Original subtitles

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

- Dive, dive, dive.

narrator: Tonight on

"The Bermuda Triangle: Into Cursed Waters"...

- We looked up, and there it was

tumbling out of the sky.

narrator: Two passenger airliners, nearly identical,

vanish in the triangle.

First comes the static, and then silence.

♪ ♪

- That's just spooky to see that.

- It's one of the great aircraft mysteries

of the Bermuda Triangle.

narrator: Now for the first time,

the team travels to Bermuda.

♪ ♪

narrator: They'll battle the namesake

of the Triangle itself.

♪ ♪

- Some of the metal has now become ingrained in the reef.

It's, like, half metal, half reef.

narrator: In an attempt to unlock the secrets

of an utterly destroyed wreck.

- I'm looking at an unassembled wreck.

♪ ♪

- We could call this one a win.

♪ ♪

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.

♪ ♪

Now an elite team is on the hunt...

- Dive, dive, dive.

narrator: And making big finds.

- We've discovered "Challenger."

narrator: Their secret weapon,

a wreck map decades in the making.

- These are dangerous dives.

- Ah!

- Any sane person would not be doing this.

narrator: Their mission:

solve the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle,

one wreck at a time.

- Dude, are you seeing this?

- Mother Nature is gonna take these wrecks away.

The clock is ticking.

♪

[ominous music]

♪ ♪

- We are here in the northernmost point

of the Bermuda Triangle.

We've been everywhere else.

Now we're basically in the namesake

of the triangle itself.

narrator: Today for the first time ever,

wreck divers Mike Barnette and Jimmy Gadomski

are investigating targets off the island of Bermuda.

- This is exciting to be the northernmost point

of the Bermuda Triangle.

I mean, there's tons of wrecks all around Bermuda.

narrator: But Barnette and Jimmy

have come here in search of one target in particular,

a wreck that locals believe

is the remains of a '50s-era plane.

♪ ♪

Mike and Jimmy suspect it could be the key

to one of the Bermuda Triangle's deadliest

aircraft mysteries, the "Star Ariel."

♪ ♪

January 17, 1949, the "Star Ariel,"

an 85-foot British passenger plane,

departs Bermuda for Kingston, Jamaica.

She carries 20 passengers and crew.

- She was in good mechanical condition.

She had an experienced pilot, an experienced crew,

and the weather was fine.

narrator: And then just as

the "Star Ariel" gets underway,

something strange.

Radios in the area start going offline.

♪ ♪

- The interesting part is both airfields

and other aircraft in the area of the Caribbean

were reporting some kind of communications blackouts.

narrator: The cause of the mysterious blackout

has never been explained.

All that is known is that an hour later, when it clears,

the "Star Ariel" has vanished.

♪ ♪

A massive search is launched.

- It was quite big for the time.

It included one battleship and two aircraft carriers.

And they searched for four days,

but turned up absolutely nothing.

narrator: The disappearance makes

international headlines.

And there's an eerie coincidence...

the "Star Ariel" wasn't

the first airliner to go missing.

♪ ♪

January 30, 1948, virtually a year to the day

before "Star Ariel" vanishes,

another British passenger liner called

the "Star Tiger" takes off from the Azores islands

en route to Bermuda.

As she approaches Bermuda, she makes

one final radio call, and then silence.

- She made a radio call requesting a navigation beacon

and was never heard from again.

♪ ♪

- Nothing has ever been found of her since.

narrator: Two virtually identical planes.

Both experience strange radio issues

off the coast of Bermuda.

Both vanish without a trace.

Today, they remain among the most infamous

Bermuda Triangle disappearances ever recorded.

- The "Star Tiger" and the "Star Ariel,"

they've become part of the Bermuda lore

because there was nothing found...no wreckage,

no more details to give us any information

to help us put the mystery of the disappearance to rest.

narrator: But there is one potential clue.

Tracing the "Star Ariel's" flight path lines up

exactly with the rumored aircraft wreck.

- Our primary target here in Bermuda

is a site known locally as the aircraft wreck.

It's off the southwest side of Bermuda

in about 30 feet of water.

♪ ♪

narrator: Step one, find the wreck

and confirm it is an aircraft.

But it won't be easy.

- Typically, when we dive other wrecks,

if you run across anything with a huge bump on the sonar,

you know it's not natural geology.

It just sticks out like a sore thumb.

Here, there's so many coral reefs

that these wrecks can hide.

narrator: To speed up the search,

the team is bringing an extra set of eyes...

safety diver Kiki Dee.

- On the dive, I'll be using my GoPro.

I'll be helping Mike with measuring certain pieces

of the wreckage, and then just assisting

on anything the guys may need underwater.

♪ ♪

- Dive, dive, dive.

♪ ♪

narrator: Since the wreck is only 30 feet deep,

the team plans on a long 60-minute dive.

♪ ♪

But there are other challenges.

- We aren't limited by decompression.

We aren't limited by really anything, except for weather.

narrator: In the namesake of the triangle,

that's always a problem.

Bermuda sits directly in the path of powerful winds called

westerlies, first discovered by European explorers

to speed them home.

These driving winds kick up sudden storms

and surging currents.

- It's hard because that surge is constantly

pushing us back and forth.

♪ ♪

So as I'm swimming along on the bottom,

I'm seeing a lot of coral everywhere.

And among all this coral, I see some aluminum

sitting on the bottom.

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

- As I'm swimming around this wreck site,

the first thing that comes to mind is just

the pure chaos.

♪ ♪

I'm seeing just mangled pieces of metal

twisted around the reef.

♪ ♪

- There is so much going on.

The wreck site itself is, like,

all jumbled up with the coral.

So, yeah, it's pretty hard to make sense

of, like, what we're actually looking at.

♪ ♪

- I'm looking at an unassembled wreck.

It's like looking for a puzzle piece

to make sense of this site.

♪ ♪

narrator: And then a stroke of luck.

♪ ♪

narrator: Aircraft propellers.

♪ ♪

narrator: This wreck is definitely a plane

with multiple large propellers,

just like the "Star Ariel."

[dramatic music]

narrator: Off the island of Bermuda,

the team is investigating a suspicious pattern

of missing airliners.

They're specifically searching for the "Star Ariel,"

which vanished 70 years ago

during a mysterious radio blackout.

♪ ♪

narrator: They've found wreckage consistent with

a large aircraft that's been ripped to pieces.

♪ ♪

narrator: But further investigation

will have to wait.

Strong winds are driving dangerous surf.

♪ ♪

- It's definitely a little squirrely out here.

We have definitely some rocking and rolling with the waves.

We're feeling a lot of that surge

when we're trying to identify certain things underwater.

♪ ♪

narrator: Back on shore, Mike and Jimmy meet

with fellow team member, former Air Force pilot

and combat veteran Jason Harris.

- All right, so this is the first dive.

- Did you guys have a chance to really see much,

or would you guys...kind of just some basic stuff so far?

- We're basically skimming the reef,

and we come across three props down there.

There's a lot of metal everywhere, a lot

of aluminum, a lot of rivets.

- There's coral heads growing on top of it.

So it's been down several decades for sure.

We didn't find engines.

We didn't find anything that really is definitive to help

with what kind of aircraft it was,

just that it is an aircraft.

- Got it.

narrator: The wreck's broken-down condition

means more diving is needed before

a positive ID can be made.

- It's kind of like just getting a taste

of what could be down there.

narrator: The presence of propellers

and the apparent age of the wreckage

are both a match for "Star Ariel."

But what took her down?

The team has two main theories.

The first relates to the odd radio interference.

Could the blackout have somehow crashed this plane?

♪ ♪

- They made a few radio calls, and they were able

to log those last radio calls.

So I'm gonna look to see if I can find somebody who's

knowledgeable of the local aviation

and maybe piece together that puzzle.

narrator: But there are also questions

about the plane itself.

Almost a year to the day

before the "Star Ariel" went missing in 1949,

another British airliner, the "Star Tiger,"

mysteriously vanished.

♪ ♪

Coming on the heels of the loss of Flight 19

and the Martin Mariner in 1945,

the disappearance of these two passenger planes

fueled a growing dread of these cursed waters.

- When you see one aircraft go missing, that's coincidence.

And then when you see two aircraft, the same type

of aircraft, connected to the same island,

now it's no longer quite a coincidence.

Now there's something else to it potentially.

And so that definitely makes the spidey senses

on my back crawl up.

narrator: And there's another connection

between the "Star Ariel" and the "Star Tiger"

that the team must consider.

They were the same model of aircraft.

- The "Star Ariel" and the "Star Tiger"

were Avro Tudor IV aircraft.

They were about 80 feet in length,

and they had about 120-foot wingspan.

These were actually descendants

of the famous Lancaster bomber,

perhaps the most famous bomber

of the entire Second World War.

It carried some of the heaviest payloads,

saw some of the heaviest fighting over Europe.

narrator: But was this converted bomber

fit to carry passengers,

or were Avro Tudors fatally flawed?

It's a theory the team must chase down.

- While you guys are going back down for that next dive,

I'm gonna do some scouting here on the land,

and I'm gonna see what else that we can try to correlate

this particular accident to.

[dramatic music]

narrator: Back on the mainland,

team member and military historian

David O'Keefe will look deeper

into possible flaws in this model of plane.

- So we have two aircraft identical in design

that disappear without a trace.

Could it be anything to do with the design of these aircraft?

The airframe was absolutely fantastic

during the war as a Lancaster,

but there may have been some issues

when it came to the conversion.

♪ ♪

narrator: Meanwhile, Jason will investigate

radio blackouts and other dangers

associated with Bermuda to see if any of them

could have played a role

in the disappearance of these planes.

♪ ♪

That means talking to local marine scientist

Philippe Rouja.

- Have you come across any details that might shed

some light with regards to radio interference

out here in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean?

- Bermuda is a very corrosive atmosphere.

Radio equipment that may have worked flawlessly in England,

you get it in Bermuda, and I can guarantee you

that in no time, it's suffering greatly.

narrator: The westerly winds blow in Atlantic air

laden with moisture and salt.

That air eats metals

10 times faster than elsewhere.

It could explain the failure of the "Star Ariel's" radio.

But what it can't explain is how corrosion

could black out an entire region for an hour,

then return to normal.

Jason will need to look deeper into the radio blackout.

♪ ♪

And this notorious island presented other dangers

to the "Star Ariel."

♪ ♪

- Bermuda has this folklore that goes back

to the Devil's Isles, right?

Now, this was the Isle of Devils.

This is what the Spanish first called it.

This was the last place you wanted to get stuck.

narrator: As the northernmost tip of the triangle,

Bermuda sits atop an ancient volcano,

more than 600 miles from the mainland.

[thunder rumbling]

Even worse, it's in the middle of Hurricane Alley,

a band of warm water that supercharges tropical storms.

♪ ♪

These storms can then slam

unwary ships into yet another danger.

♪ ♪

- And surrounding us is this big, fringing reef,

and it goes out in some places about nine miles.

♪

Early ships, they end up getting

caught up in that reef.

And that accounts for this entire edge

of reef that is literally covered in early ships.

narrator: As Bermuda's deadly reputation to shipping traffic

grew, the Island of Devils became

more broadly known as part of the Devil's Triangle.

But with the disappearance of the "Star Ariel"

and the "Star Tiger," the danger was no longer

confined to the seas, but the sky as well.

And so the area was given its modern name,

the Bermuda Triangle.

Did the cumulative effect of corrosive salt air

and extreme weather take

a fatal toll on the "Star Ariel"?

Philippe thinks it's possible,

considering the extreme distances they had to travel.

- You know, that particular story is also very

specific to a specific time in the development of aviation.

It's post World War II. - Oh, yeah.

- They're converting military planes into passenger planes.

- Right.

- You know, those early planes that came here

were traveling very long distances from Europe,

and they're passenger planes.

So Bermuda was one of the longest passenger flights

in the world... this was in the early days

of aviation...for tourism.

Those early transatlantic flights

were quite problematic.

narrator: It's clear Bermuda's unique conditions

meant any plane flying here was taking a chance.

Was the "Star Ariel's" design

simply not up to the challenge?

[tense music]

narrator: The team is in Bermuda investigating

a series of missing passenger airliners.

They suspect a submerged plane wreck

could be the vanished airliner,

"Star Ariel," lost in 1949.

♪ ♪

Military historian David O'Keefe

is investigating whether these planes called

Avro Tudors had a fatal flaw.

But there's an issue...

every single Avro Tudor was scrapped

after the disappearance of "Star Ariel"

and "Star Tiger," the nearly identical plane

that vanished a year earlier.

So he's at the Bomber Command Museum of Canada

in search of the next best thing.

- This museum contains one of the last remaining

Lancaster bombers of the Second World War.

And of course, this was the original design

that the Tudor was based on.

♪ ♪

narrator: The Lancaster was one

of the most successful Allied bombers

of World War II, with more than 7,000 built.

They carried the largest payloads of the war,

like the 22,000-pound earthquake bombs.

♪

- This is the premier bomb hauler in all of World War II.

narrator: Karl Kjarsgaard is the museum curator

and was an airline pilot for 30 years.

He explains how, after the war,

the Lancaster's manufacturer, the British Avro company,

hastily modified the bomber into a civilian version,

the Avro Tudor.

- The key is the power on that wing and those Merlin engines.

You've got your ultimate combination of power and lift.

- So when we're moving into the Avro Tudor,

I mean, I guess you can see why

they were looking at this kind of platform

for that kind of conversion.

narrator: The Lancaster used Rolls-Royce Merlin engines,

capable of nearly 2,000 horsepower.

The Avro company reused the exact same engines

in the passenger version.

- OK, so that's a big clue for the team

right there if they spot the engine down below.

narrator: The engine may also be a clue

to the "Star Ariel's" fate.

It turns out passengers in insulated cabins

outweigh bombs, making the longer,

fully furnished Tudor airliner

6,000 pounds heavier than the original no-frills bomber.

- They were asking for 200 or 300 more horsepower

per engine than wartime Merlins.

When you want 10% or 20% more horsepower,

how does that affect the longevity?

narrator: Engines running at their max,

a hasty conversion to a civilian model,

and corrosive Bermuda air...

was the "Star Ariel" pushed beyond her limits?

- Here they are pioneering these flights

from Europe to Bermuda and southbound.

They've got to go over the Bermuda Triangle.

They were extending themselves to the absolute maximum.

narrator: The dangers facing "Star Ariel"

are coming into focus, but a big question remains...

what caused the hour-long blackout when she vanished,

and is it part of what brought her down?

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

Back on Bermuda, the dive team is eager

to find the Rolls-Royce engines that could connect

the aircraft wreck to "Star Ariel."

- Let's do it. - Let's do it.

narrator: Strong westerly winds

are still pushing surging currents

over the shallow wreck site, but the team decides

to go for it and risk another dive.

- Neutral, dive, dive, dive.

♪ ♪

- The shallow depth makes our diving easy,

but the shallow depth also makes this a challenging site

to us because it has scattered the debris all over the place.

♪ ♪

- We have winter storms that move

evidence and debris around.

So what you're seeing is not how it actually

came to rest many times.

♪ ♪

narrator: Like the Lancaster bomber that Dave inspected

and the Avro Tudor that used the same design,

this wreck's wings were built of light aluminum

and riveted together.

♪ ♪

But with pieces this small, it's hard to make a match.

And then...

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

narrator: The team is diving the wreck

of an unidentified aircraft

in search of an iconic Bermuda Triangle mystery,

the disappearance of the "Star Ariel,"

lost during a radio blackout in 1949.

♪ ♪

narrator: They have found what appear to be

1940s-era aircraft engines.

- If we could put a positive ID on this one,

then that would be a win for us.

♪ ♪

narrator: But the condition of the wreck

is making that identification difficult.

- This would be a lot easier if there wasn't

so much encrustation all over it.

♪ ♪

- So as we're going around the site,

you're seeing the scraps of metal.

Then you get into the main heart of it.

You're seeing three engines.

narrator: They've found three out of four engines

from a 1940s-era plane just like the "Star Ariel."

♪ ♪

But there's no smoking gun yet.

And topside, the weather is again turning.

♪ ♪

- Conditions today are definitely

a little interesting.

♪ ♪

narrator: They head back to shore

and regroup with the rest of the team.

David O'Keefe joins via video chat from the mainland.

- We have multiple engines, but we haven't been able

to find any plates or any identifiable features yet.

narrator: The clues are encouraging.

The fuselage is about the right size

and the wing is riveted aluminum

like the "Star Ariel."

David is interested if the engines match.

- Can you tell which engine that was,

where it was on the aircraft?

- And that's the problem.

This site is so scrambled.

It's just really chaotic down there.

narrator: There's just too much damage

to make a definitive ID.

They need another dive.

♪ ♪

Meanwhile, Jason Harris is still

investigating the mysterious radio blackout

that struck Bermuda at the same time

that "Star Ariel" vanished.

Now he's got a new lead,

a potential military connection.

He's located a retired pilot named Peter Wilson.

Peter grew up around the island's military airfields.

♪ ♪

- This airport here was a military airport

built by the United States Army.

You know, there were, like, B-17s, B-24s.

Then we had the Cold War start, you know.

- So this was definitely a critical place,

and I imagine... - It was.

- A lot of activity during that time period.

- Absolutely.

narrator: When the "Star Tiger"

and "Star Ariel" went missing in the late 1940s,

the United States and Soviet Union were

engaging in a new kind of combat...

electronic warfare.

As the first wave of a potential nuclear strike,

both countries experimented with barrage jamming,

which scrambled radars and radios

in a multi-frequency blitz,

leaving enemies blind and disoriented.

In the event of an actual nuclear attack,

the blackout would cloak bombers

carrying devastating payloads.

This technology was tested in remote corners of the world,

like the Mid-Atlantic.

Could this explain the regional radio blackout?

And if "Star Ariel" experienced

some kind of problem,

did the blackout mean no one heard her call for help?

- Was there any awareness of any type

of radio interference, any kind of anomalies or things

like that that you guys might have

been aware of during that time period?

- No, I honestly say I don't know of anything like that.

Of course, the Air Force doesn't divulge

to the local public what they've been doing.

narrator: So while Peter can't say

tests were happening at that time,

it can't be ruled out either.

And he does remember many crashes around the island.

- And one of them I know of and I...

because I also...

narrator: One incident stands out in Peter's memory...

not an airliner, but an odd Air Force jet.

- And was a hill on the west side

of the island where we guys all went to fly kites

and all like that.

And one of the guys said, "Look, there's

something wrong with that airplane."

We looked up and there it was

tumbling out of the sky.

♪ ♪

narrator: October 20, 1963,

a US Air Force plane, the KB-50J,

takes off from Bermuda.

Something goes horribly wrong.

- Then it impacted the water and crashed

off the western end of the island.

- Oh, wow.

narrator: The western end of the island

is exactly where the team is investigating.

And we could hear that because you have large pistons engines

and they put turbojets just outside

of the outboard engines.

♪ ♪

narrator: The KB-50J was

a hybrid World War II B-29 bomber

with two jet engines grafted on

to make it a high-speed tanker.

The result was a Frankenstein plane

with a distinctive sound that Peter remembers.

- You can hear them roaring around.

narrator: Peter's intel puts an intriguing new suspect

on the table.

Is it possible the aircraft wreck

isn't the "Star Ariel" but the KB-50J?

- Mr. Wilson said he can still recall

the sound of that aircraft,

the explosion after it impacted the water.

Is this the aircraft that our team has been diving on?

♪ ♪

narrator: The dive team has seen zero evidence

of jet engines on the bottom.

With so many clues pointing in so many different directions,

the team decides to try something

they have never done before.

They're going to take Jason underwater.

- I think it's gonna be invaluable.

If he sees something he's familiar with, intimate with,

that's gonna help us identify this wreck site.

- It actually gives me a little bit of anxiety.

You know, my place is up in the sky.

It's flying airplanes.

- The biggest thing with a new diver

is just making sure their comfort level is, like...

they're good to go and that they feel safe

and taken care of, especially with that surge action.

♪ ♪

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

narrator: Off the island of Bermuda,

the team heads back to the site

that locals call the aircraft wreck.

They suspect the wreckage could be the "Star Ariel,"

but now Jason Harris has a new suspect...

a unique American tanker plane

known as a KB-50J.

And for the first time ever,

he's gonna join the divers on the bottom.

- I want to get down there and have a closer look

because there's gonna be some definitive differences,

and that'll help us to identify which aircraft

this is that we're looking at.

narrator: Drawing on his experience

as an Air Force pilot,

he will try to confirm the presence

or lack of jet engines.

The Air Force tanker had them.

The "Star Ariel" did not.

- If we are able to find a jet engine,

then we'll have about a 98% positive identification.

♪ ♪

- It's snug.

♪ ♪

- Dive, dive, dive.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

narrator: Right away, Jason makes an impact.

He spots the remains of a radio

resting in 30 feet of water,

utterly destroyed.

Did it come from the "Star Ariel"?

♪ ♪

- As an aviator, being able to see

an aircraft wreck, knowing that people perished,

that's very humbling, and it's very sobering.

[solemn music]

There are so many thoughts

that are going through my head.

What were those last moments like?

I want to know what the rest of the story

of that aircraft wreckage is.

♪

narrator: But after scanning the entire area,

one thing is clear...

there are no jet engines here.

♪ ♪

The divers document everything else they can,

measuring the prop, and trying once again

to remove the encrustation from the engines.

♪ ♪

As time runs out, Barnette spots a shine in the sand.

♪ ♪

It appears to be glass,

and there's a distinct curve to the structure.

♪ ♪

Is this the cockpit of the "Star Ariel"?

♪ ♪

[indistinct chatter]

- We went down there, brushed the sand off,

and it was glass... intact glass panels.

- Dude, I totally missed that,

because I was so focused on the radio,

and I was excited about the radio.

- I was like, it can't be.

♪ ♪

narrator: Back on shore,

they dial in David O'Keefe once more.

- It was a phenomenal dive.

narrator: They didn't find the jet engines

added to the KB-50J Air Force plane

that crashed in this area in the '60s.

- But that's not to say that they weren't there

at one point in time.

narrator: They also found the remains of a radio,

but it was too degraded to tell

which plane it came from.

But there is one more clue.

- Are you suspecting the damage was due to

the impact or due to the environment afterwards?

- Yeah, this has been pummeled for decades.

That's kind of eroded and hidden

some of the evidence from us.

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

narrator: The team has finished their dives

on a target called the aircraft wreck,

and Mike Barnette may have just found

the smoking gun needed to identify it.

- I think the most critical piece we came across...

you can see the curvature on one end of it.

♪

I actually realized,

this is part of the cockpit.

♪ ♪

narrator: Barnette believes they've found

part of the aircraft's windshield,

but the panel's slight curvature means

it did not come from an Avro Tudor passenger plane.

♪ ♪

- I think we'll be able to overlay that

with a picture of a KB-50J,

and it's gonna be a perfect match.

♪ ♪

narrator: The team also made measurements

of the propeller blades,

9 feet each,

far larger than the blades on the "Star Ariel,"

but a perfect match for the KB-50J.

♪ ♪

It all points to one conclusion.

- So where's your level of confidence

on this as a positive ID?

- Well, based on what we saw down there,

I'm pretty confident that this is that KB-50J.

narrator: 60 years after Peter Wilson

watched it fall out of the sky,

the team has found evidence that this wreck

is the Air Force's Frankenstein tanker plane,

the KB-50J.

- I'd say we could call this one a win, I would think.

- Well, good job, boys. Good job.

[soft music]

♪ ♪

narrator: As they leave Bermuda behind,

there remains only one final question...

how did it crash?

♪ ♪

Back on the mainland, Barnette has a lead on an answer...

a survivor.

- Hey, Bill. - Hi. Glad to meet you.

narrator: Bill Tilton was the co-pilot

of the KB-50J,

call sign "Sheba 80."

♪ ♪

He has never seen the crash site until now...

- That is interesting.

narrator: But he immediately recognizes Sheba 80.

- That's just spooky to see that, 1-1-7.

When I did the pre-flight, I noticed that the jet

intakes were rusty.

We got a lot of salt spray.

We took off at full power.

And the left reel operator happened to be looking right

at that jet engine, and he saw that tail cone just separate

and immediately burst into flames.

[dramatic music]

narrator: The explosion of the jet engine

could explain why the team found only three

of the plane's six engines.

- The aircraft commander, Curley Moore,

on the left side, said to me, "Bail out."

It was that quick.

He didn't hesitate.

So I threw off my headset, tucked my head,

and rolled forward into the opening.

And the parachute opened very nicely,

and then everything's peaceful.

narrator: For Bill Tilton,

the memories are still powerful.

- I got on Curley Moore's crew and that made me really happy,

because I not only liked him,

but he was an instructor pilot.

narrator: The body of Captain John "Curley" Moore

was recovered.

The other casualty that day,

Staff Sergeant Charles Crigler,

has never been found.

[dramatic music]

The team came to Bermuda to investigate

one of the triangle's most iconic mysteries.

Now they have helped write the final chapter

of a crashed American military plane

and the two heroes who went down with it.

- It's been a successful journey,

and we've now told a story of the Bermuda Triangle.

narrator: But the "Star Ariel" and the "Star Tiger" before it

are still out there.

And the mysterious radio interference

that plagued both planes remains unexplained.

♪ ♪

And so the search continues.

♪ ♪