Plane That Vanished Into Thin Air Left Behind One Odd 'Clue' That Still Stumps Experts

On March 15, 1962, Guam International Flight Service Station attempted to make radio contact with an outbound plane that had left several hours prior. Alarmingly, though, the operator received no response in question. But what could have happened to the craft that was carrying troops to Vietnam? Well, some began to suspect that sabotage was at play.

The Flying Tiger Line

Yes, the fateful plane from the Flying Tiger Line had been chartered by the U.S. military to transport Army Rangers and Vietnamese soldiers to Saigon. The flight was scheduled to be a long one, although there would be several stops to refuel. And, sadly, it was during the leg between Guam and the Philippines that contact with the aircraft was lost.

What Really Happened?

Then, when it was found that the plane had disappeared, the disturbing news prompted what was at that point the largest search and rescue operation in history. And, naturally, many theories have since emerged about what ultimately happened to Flying Tiger Line Flight 739 and its passengers and crew. But could someone have really deliberately tampered with the craft?

Not The First Time

In any case, it’s certainly not unknown for airplanes to seemingly disappear into thin air. Amelia Earhart was the first woman pilot to traverse the skies over the Atlantic and became one of the most famous flyers in history. Yet she vanished without a trace on an attempted round-the-world flight in 1937. And even more than 80 years on, it’s still not determined what brought her plane down.

Making Headlines

More recently, in 2014 Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 made headlines around the world when it vanished while flying between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing. And the scale of the hunt for the missing plane reminded some of the long-ago search for Flying Tiger Line Flight 739.