Original subtitles

[dramatic music]

narrator: Tonight... - Dive, dive, dive!

narrator: On "The Bermuda Triangle:

Into Cursed Waters,"

two Air Force planes vanish.

- They actually disappeared off the radar

at very high altitudes.

- No one knows what happened to those aircrafts.

narrator: Did they crash or collide

with some unexplained phenomenon?

- Extremely fast. Like Mach 4, Mach 5.

- Sensitive military equipment

picked up on something zooming through the skies.

- On this particular night, there were fast movers.

- The UAP threat is real.

narrator: How many planes have been taken down?

- I hope you're sitting down.

- One disintegrated.

narrator: The team dives for answers.

- The tail was missing.

It looked like someone took a Ginsu knife to the aircraft.

And we realized we don't know where Jim is.

We got one minute and then we were going to abort the dive.

♪ ♪

We got a problem here.

♪ ♪

narrator: There is a place

that evokes fear and fascination.

Bounded by Florida, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico,

the Bermuda Triangle has swallowed countless ships,

planes, and people.

But why?

♪ ♪

Now an elite team dives in.

- These are dangerous dives.

- Any sane person would not be doing this.

narrator: Their secret weapon--

a map decades in the making

which pinpoints unidentified wrecks.

- There's all these shipwrecks out there

in the Bermuda Triangle that there's no names to.

- Dive, dive, dive.

narrator: The mission,

solve the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle

one wreck at a time.

- Mother Nature is gonna take these wrecks away,

and these mysteries are never gonna be solved.

The clock is ticking.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

- My passion is trying to identify wrecks,

because you can unravel this history.

It is coming, right?

♪ ♪

Once you can identify, give its real name,

then you'll get the real story.

You'll know the final chapter.

But there's still a potential risk.

You have to be concerned about everything.

Whether it be the weather,

the dive conditions,

and other potential threats.

You have to be aware of that risk.

We have a new target,

Snowy Grouper Wreck.

narrator: Today, marine biologist and explorer

Mike Barnette and his team of elite divers

are investigating a case where history

and science fiction may collide,

called the Snowy Grouper Wreck.

It's one of the targets on Barnette's

closely-guarded map.

It's 45 miles off the coast of Southern Florida

sitting at a depth that is out of reach for most divers.

- It's about 360 foot water.

So it's a deep, deep dive.

So we gotta be in our A game here.

I mean, the depth in the current

usually is enough to dissuade any--

- Who's gonna go dive that?

- Any sane person would not be doing this.

- Diving out here is like a box of chocolates.

You never know what you're gonna get.

narrator: Like many targets on Barnette's map,

he heard about the wreck from a fisherman,

one who was fishing for snowy grouper,

a fish found in the western Atlantic.

- So from the fisherman that gave us the intelligence,

all he knew was there was a fairly

large structure on the bottom.

He didn't know what it was.

narrator: Whatever it was, it kept cutting his nets.

- He hooked into a large fish.

And the line would cut off.

So he was trying to figure out

what the structure was on the bottom

that was so easily able to cut his lines.

Very sharp wreckage.

So knowing that, there's most likely metal in the bottom.

narrator: Barnette knows of one type

of wreck that could do that, and it's not from a ship.

- If it's an aircraft, you have very sharp aluminum

consistent with a lot of break offs.

Still in the heart of the triangle,

and there's been a lot of vessels and a lot of aircraft

in particular that have gone missing in this area.

narrator: The presence of aluminum

could provide a clue to the real identity

of Snowy Grouper.

On August 28th, 1963, two US Air Force Stratotankers

based out of Homestead, Florida

are deep inside the triangle on a mission.

Stratotankers are like flying gas trunks

designed to deliver fuel mid-air

to bombers and fighter planes.

Team member and retired Air Force pilot, Jason Harris,

also flew refueling aircraft

and has studied what happened next.

[airplanes whoosh]

- You had one that was flying at 36,000 feet,

and you had the second aircraft

that was flying at 35,500 feet.

So a 500 foot separation.

And then the next moment they hit a low pressure system

in the Bermuda Triangle.

narrator: Both tankers inexplicably

drop out of radio contact.

- We knew where they were at,

and then the next moment all contact was lost.

Those aircraft were not recovered.

No one knows what happened to those aircraft.

narrator: Dozens of planes and ships are sent by the military

to search for the missing refuelers,

but neither aircraft nor the bodies of 11 crew members

are ever found.

♪ ♪

Barnette thinks the Snowy Grouper Wreck

could be one of the Stratotankers

or pieces of both.

♪ ♪

But nothing about this 360-foot dive will be simple.

At this depth, the divers would normally

follow the anchor line to the bottom,

but the current here is too strong.

- Just too much drag on you.

You'll be tired before you even get

halfway to the bottom.

You will be exerted from just being just whipped.

narrator: Instead, the divers will attempt

a far riskier maneuver called dropping in.

♪ ♪

- So right now, we have about

two and a half to three knots of current.

We're basically running over the site

to determine where our drop point needs to be.

When we get in, we're going to have to

go straight down to the bottom.

If the current lets up on the bottom,

we have a straight shot to get to the wreck.

narrator: It's almost like a free fall.

The diver can't control their endpoint

or the strong current.

- It's akin to skydiving.

Jumping out a plane not directly over the target,

but the wind is blowing you in to your destination,

and you have to use the current to your advantage.

narrator: But misjudge the current,

and they'll miss the wreck.

- Things could go wrong at any point in time on a dive,

and these are dangerous dives.

We're not talking about 200 or 300 feet.

These are another ballgame.

- [breathing]

narrator: The team breaths in a gas mixture called a trimix.

- You can't use normal compressed air,

because at depth, these extreme pressures,

oxygen becomes toxic.

It'll kill you, and also nitrogen is a narcotic.

It'll be debilitating you.

Makes you feel like you are drunk almost.

So to combat those effects, the toxicity as well

as the narcosis, we displace both nitrogen

and oxygen with an inert gas.

In this case, helium.

narrator: Barnette and his team, wreck specialist

Jimmy Gadomski, and underwater photographer Evan Kovacs,

only have 20 minutes of bottom time

before they must start their two-hour ascent.

If they surface too quickly,

they risk getting decompression sickness,

also known as the bends.

- Every minute we exceed that, we're gonna be adding

15 to 20 minutes of decompression.

We don't wanna go anything past that.

- Dive, dive, dive.

♪ ♪

- Divers under at 12:32.

The clock has started.

Now we wait and watch.

♪ ♪

- On a dive of this depth, it took us about two minutes

to get to the bottom.

We actually have diver propulsion vehicles

or scooters.

We basically have props, and they pull us down.

narrator: As soon as they reach the ocean floor,

their clock begins.

- But as we got towards the bottom,

we realized visibility was starting to close in on us.

It was getting murkier and murkier.

- The vis is that bad right now.

We could just barely see each other.

It's dark. It's murky.

I can't see anything.

I can't see my hand in front of my face.

- And we're just seeing 10 to 15 feet

in front of us with our lights.

It was almost like a night dive.

It was so dark on the bottom,

and we're just seeing a sand wasteland.

narrator: The dive clock continues to tick.

♪ ♪

- Spools of fish came out to meet us.

You see fish, you're in proximity to a wreck.

♪ ♪

narrator: Then...

they find what they're looking for.

♪ ♪

The wreck is covered in fishing nets

ripped by its sharp surfaces

just like the fishermen reported.

- So looked to be the edge of the left wing,

and we saw two masses that were the engines.

So indicates this is a large aircraft, four engines.

But what kind of aircraft it is, we don't know yet.

narrator: The plane's size and multiple engines

are similar to the missing Stratotankers,

but the murky darkness makes a positive ID difficult.

- What was curious about it,

just after the wing,

the fuselage and the tail were missing.

It looked like someone took a Ginsu knife to the aircraft.

♪ ♪

narrator: But then the dive team encounters a problem.

- We were spreading out.

We find the wreck, and I see lights behind me.

I see Evan, and I realize Jimmy's not with him.

♪ ♪

narrator: Barnette signals to Evan

that he's lost sight of Jimmy.

- I'm racing back and forth like a mother hen

trying to get everyone back together.

I go to the edge of the wing, look up,

shining my light, flashing.

narrator: Barnette tries signaling his dive partner,

but there's no response.

- We're flashing side to side.

We're just trying to get their attention.

Flashing light draws their attention that quicker.

I'm flashing.

I'm hoping he can see it, but I see nothing.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

narrator: Mike Barnette tries to remain calm

as he searches for his diving partner,

Jimmy Gadomski.

The longer he's missing, the more dangerous

the dive gets for the entire team.

They've used up most of their precious dive time.

- I made multiple trips over several minutes

hoping that he eventually worked his way towards us.

Now, I'm getting concerned,

so I'm constantly zipping around.

narrator: They're attempting to investigate

a mystery target on Barnette's map

called the Snowy Grouper Wreck,

360 feet below the surface of the Bermuda Triangle.

- And we got one minute, and we're going to have to abort

the dive and have to surface.

narrator: The divers must make their two-hour ascent

as a group, or they could potentially drift miles apart.

- If Jimmy decides to abort

and shoots a marker to the surface,

the top side crew will think everyone's all together.

They're not gonna know for two hours

until Jimmy surfaces that he's all alone.

The potential scenarios that could unfold

if we don't reunite, not a good one.

narrator: Barnette's ultimate mission

may be to identify the wreck,

but Jimmy's safety comes first.

- Now, one more time off the wing

and into the edge of the gloom.

I'm flashing.

I'm hoping he can see it, but if he's not

looking the right direction or he is too far away,

he's not gonna see that.

♪ ♪

And I finally see Jimmy's light

working his way back towards us.

- Trying to follow the line down to the bottom,

and I lose them.

And they ended up getting to the other side of the wreck

than I did.

- Jimmy got distracted, got basically misled

by some debris that's out in the sand,

and solely worked his way back to the wreck site.

- Then I saw their lights on the other side of the wreck,

and we ended up all looking up on the bottom there.

- It wasn't until I see Jimmy's lights

that I could breathe a sigh of relief

and actually enjoy the dive.

♪ ♪

We lost about half the dive time.

Your time is very finite.

narrator: The team now has only minutes

to study the wreck.

- We saw a very large aircraft, four engines,

the wings were intact, and I also noticed

this DayGlo orange color,

which is a fairly common pattern

used by the U.S. Air Force

for visibility for refueling aircraft.

That led me to believe,

"This is potentially a military aircraft."

narrator: Unlike the back of the plane,

the front half appears to be intact,

but the aircraft is so large

they're having trouble exploring every detail.

- There's a door over the wing that was open,

and then as we got to the cockpit...

♪ ♪

narrator: Time's up.

♪ ♪

Two hours later...

♪ ♪

They reach the surface.

- [exhales]

It was kind of stumbling around the dark,

trying to find this wreck.

Saw a large aircraft,

getting kinda excited what this could be.

♪ ♪

narrator: Back on shore, Jason Harris,

military historian David O'Keefe,

and historical investigator Wayne Abbott

join Barnette to break down the footage

to see if there were clues connecting it

to the two missing Stratotankers.

- What is it right there that we see?

- So we're seeing some debris here.

We're on the periphery of this aircraft.

Again, we see the large fuselage.

- Civilian? Military? Do we know?

- I would lend to believe this is most likely military.

This is 40, 50 miles offshore.

There's a lot of military training going on out here.

- So how long do you think it's been down here?

That'll help us narrow down the era that we're working on.

- This is a large aircraft.

I'm thinking it might be post World War II.

Gives a vibe of maybe the '50s into the '60s.

narrator: The wreck is looking more and more

like Barnette's suspect,

one of the two military refueling aircraft

or maybe parts of both.

- In August of 1963,

there were two air refueling aircraft,

KC-135 Stratotankers.

They were on a routine training mission

500 feet apart.

It was over the Bermuda Triangle,

and they just disappeared.

Basically went missing.

narrator: As a pilot, this mystery

is particularly meaningful to Jason.

- When I look at these stories,

I realize that this could easily be me.

Every single time that I strap on that aircraft

and go out to do my job, it's possible

that I won't come back, and my wife will have

to read a story about how I perished.

No one has ever found the wreckage

from these two aircrafts.

- Well, it certainly puts it in our time zone,

somewhere between the '40s and the '60s.

So they're up high for a reason and two of them together.

- And you've never found the tail.

- Never.

- If we see a tail number or a data plate,

then that's gonna help us to identify the airplane.

narrator: Finding the tail

would be a key goal on a return dive,

but there's also another clue.

- We saw this one hatch over the wing.

It was open.

- If an aircraft goes down,

it's likely that that hatch

would've not been open prior to it going down.

narrator: When the Stratotankers disappeared

in 1963, not only were the two planes never found.

No bodies were found either.

So if the crew bailed out, what happened to them?

- These doors won't spontaneously

open on their own. - No.

- I mean, this has to be opened by someone.

So that kind of is a tantalizing clue.

narrator: With little else to go on,

poor visibility, and limited bottom time,

the team agrees that a follow-up dive is crucial.

In the meantime, Wayne and David see a possible link

to one of the most frequently reported anomalies

in the Bermuda Triangle--

unidentified aerial phenomena.

- UAPs and the military, it's a huge news story right now.

I mean, there's been so many disappearances

in the Triangle.

Like these two Stratotankers just

disappeared off the radar.

- The Pentagon is now reporting 400 UFO encounters,

and they want to know what's out there.

- And there's even a quote from the chairman

of the counterintelligence subcommittee

that actually says that UAPs

are potential national security threat,

and they need to be treated that way.

- And it's also one of the most controversial,

because of course, as soon as you mention

disappeared planes, there's talk of UAP.

- And is there a connection

between the number of UAP seen in the Bermuda Triangle

with the large disappearance of planes?

You know, bizarre anomalies in the sky

above the Bermuda Triangle date back

to the voyages of Columbus.

He saw strange lights moving above the ocean waters,

and these sightings continue to this day.

narrator: The dangerously close encounter between

a UAP and Navy pilots from the USS "Roosevelt"

took place just outside the triangle.

narrator: Since then, the Pentagon has voiced concern

about mid-air collisions.

- With this recent release of files by the Pentagon,

I mean, the UAP threat is real.

narrator: If the wreck the divers found

is indeed one of the missing Stratotankers,

could a UAP have gotten dangerously close to them,

forcing them to crash

and thereby slicing off the tail?

The Stratotankers were heading toward

Homestead Air Force Base.

The base is on the corner of the Bermuda Triangle

and is at the center of a major UAP event

that was kept secret for decades.

- Tonight you're hearing the stories

of some Southwest Floridians

who've reported close encounters

both in the military stationed in South Florida

during the Cold War with Russia.

They say America's sensitive military equipment

picked up on something zooming through the skies.

[birds cawing]

- This is an incredible story.

In all my years of research,

I've never come across this one.

narrator: Wayne is the team's leading expert

on UAP activity in the Triangle.

From his previous investigations

into the phenomenon, he has a vast network of contacts.

With David, he heads over to meet

Kathleen Marden, an expert with intimate knowledge

of the Homestead event.

- Kathleen, pleasure.

I think we're both excited to talk to you.

- You as well.

narrator: Kathleen Marden is a world-renowned

UAP researcher and author who has interviewed

thousands of UAP witnesses.

One of her areas of interest is military encounters

in and around the Bermuda Triangle.

- For decades, people like Kathleen

were hounding the government to release

any kind of documentations that dealt with UAPs and UFOs.

- High-level military officials and scientists

for the government have stepped forward with radar evidence.

They started taking nuclear weapons silos offline.

narrator: David O'Keefe and Wayne Abbott

are meeting with UAP expert, Kathleen Marden.

They're investigating the sudden disappearance

of two military Stratotankers based out of Homestead

Air Force Base while they were on a mission

over the Bermuda Triangle in 1963.

The Homestead Base was the site

of another strange incident

that occurred just four years later.

Could there be a connection?

- So there's one event we'd like

to chat with you about that occurred on March 31st, 1967.

Happened in southern Florida along the eastern seaboard.

- I've spoken to military officers

who were in the radar tower on this particular night.

There were fast movers that came from the north

down the East Coast.

narrator: Military radar stationed near the Triangle

immediately locked on to the objects.

- They realized they were unconventional in many ways.

They would disappear from the radar screen.

narrator: These fast-moving targets

were traveling at incredible speeds

of Mach 4 to Mach 5.

- Suddenly, one of these objects

left the group.

narrator: Radar tracked the target moving rapidly

along the edge of the Triangle.

- Four seconds later, it knocked out the radar.

He said that the gauges moved backwards.

♪ ♪

- After these contacts disappeared, what happened?

- Military officers came to the base

and collected the canisters of film

pertaining to these radar sighting.

They marked them top secret.

They said, "This incident did not occur."

narrator: And it's not the only case of UAPs

allegedly interfering with military targets that month.

Two weeks earlier,

eyewitnesses reported UAPs flying over

Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana,

allegedly turning off the base's nuclear missiles.

And later that month, Marden says

the American military intercepts radio traffic

from two Cuban MiGs in the middle

of a close encounter.

- The Cuban MiGs were in pursuit of

an unidentified flying object.

One of them simply disintegrated.

As far as I am aware, we did not

have technology that could simply

disintegrate a Cuban MiG.

We could shoot it down.

We couldn't disintegrate it.

- What could have brought down a Cuban MiG traveling

at high speed and have it just simply disintegrate

into thin air?

And there was no answers to what or why.

narrator: As David and Wayne continue to investigate UAPs,

Jason Harris has tracked down an existing Stratotanker.

He wants to study the plane's features

to help Barnette and Jimmy ID the wreck on their next dive.

- Wanted to come out and take a closer look

at an actual KC-135 Stratotanker.

It looks like you guys have got

a phenomenal aircraft here.

- A model was ordered in 1955, arrived in 1957,

the first operational year of the KC-135 with the Air Force.

One of the most distinctive features

are these jet engines right here.

The first jet-power tanker aircraft

was powered by the J57.

This allowed the tanker to match speeds with the bombers

of the time, the B47s, the B52s,

and have a much more efficient and safe

fuel transfer operation.

- Four-engine jet aircraft.

But we've got this backside where all the action happens.

- This is the business end of the KC-135.

It's easily recognizable because of that boom pod.

- I flew up against a KC-135.

And it's quite impressive when you're sitting there

at the controls at 25,000 feet, 450 miles an hour,

you actually can see the whites of the eyes

of that boom operator as they're flying

this boom down to your aircraft to make a connection.

And it's one of the coolest experiences

that you could ever have.

The aircraft that we found, interestingly enough,

were missing the entire tail section.

- Oh, my. - So if we were to find

a tail section, what kind of elements

would we be looking for in addition to the flying boom?

- One of the key things on the tail

would be the tail numbers.

Once you have those numbers, you can run those records.

narrator: Finding the missing tail

is key to identifying

whether the wreck is one of the missing Stratotankers

or whether it's a different four-engined refueling plane.

- There was likely other types of tankers in that era

when these first came online.

- Well, the only other tankers

would be propeller-driven tankers.

They were not jets.

- Do you have one of those propeller-driven

tanker aircraft in your fleet?

- Well, down there is the Stratofreighter.

narrator: As the team continues to try to identify

the plane wreck they found in the Bermuda Triangle,

Jason Harris learns of a second refueling plane

housed at the Castle Air Museum.

This model predated the Stratotanker

and was dubbed the Stratofreighter.

♪ ♪

- Looking at a genuine vintage KC-97, all original.

This is built as a propeller-driven aircraft,

and you can visually see how it would be much slower

and fly much lower.

You look at this, it's very bulbous.

Straight wing, rounded, vertical fin,

bulbous nose on it.

Great visibility, but not very aesthetic.

- The bulbous nose with a face that only a mother could love.

♪ ♪

narrator: Another detail catches Jason's eye,

a seam in the metal of the plane's tail.

- The tail section was prone

to breaking off when it ditched.

It was a weakness in the design.

It's just my own interpretation.

You probably had water rush up into the tail,

and all that pressure just snapped the tail section off.

- You know, that's interesting,

because we're missing a tail section of the aircraft

that we found on this dive.

narrator: On the surface, the Stratofreighter

seems like another possible match

for the wreck they found.

- When we go back down for the next dive,

if we find the engines of this aircraft,

then we can make a definitive identification

as to what it is

because we'll know if we have a propeller-driven engine

or a jet-driven engine.

♪ ♪

narrator: At the same time, Wayne Abbott and David O'Keefe

continued to chase a possible link between sightings of UAPs

in the Bermuda Triangle and disappearing planes.

They've tracked down a former intelligence operative

who's agreed to talk.

- Bob Hanyok worked for the NSA for many, many years.

He was in signals intelligence, electronic warfare,

and also he was their historian.

So if there's anybody who's had access to classified material,

it's Bob.

The reason we need you here today

is because we're examining various phenomenon

in the Bermuda Triangle.

- You have this context of people

viewing government activities as secret, conspiratorial.

So when an incident occurs in the Bermuda Triangle,

the tendency is to view any incident, a disappearance

of an aircraft, that something strange is going on,

and the government isn't telling us anything.

narrator: Bob Hanyok doesn't believe

the fast moving targets described

by Kathleen Marden were UAPs.

Instead, he thinks they were a type of classified planes

so fast it was at times mistaken for a UAP

even by the military, the SR-71 spy plane,

also called the Blackbird.

- The SR-71 flew over the United States,

and people would see this

terribly fast object in the sky.

This would've been 1965, 1966 period.

Three SR-71s were deployed to an airbase in Florida

to test conditions that were similar to Asia.

The humidity and so on.

narrator: The Blackbirds were in Florida because its climate

mirrored Vietnam.

The planes would later take part

in the ongoing Vietnam War.

- They could outrun just about anything.

- How fast was fast?

- Mach 3.

Roughly 2,100 miles per hour.

narrator: Despite its abilities,

the SR-71 had a problem.

Once it took off, it quickly needed to refuel.

- So what kind of aircraft were used to fuel the SR-71?

- It would have been a specialized variant

of the KC-135 Stratotanker.

♪ ♪

narrator: The very same type of refueling tanker

that went missing over the Bermuda Triangle in 1963.

Is it possible the Stratotankers crashed

while refueling the Blackbirds stationed

in Florida on some secret training mission?

If that's the case,

it challenges the UAP theory and adds a new twist.

♪ ♪

- With the recent release of files by the Pentagon,

I mean, the UAP concern is real.

The government truly believes

that they're a threat to national security.

- That's what the Bermuda Triangle's all about.

As soon as you say Bermuda Triangle,

you think of aliens, UAPs, things like that.

Now finally, these declassifications

of formerly-classified material

may actually get us closer to the answer

than we've ever been before.

♪ ♪

narrator: Meanwhile, following up on the clues

he saw at the Castle Air Museum,

Jason has found something.

[line ringing]

- Hey, Jason.

- I hope you're sitting down.

Been doing a little bit of digging,

and I came across a very interesting article

about a KC-97 accident

that crashed or it ditched in the ocean.

♪ ♪

What do you think?

- The position sounds about right.

This is definitely a lead we need to run down.

narrator: A KC-97 Stratofreighter,

the older model of plane Jason saw at the museum

went down in the Bermuda Triangle in 1960,

three years before the tankers went missing.

And that's not all.

- There were 14 crew members on board.

When they ditched this aircraft

into the Atlantic Ocean,

there were 11 survivors of that accident.

- It's been, what? 60 something years.

But there's a chance that that many survivors that

we could luck out and find someone.

That'd be huge.

That personal narrative would be invaluable.

narrator: Armed with this new information,

they meet to discuss the two theories.

- We have some good suspects.

- The Stratotankers from '63.

- And Stratofreighter on March 30th, 1960.

- Are they jet engines?

Are they propeller-driven engines?

- Definitely these aircraft are different.

The KC-135 jet engines versus props on the KC-97.

- So what's your game plan then?

- So I think getting down there,

analyze the wreck in a little more detail.

I think we'll be able to narrow down even more on second dive.

♪ ♪

narrator: The next day,

it's back to the Snowy Grouper Wreck.

- In about 20 minutes, hopefully we'll be able

to find the wreck and figure out

what we're dealing with.

- It's super exciting to be able to put closure to some

of these stories and to solve the mystery

of the Bermuda Triangle.

- Dive, dive, dive.

[dramatic music]

narrator: With improved conditions,

Barnette and the dive team are hoping to gather evidence

needed to ID the wrecked military plane

they've discovered at the bottom

of the Bermuda Triangle.

- Dive, dive, dive.

♪ ♪

- We dropped in about a 10th of a mile south of the wreck.

♪ ♪

narrator: As they reach the bottom,

the dive clock begins again.

- These sites are always changing.

Storms and hurricanes can collapse wrecks.

Fishing trawlers that come through and snag on the wrecks

and rip parts of the wreck away.

- The fish sometimes will dig holes

along sides of the wrecks.

♪ ♪

narrator: One of their goals is to find

the missing tail and the identifying information

painted on it.

- The aft section of the aircraft was missing.

It looks like a knife cut, and the tail was gone.

- There is no tail section.

Big cut directly down the middle.

♪ ♪

narrator: The clock is ticking.

10 minutes already gone.

- We actually went out in the sand expecting

to find the aft section of the aircraft.

- [muffled speech]

♪ ♪

- But there's nothing.

♪ ♪

narrator: With no sign of the tail and little time to spare,

they head back to the wreck looking for new leads.

- I was just trying to make an identification on the wreck.

So I was looking for any identifiable features

on the plane itself.

narrator: But the seawater has taken its toll.

- We see the cylinder heads,

but all this piping work has been eaten away

because it just is similar metals.

Every screw head and bolt head

might tell a story to someone

that really knows these engines.

- It's very complicated trying to fully identify a wreck

in the short time we have.

We're just divers.

We know the larger-scale things,

not these fine-scale things.

♪ ♪

narrator: With only five minutes remaining,

clues finally start to surface that could

help the team identify the wreck.

They already knew about the emergency hatch

over the wing being pushed out.

But as they reach the front of the plane,

they find another opening.

- As we got to the cockpit, which was totally intact,

we noticed one window was kicked out

as if the crew was trying to escape a sinking wreck.

Then seeing the nose of the aircraft,

seeing that DayGlo orange,

seeing all the windows,

it's almost like a figure eight bubble hole

on a fuselage.

That was unique.

narrator: It looks like a face only a mother could love...

♪ ♪

But it's what the divers find next

that offers the biggest leads yet.

♪ ♪

- Looked like it had some kind of engines

on the wings that had props

connected to them at one point in time.

♪ ♪

narrator: But time's up.

[alarm blaring]

The divers start their ascent...

♪ ♪

Only to find they have company.

♪ ♪

- Sharks were circling us on this dive.

♪ ♪

- We had sharks that were getting in our personal space.

They're wild animals.

They can have unpredictable behavior.

So you can't take them too lightly.

♪ ♪

It's the ones that get a little too curious

that you have to be concerned about.

You can't call a timeout.

When you got two hours of decompression,

you're floating there.

You have to just deal with it.

narrator: Thankfully, the team is not alone.

[dolphins clicking]

- We had this pod of dolphin that came through,

and they basically pushed the sharks away from us.

There's been cases of them protecting downed airmen

or shipwreck survivors,

'cause they can actually kill sharks very easily.

They can hit 'em with their nose.

You know, ram 'em at very high speed.

♪ ♪

narrator: Two hours later, the divers reach the surface

without any bites and plenty of evidence

to share with the team back on land.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

narrator: Barnette and the dive team

believe they've finally documented

the proof to identify the mystery tanker.

Now the rest of the team weighs in.

- So last time we talked to you,

we had a bunch of puzzle pieces, right?

We had an escape hatch that was blown out...

♪ ♪

And we also had a panel in the cockpit

that seemed to be kicked out.

- Looking at all the details,

you see that it's a military aircraft.

It's a four-engine, propeller-driven aircraft.

narrator: Everything points to the third

missing tanker aircraft that the team uncovered

late in their investigation.

- We were able to correlate

that this was the Stratofreighter

from the accident in March of 1916.

♪ ♪

We have all the features on the wreck

that line up with the accident report.

This is a KC-97 Stratofreighter.

- This is amazing.

- Well done, boys.

narrator: And then an unexpected addition

to the story.

One of the Stratofreighter's surviving crew

heard about the dive.

- I was quite shocked and stunned

that an actual survivor reached out to me.

He's saying, "That's my aircraft."

[thunder booms]

narrator: Jason and Mike jump at the chance

to fill in the missing parts of the story.

- Have you ever had a survivor actually

reach out to you based on a video you've posted?

- No, first time.

- Marshall, hi. - Barnette.

- Hi, nice to meet you. - Nice to meet you.

narrator: Barnette and Jason are meeting

with Marshall Taft.

- This is exciting.

narrator: His 85-year-old father

was on the Stratofreighter that ditched

off the coast of Florida in 1960.

[thunder booming]

- It was a pretty scary night.

It was-- the plane was bouncing around.

There was lightning.

narrator: Joe Taft is one of 11 who survived.

Sadly, three airmen did not.

After reaching out, the elder Taft

has declined to appear on camera,

instead letting his son tell the story.

- The plane was just bouncing all over the place.

He had never felt it like that before.

He talked about looking out the windows of the aircraft

and seeing wings bouncing up and down

and basically flapping.

He called it like a duck wing. - Oh, wow.

♪ ♪

- The hail punched the holes in the oil tanks.

So all the oil drained out.

Two engines shut down, and they had to ditch.

He might not make it back.

I can't even imagine how terrifying that must be.

- You're now starting a continuous descent down.

You're doing 1,000 feet a minute.

- It was quite the impact hitting the water.

♪ ♪

He went out through a hatch over the wing

and jumped off the forward edge of the wing.

♪ ♪

- Seeing the escape hatch open

where Joe actually evacuated the aircraft.

- Just, it's unbelievable.

How did your dad end up being by himself?

- He inflated his one-man life raft.

They were going to try to tie 'em together.

But before they could get together, he had drifted away.

So he was by himself.

♪ ♪

narrator: Finally, an oil tanker comes to his rescue.

He's the last one saved,

but he's in dire need of medical attention.

- And when he got in the sick bay on the ship,

took off his flight suit, and he said a lot of the skin

on his stomach and his legs came off with his flight suit

because of the chemical burns.

- Wow.

narrator: One large mystery remains.

What happened to the back-end of Joe's plane?

- There may be something you can clear up for us,

'cause when we first dived the wreck,

Very intact,

but then just after the wing, it's just like a knife cut,

and there's no tail.

Do you have any insight to what happened to the aircraft

and why it's only half of an aircraft?

- Dad talked about how incredibly loud it was

when the plane hit the water,

the metal ripping and grinding.

The tail section broke off, and it sank pretty quick.

- Usually, when I'm diving an unidentified shipwreck,

once I identify it, I feel my task is done.

But then your father pulled me back into it.

I wanted to learn about his experience,

and it's just been an amazing journey.

- Oftentimes, we see accidents and discoveries,

but there's nothing that's very real about it.

- Mm-hmm. - This one's real.

- Dad had told us various things over the years,

but, you know,

I just always wanted to know more.

What else is out there?

It feels way more complete now.

- I appreciate you just taking this time

to share this with us, man.

Thank you for being willing to just have this conversation,

'cause it means a lot.

♪ ♪

narrator: For our team of investigators,

one mystery solved.

- It's another Bermuda Triangle victim identified.

- I think that's the biggest takeaway for me

is that we need to act swiftly.

We need to get out to the sites as quick as possible.

They're not gonna last forever,

and it's erasing history.

And so it's a race against time to answer these mysteries.

♪ ♪