Well i started researching flight 19's disappearance.
It would appear that flight 19 was radio located to be somewhere in position 29° 0′ 0″ N, 79° 0′ 0″ heading west toward the coast of Florida at about 6pm. The transmission that helped radio locate the flights position was a broadcast order from Flight 19s leader to "tighten up the formation" Though the flight was still more or less unaware of their position, several of the pilots in the formation insisted "If we just head west we will find Florida. From this radio located position, flight 19 would have made landfall just before 8pm
about an hour and a half later a PBM-5 search and rescue aircraft (similar to a PBY) was dispatched out of Banana River NAS and took up an approximate intercept course to locate flight 19 and guide them to land.
20 minutes later, and exactly west of Flight 19s radio located position, the PBM-5 search and rescue airplane explodes for an unknown reason. witnesses aboard a cargo ship said the explosion was massive temporarily lighting up the sky, debris fell into the ocean and burned for about 10 minutes.
Because the wreckage fell into the area of the 5 - 6 MPH current of the gulf stream, the wreckage remained afloat for a short time and sank. Any surface wreckage or sinking wreckage would have been dispersed over the course of the current, perhaps by a distance of a couple of miles.
The cargo ship diverted to look for survivors, found an oil slick with all fire extinguished on heavy seas, and no survivors.
It is very rare for airplanes to spontaneously explode, though has happened to a couple of airplanes through history.
It is my belief that the PBM-5 mariner, tasked with locating flight 19 did just that.
With the PBM-5's 13 man crew looking for possibly ditched aircraft, i would assume that a fair amount of the eyeballs aboard the PBM-5 were focusing on the surface of the sea searching for any signs of flames, wreckage or distress flares.
combined with...
Flight 19 trying very hard to navigate, most of their aviators possibly heads down trying to locate radio aids to navigation on their paper work, or trying very hard to peer toward the west fro any sign of lights indicating land. (the sun had been set for over an hour and a half)
I think that the cause for the massive explosion aboard the PBM-5 was a multi-aircraft mid-air collision between the PBM-5 and the tightened formation of flight 19.
If Flight 19 was within visual range of the coast of florida, it is plausible that they had lights in sight in the near pitch dark. If this is the cause it is completely possible that any lights on the PBM-5 would have blended right in with the coastal lights, and would have probably gone mostly un-noticed by flight-19
IMHO, searchers are not looking for intact Avenger bombers resting neatly on the sea floor as if they were ditched.
the should be looking for large pieces that would survive collision, such as engines or large pieces of the empennage of the aircraft.
I think Flight 19, very nearly out of fuel, collided with the nearly fully fueled PBM-5 search plane.
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