The bizarre story of the plane that landed after 37 years

July 2, 1955, the heat, the sun and the long-awaited holidays that begin after a hectic year. The voice at the gate announces the boarding of the flight, "Flight 914 destination Miami, ready for boarding". Passengers take their seats and prepare for the New York-Miami flight, already projected towards the sun, swimming in the cold ocean and the entertainment that Florida offers. They do not know, however, that ** that flight is the beginning of an adventure that will last 37 years **. In fact, shortly after take-off, the plane crosses the borders of America and heads into the unknown. It might seem like the beginning of a Lost-style television series, but in reality we are talking about real events.

The 57 passengers on Pan American Flight 914 were looking forward to landing in warm Florida after months of the New York winter, the commander announced that the weather was excellent, almost a taste of what awaited them in the Sunshine State, and that they would take off without problems. ** The trip was only supposed to take 3 hours, but something didn't go as planned **.

Time passed but looking out the windows ** more and more passengers began to realize that around them there was only the boundless expanse of the ocean **, and no airport on the horizon. Meanwhile, indignation and panic grew rapidly at Miami International Airport. No flight 914 was expected to arrive from New York and relatives and friends of the passengers reported that the alleged landing time had long since passed. Air traffic controllers realized that something was wrong and that they had to answer the mystery of Flight 914.

The obvious solution was to contact their New York colleagues, but the answer they got was not quite as obvious, much less reassuring. ** Flight 914 had in fact regularly taken off from New York, but soon disappeared from the radar **, and the attempts of the control towers to get in touch with the crew were useless. Everything seemed to indicate a misfortune, and everyone was preparing for the worst. But then something inexplicable happened.

The rescue teams began to work day and night to understand what had happened and what the exact position of the plane was. The route passed for the most part over the Atlantic Ocean, so the first and most plausible assumption was that it had crashed and sank. The Coast Guard searched for the wreckage of the plane for days on end, but there was no sign of the Pan American 914. Months later ** it was officially announced that the 57 passengers and 4 crew members had died ** in a terrible accident. airplane. But ** was it really like that? ** There was no evidence and the lack of certainty contributed to creating an aura of mystery on Flight 914 and the fate of its passengers. People needed an explanation or proof, and it took 37 years for something to happen and leave the whole world speechless.

** May 21, 1992 , almost 37 years after that July day made history. Juan is the air traffic controller at Simón Bolívar International Airport in Caracas, Venezuela. He has just started his shift and his activities include checking the flights scheduled for the day, both arriving and departing. Juan has done that job hundreds of times, he's a veteran of the trade, but that May morning he is faced with something that has never happened to him before. ** In fact, out of nowhere a new point appeared on the radar, the signal of an airplane ** which is not indicated on any list. Juan was in shock. At first he thought of a system error, but the more he looked, the more the dot on the radar became a certainty. It looked like a normal airplane that appeared out of nowhere, but when ** Juan and his colleagues, summoned, took a closer look, they were speechless .

** The plane that appeared out of nowhere was a very old model , one of those no longer used for commercial flights. The astonishment of the air traffic control officers at the sight of the aircraft was, however, nothing compared to what they felt as soon as they received a call from the plane, asking where they were. "Caracas Simón Bolívar International Airport, what is your destination?" Juan promptly asked as an alarm bell went off in his head and the air inside the control booth became charged with tension. ** “Pan Am Flight 914. Departing New York to Miami . We have 57 passengers on board and 4 crew members ", was the response of the captain of the plane who disappeared 37 years earlier.

Juan, however, had not yet understood the scope of that information, several questions crowded into his mind. ** What was that flight doing so far from the original broken one? How had he arrived near Caracas? ** He then decided to ask the captain of Flight 914 for more information, but the answers he got only added to his confusion. "Our flight was supposed to land at Miami airport at 9:55 am on July 2, 1955", they replied from the plane.

Confusion and silence surrounded the control tower, ** how could a flight that had departed 37 years ago be landing just now? ** Juan decided that the questions could wait, the priority was to allow a virtually discontinued aircraft to land in all safety. The runway was cleared and ground staff prepared to welcome the passengers and crew that had been reported dead for almost 4 decades. Before the landing phase was completed, Juan contacted the captain of the Pan American flight again. ** “Do you know what day it is today?” ** he asked. The captain was quick to reply ** "July 2, 1955, why are you asking us?" . Juan did not know how to communicate that more than 30 years had actually passed since that day. He therefore opted for the famous "away the tooth away the pain". ** "Today is May 21, 1992 sir.", He threw out in one breath .

A tense silence followed, and Juan realized he had made a terrible mistake. ** "What are you talking about?" cried the commander ** of the plane with a voice broken by panic, as the ground crew approached to assist the passengers who had flown for 40 years and who all believed by now dead. ** The pilot had already started the engines, however, and was preparing to take off again **, without any authorization, "Stay away, we will leave now" he shouted, and Juan realized that a possible tragedy was just around the corner .

Juan tried in every way to prevent the plane from taking off, but every effort proved in vain. ** Pan Am Flight 914 picked up speed, rolled towards the runway and disappeared exactly as it had appeared a few minutes earlier **. In a few moments he disappeared from the radar, leaving Juan and his colleagues to wonder if what they had witnessed was true or if it was just a collective hallucination. ** Did Pan American Flight 914 really ever exist? **

The credibility of the story and the interest in the story waned rapidly, but some questions continued to hang in the air without any answer: ** "Where is Flight 914?", "How did passengers and crew survive for 37 years? ”**.

Several historians and theorists have examined the history of Flight 914 over the years, providing the most disparate theories. ** Some American news reports claimed that the plane had returned to New York, and that the 57 passengers and 4 crew members were reunited with their families **. None of them seemed a day old or aware that they had spent the last 40 years of their lives aboard a missing plane, believed dead by the whole world. However, this theory was questioned a lot, after all ** how many chances were there that a plane could fly for almost 4 decades on a single tank of fuel and that the people on board could survive and even not get old? **

** the conspiracy theorists ** then took the field, giving their personal explanation of the disappearance and reappearance of the flight from New York to Miami. The most logical explanation, according to them, was that of the ** wormhole, a term coined to indicate the space-time tunnels that (theoretically) could connect two black holes, a real shortcut in the universe that would allow to travel forward and back in time**. However, this theory was also widely criticized. There was not enough evidence to support the existence of a wormhole. However, there was another explanation, much more plausible than the previous ones ...

** According to some, the explanation for the disappearance and reappearance of the Pan American flight would lie in the sad fame of the Bermuda Triangle **, a body of water in the Atlantic Ocean known to have been the scene of numerous aircraft disappearances over the years and boats. The percentage of accidents in this area, the last of which dates back to 2017, is said to be significantly higher than the average. Despite the plausibility of this theory, there was still little evidence that Flight 914 had actually disappeared in this stretch of water, and even less evidence that it had reappeared from the Bermuda Triangle. ** So what was the truth behind the Pan American Flight 914 mystery? **

More and more stories began to circulate about the mysterious plane that disappeared flying from New York to Miami. ** Black holes, aliens, space-time phenomena, none of these theories could be confirmed nor denied **. At least until recently.

** In the mid-1980s , just before the missing plane landed at Caracas airport, ** the Weekly World News ran an article covering the bizarre event . On that occasion, a photo of Juan was also published on the front page. ** The same newspaper published the same story again in May 1992, but this time with a new date and with a photo of another Juan . Everything indicated that it was a hoax. There was no evidence or testimony, other than that of Juan and his colleagues, and ** the newspaper was known for often publishing fake news . However, a few years later someone claimed to be in possession of real evidence on the fate of the unfortunate plane.

In fact, a private investigator claimed to have collected evidence from various sources, such as the calendar dated July 1955 found on the runway of the Venezuelan airport, flight reports and other documents related to the missing plane. The investigator's statements were not followed up, and today the disappearance and reappearance of Flight 914 remains inexplicable; for many a real hoax, for others a mystery destined to remain suspended in time. The history of modern aviation is full of such mysteries, while some are destined to remain unsolved, others have found an explanation. This is ** the case with Air Force Flight 571, a story bound to surprise you **.

** October 13, 1972 , at Buenos Aires International Airport it was a sunny spring morning in Argentina and 54 people were boarding a flight to Santiago de Chile. Among them was a euphoric rugby team. What the unsuspecting passengers did not know is that they would soon become the protagonists of a plane crash and a terrifying and incredible survival story. Shortly after take-off, the weather conditions suddenly changed and the plane found itself trapped in terrible turbulence. Panic began to rise among the passengers, screams, tears and prayers resounded inside the aircraft. After a few minutes ** the plane crashed over the Andes, surviving seems impossible, yet for 16 of the 54 passengers, destiny had much more in store . When the plane hit the ground, well ⅔ of the passengers couldn't survive. The lucky ones found themselves instead in the middle of nowhere. No animals, no vegetation, around them only the peaks of the Andes and a climate of -30 degrees. ** How many chances did they have of surviving in those conditions? ** Very little indeed.

The 16 survivors had found some bottles of wine and a small amount of food, not enough for everyone. Despair and panic began to take over, no one seemed to have the clarity to come up with a plan that could save them. In the meantime, immediately after the crash ** the Air Search and Rescue Service had been notified of the disappearance of the flight , and four planes had taken off in the afternoon to look for any survivors or, even worse, to locate the wreckage of the aircraft. ** The searches turned out to be in vain, however .

The darkness had fallen and the temperatures on the Andes mountain range were not compatible with human life for those who had not been equipped. ** After 142 hours of searching, the rescue units surrendered ** to what now seemed to be a certainty: the plane had crashed and there were no survivors. They therefore decided to abandon the search, hoping to be able to find the bodies of the unfortunate passengers in the summer, when the temperatures and weather conditions were more lenient. ** What they couldn't know is that two of the survivors were ready for an incredible act of courage and desperation **.

** Two members of the rugby team in fact decided that the time had come to try everything , it was basically the only chance they had to ensure the survival of themselves and their unfortunate traveling companions. Almost two months after the crash, ** on December 12, 1972, the two men began their journey to safety .

** For over 10 days they climbed the peaks of the Andes, with no equipment other than their will to live and survive **. Meanwhile, their companions remained near the wreckage of the plane, some injured and in pain. The same question echoed in everyone's mind, would their companions be able to find help in the middle of nowhere?

** After walking for days, the two survivors spotted three men on horseback crossing a river . At first they thought it was a hallucination due to fatigue and hunger, but the closer they got, the more real the three men became. "Please help us" they shouted with all the breath they had in their bodies. The men on horseback spotted them and the two survivors knew they had made it, although it took another 12 days to complete the rescue. ** The 16 survivors were all rescued 72 days after the crash .

The mystery of Air Force flight 571 has been solved, but ** many other flights that have disappeared into thin air remain a real mystery **. These include Pan American Flight 914. ** Did the plane ever really take off from New York to hot Florida? Who is the mysterious Juan? What became of the 61 people on board? ** All these questions are bound to remain unanswered.