April 5

A Bad Day To Be In The Triangle

The 185 foot radio-equipped freighter Sandra sailed from Savannah on this day in 1950 for Puerto Cabello, Venezuela with a cargo of 340 tons of DDT. She was due April 13 but never arrived, vanishing without a trace. While technically an unsolved mystery, it is known that there were storms which approached hurricane force blanketing the area through which she travelled. It may seem odd that no SOS was sent, since she had radio, but there are a myriad of problems that could have arisen. Batteries go dead,  connections fail, operators get injured, etc. Each ship, especially back then, was only as safe as it's owner's wallet allowed.

On April 5, 1961 the yacht Callista III vanished while sailing from Norfolk to the Bahamas, and that's all the information I can find.

A B-25 Mitchell in it's wartime garb, via Wikipedia

Then, on April 5, 1966 (1956 is sometimes mistakenly quoted) a B-25 Mitchell bomber, converted to carry cargo disappeared south-east of Tongue-of-the-Ocean, during a flight from Ft. Lauderdale to Aruba. No distress call was heard and three men (and a cargo of frozen chicken) most likely wound up on the bottom.

And in 1971 it was the turn of the freighter Elizabeth, carrying a cargo of paper. On April 5 she radioed her position in the Windward Passage, between Haiti and Cuba. It was the last sign of the Elizabeth.

Also on this date:

Mount Tambora erupts in 1815, a major factor in 'the year without a summer'.