air Force Base in California for Vietnam. After refueling in Guam, the plane headed for Clark AFB in the Philippines, but never arrived at its destination. Presumably, the plane crashed somewhere in the western Pacific Ocean. An hour after the last communication with the board, a tanker of the Standard Oil oil company reported an explosion in the sky.
Was it sabotage? Rocket? Engine problems? Today it is no longer possible to establish the truth. In its investigation report, the US Civil Aeronautics Administration concluded that "the crash of Flight 739 occurred suddenly and in a matter of seconds."

The death of Glenn Miller

On December 15, 1944, the leader of the famous jazz orchestra, Glenn Miller, flew from the British Air Force base to Paris to prepare the performance. His plane Norseman C-64 disappeared over the English Channel and was never found.
Miller applied to the Army in 1942, at the height of his orchestra's popularity. At 38 he was already old for military service, but he was allowed to create a military band. In 1944, he even received the rank of major.
The official report on Miller's disappearance said that the musician's plane was caught in bad weather over the English Channel, but rumors continued to multiply. Some believed that the plane was shot down by German fighters, others argued that Miller still made it to Paris, but was killed by German saboteurs. The most incredible version of the musician's death was invented already in the 90s by tabloid journalists, who claimed that Miller died of a heart attack in bed with a French prostitute, and the American military simply hid such a shameful death of the legend.
However, a completely different explanation for the tragedy is most likely, it was given by the navigator of the British Air Force Fred Shaw. According to Shaw, Miller's plane was hit by bombs from British bombers, which were forced to drop their deadly cargo into the sea after an unsuccessful flight to targets in the Belgian region.

The disappearance of Amelia Earhart

The disappearance of aviation pioneer and writer Amelia Earhart is one of the most famous in aviation history. Earhart was the first female pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. On June 2, 1937, her Lockheed Electra disappeared while attempting to orbit the globe. She herself and her navigator Fred Noonan went missing near Howland Island in the Pacific Ocean.
The US Navy immediately began searching for Amelia, but found no sign of the aircraft or bodies. The US government concluded that Earhart and Noonan were unable to locate Howland when they ran out of fuel, but as with MH370, new versions of the disaster continue to emerge. According to one of them, Amelia was a secret agent of Britain, was forced to make an emergency landing on an island occupied by Japan and was captured. According to another version, Amelia was able to get to the US coast, changed her name and lived a quiet life.
There is also evidence of the crash landing of Earhart and Noonan in the Nikumaroro Atoll area. Perhaps Amelia tried to splash down when the fuel ran out, but was unable to cope with the waves. In 1989, the international investigation team TIGHAR discovered remains of human bones, a woman's cosmetic bag, pieces of shoes and a can of sunscreen on this coral island. The investigation is ongoing.

Lost in the Bermuda Triangle

On December 5, 1945, five US Navy bombers took off from the Lauderleil military airfield for a planned training flight. All five aircraft and 14 pilots disappeared without a trace in the Bermuda Triangle.
All two hours of the flight before the loss of communication, the squadron leader reported that all his compasses were not working and he could not determine his position. Other aircraft also reported similar malfunctions, the last of which was the leader's command to land the aircraft on the water, as the fuel ran out.
An hour later, the Mariner with 13 rescuers on board went for the missing pilots. And he also disappeared. A tanker sailing along the coast of Florida reported that the Mariner exploded in mid-air twenty minutes after departure.
Every meter of the Gulf of Mexico was combed by hundreds of ships and aircraft, but no trace of the squadron or the Mariner was found.

Lost plane with paintings

In 1979, half an hour after taking off from Narita International Airport in Tokyo, a Varig Brazilian Airlines cargo plane went missing. The 707th carried 153 paintings by the artist Manubu Mabe with a total value of more than $ 1.2 million. The plane, paintings and six crew members are still missing. Was it a heist in the air or just a control failure? Nobody can say for sure.

DC-4 with US military disappeared near Anchorage

DC-4 Canadian Pacific Air Lines disappeared en route from Vancouver to Tokyo on July 21, 1951. The plane made a planned landing in Anchorage, Alaska, but then got into bad weather. There was heavy rain, icing and visibility was only about 500 feet. The weather report was the last to be received from the aircraft, and even an intensified search yielded no results.
Onboard there were 6 crew members and 31 passengers - soldiers and officers of the US armed forces.

Airplane with a failed engine

In 1964, a 9-passenger DC-4 en route to Los Angeles disappeared over the Pacific Ocean. At 500 miles offshore, the crew reported a problem with the engine and did not get in touch again.
A Navy search force found an oil slick on the water, there were even witnesses who saw the plane's sinking tail, but no real trace of the DC-4 or its passengers was found.

58 people disappeared in the waters of Lake Michigan

In June 1950, Northwest Airlines Flight 2501 disappeared over the waters of Lake Michigan with 58 passengers on board. For a week, rescuers on boats and planes searched for the missing flight, but apart from a small amount of debris and body fragments, no other traces of the accident were found, and the causes of the disaster remained unclear.

Airplanes sometimes fall, disasters occur. It is always unexpected and unpredictable. We can only hope that scientific and technological progress in the near future will reveal the secrets of at least some incomprehensible disasters and will help to find the airliners that once took off, but never landed.