85. The Mysterious Disappearance of the Star Tiger & Star Ariel Aircrafts

In this week's episode, we are headed to the vast ocean! By the late 1940s, aviation had entered an entirely new era. World War II had pushed aircraft technology forward at an incredible pace, and when the war ended in 1945, those advancements began making their way into civilian travel. Longer routes were becoming possible, transatlantic flights were expanding, and air travel was beginning to connect parts of the world in ways that had once seemed unimaginable. But despite all that progress, flying across the open Atlantic was still far from what it is today. Navigation was more limited, weather forecasting was imperfect, and once an aircraft ventured far enough from land, there were vast stretches of ocean where communication could become difficult. And in 1948, one passenger aircraft would disappear somewhere within that enormous expanse. Its name was Star Tiger. Less than a year later, another aircraft belonging to the same airline—Star Ariel—would vanish as well. Neither aircraft was ever found. Their disappearances would become two of the most enduring mysteries in British aviation history and, in the decades that followed, both would become forever connected to the legend of the Bermuda Triangle—a stretch of the Atlantic blamed for the unexplained disappearances of ships, aircraft, and the people aboard them. But what really happened to Star Tiger and Star Ariel? Were their disappearances simply the result of the very real dangers that came with this rapidly evolving era of flight… or is there something about these two cases that truly cannot be explained? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices