Flight 19 was a training flight of five TBM Avenger torpedo bombers that disappeared on December 5, 1945, while over the Atlantic. The squadron's flight plan was scheduled to take them due east from Fort Lauderdale for 141 miles, north for 73 miles, and then back over a final 140-mile leg to complete the exercise. The flight never returned to base. The disappearance is attributed by Navy investigators to navigational error leading to the aircraft running out of fuel.
One of the search and rescue aircraft deployed to look for them, a PBM Mariner with a 13-man crew, also disappeared. A tanker off the coast of Florida reported seeing an explosion[43] and observing a widespread oil slick when fruitlessly searching for survivors. The weather was becoming stormy by the end of the incident.[44] According to contemporaneous sources the Mariner had a history of explosions due to vapour leaks when heavily loaded with fuel, as for a potentially long search and rescue operation.
Star Tiger and Star Ariel