British South American Airways
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British South American Airways (BSAA) or British South American Airways Corporation was a British state-run airline of the 1940s. Originally named British Latin American Air Lines (BLAIR) it was split off from British Overseas Airways Corporation to operate their South Atlantic routes. It commenced transatlantic services in March 1946, with a BSAA plane making the first operational flight from London Heathrow Airport.
The airline operated mostly Avro aircraft: Yorks, Lancastrians and Tudors, and flew to Bermuda, the West Indies and the western coast of South America. BSAA was planning to introduce de Havilland Comet jet airliners, but in 1949 it was merged back into BOAC.
During its short existence BSAA seems to have suffered more than its fair share of mysterious accidents. The loss without trace of the Tudors G-AHNP Star Tiger and G-AGRE Star Ariel have often been quoted to validate the existence of a mystery zone in the Bermuda Triangle, and the loss of the Lancastrian Star Dust in the Andes after sending a partly unreadable radio message has been named the STENDEC incident. The discovery in 2000 of the wreckage of Star Dust appears to indicate a perfectly mundane accident.
[edit] List of aircraft
[edit] Avro Lancastrian
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[edit] Avro Tudor
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[edit] Avro York
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[edit] Star Tiger and Star Ariel
The Star Tiger and Star Ariel were two Avro Tudor IV passenger aircraft lost over the Atlantic. The loss of both aircraft without a trace, plus the unexplained vanishings of a DC-3 south of Miami on 27 December 1948, and the loss of Flight 19 on 5 December 1945 led theorists to speculate that something unusual was happening in the waters of the western Atlantic. The questions and theories that arose led to the creation of the Bermuda Triangle myth.[1]
[edit] Star Tiger
On 30 January 1948, the Star Tiger was en route from England to Bermuda and had stopped for fuel in the Azores. In the early hours of the 31 January the captain requested a bearing for Bermuda. The request was routine, and there was no panic or cause for alarm. After receiving the bearings the captain gave an estimated arrival time at 05:00. That was the last contact with the Star Tiger. The distance from Azores to Bermuda is about 2,230 miles (3,588 km). At 05:00 a search was launched from Bermuda but the aircraft was not found.
[edit] Star Ariel
Registered as G-AGRE, Star Ariel departed Bermuda for Kingston, Jamaica on 17 January 1949, shortly after take off the captain John McPhee radioed a standard departure message including an estime at Kingston of 14:10. This was followed by a position report "I WAS OVER 30° N AT 9:37 I AM CHANGING FREQUENCY TO MRX." Those were the last transmissions from the Star Ariel, and she was never heard from again. Over 70 aircraft and many ships were involved in a search between one hundred and five hundred miles south of Bermuda, search vessels including the aircraft carriers USS Kearsage and USS Leyte, and the battleship USS Missouri, involving upwards of 13,000 men. No sign of debris, oil slicks, or wreckage were ever found. Both incidents later prompted the use of the Tudor IV aircraft to be discontinued.
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