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Myth & fact 1
Myth 1.
“A check of Lloyd’s of London’s accident records by the editor of Fate in 1975 showed that the triangle was a no more dangerous part of the ocean than any other. U.S. Coast Guard records confirmed this and since that time no good arguments have ever been made to refute those statistics. So the Bermuda Triangle mystery disappeared, in the same way many of its supposed victims had vanished.”
Fact 1
This is completely false. Lloyd’s does not insure the smaller stuff, so all yachts go unreported and uncataloged in statistics. Lloyd’s seldom insures the smaller charter and private aircraft, so likewise for them. Lloyd’s is not the ultimate source. It is not a marine investigation bureau. It reports on sailing news relevant to insurance.
US Coast Guard SAR (Search and Rescue) statistics for all districts are published yearly in a thick voluminous report. This details the statistics for calls of assistance, causes of accidents, weather, deaths, conditions, whatever. However, missing vessels are not readily included. In reality, the designation Overdue Vessels are more important. But because it is hard to determine the number of people on board and exactly where the vessel last was, “missing” or “overdue” cannot be easily calculated. They may be catagorized under “caused by other factor” if at all. I have just received a list of vessels from the 7th district after 12 years of asking for and being denied missing vessel statistics, always receiving the reply “nobody tracks such statistics.” For the last 2 fiscal years this includes about 300 vessel names or types. And now I must start my search, to see which reported back to port (if any), what the weather conditions were like, etc.
The Coast Guard is not even capable of accurately determining the numbers, and therefore could never have conducted a study. What they probably did was comment on the popular notion that 20 aircraft and 50 ships are missing. That number was bandied about incessantly in the 1970s and is still in the Encyclopedia Britannica. This number is not extraordinary for 100 years, though it is more aircraft than elsewhere over seas.
NTSB database searches reveal that in the last decade only a handful of aircraft disappearances have occurred off New England while over 30 have happened in the Triangle. These are American statistics only, and do not reflect other nationalities.
Then there are those who claim the disparity is due to the Triangle’s greater amount of traffic. In reality, the 1st Coast Guard district answers about just as many calls for assistance as the 7th, but the number of disappearances is still remarkably different.
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