Today, November 18, 2005, an AP story hit nationwide concerning Flight 19. It was scheduled to come out the day after Congressman E. Clay Shaw backed a Resolution in Congress (which passed overwhelmingly) regarding honoring the men of Flight 19. The article, written by Elizabeth Goodridge, has many, many inaccuracies. I was interviewed for 50 minutes, but I was referred to only once (fortunately) and this was a misrepresentation. I did not say that Flight 19 disappeared due to the “electronic fog” or that any electromagnetic aberration associated with the Triangle was necessarily involved. I said some of the Triangle’s electromagnetic quirks or the electronic fog might have early on contributed to Taylor and the others getting lost. But the reason the flight got lost and why it never made it back are two different things.

The story contains many inaccuracies, including:

1, That the correct direction that would have brought the flight back to land was EAST. No! As anybody knows, it was WEST. Taylor thought they should head east. If you are east of the Florida peninsula, going east will not bring you to Florida.

2, The flight time for Flight 19 was 2 hours and 15 minutes, NOT 3 hours. I stressed this. I even gave the time in and time out for Flight 18 before it: 1: 45 PM to 4 PM. Captain William O Burch, the base commander, was even quoted in 1945 as saying that the flight time was only a little over 2 hours. There is the great controversy: the Navy at Fort Lauderdale thought that Flight 19 was due back at 5:23 PM instead of the correct time of 4:23 PM. Therefore search operations were not started until an HOUR after the flight should have been due back.

3, The line attributed to the Navy ``We are not able to even make a good guess as to what happened.'' was never said. It originates in old pulp books.

4, There is solid evidence that Powers took over the flight and headed them WEST. Powers outranked Taylor by seniority, and it seems he pulled rank. Taylor could only “suggest” courses, and Powers was not responding to his demands to know “what course are we on?”

5, There is NO EVIDENCE that the flight turned around and headed EAST. The last direction of the flight was WEST. This is confirmed by radio transmissions.

Unfortunately, most associated with regurgitating Flight 19’s drama today had little to do with it, and are quite contaminated by old books (especially Larry Kusche’s old flop) they think are accurate. I was glad to see that David White was at least quoted. I hope that was accurate.

At the very least, for the record I have never stated that the flight vanished due to electronic fog. The controversies, ironies, and mysteries of Flight 19 are far more engrossing than any phenomenon in the Bermuda Triangle.