Stream, which runs under the familiar white haze of the area. Over this the sky is a robin egg blue, then higher up, as you lift your gaze, it fades to the deep royal blue of the tropics.
   Across this are the American vacation meccas of West Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Delray Beach and Pompano Beach– Florida’s Riviera– bisected by the palm lined highway south to Fort Lauderdale and Miami.

  Florida’s gold coast not only possesses a massive amount of tourists, but airfields as well for jumping off to Grand Bahama. Her sandstone silhouette soon makes itself visible to the pilot after he departs the coast. The trip is short, very short. A commercial of private plane is sometimes only at its cruising altitude for 5 minutes. The rest of the flight it is busy following the directions of its flight plan, ascending at the proper increments and descending until touch down at West End. 
   West Palm Beach International, plus Miami and Fort Lauderdale monitor the frequencies and listen for any broadcast. Freeport, the main destination on Grand Bahama, is on the other end giving weather advisories or just standing by awaiting for the expected contacts from the traffic.  Fishing vessels and big steamers slice through the deep Gulf Stream below, leaving behind them their frothy wake. West End is a customs port of entry into the Bahamas, and Floridian boats chock the harbor upon entrance. At both ends of the route, boaters, sunbathers, anybody and everybody  is familiar to the routine drone of planes overhead.
   The nearness of everything, both geographically and commercially, doesn’t seem like it could conceal anything; but nonetheless 20 or so aircraft have utterly vanished after heading to Freeport on Grand Bahama or after departing. And this is only in the last 30 years or so!
   The first incident in the records is dated February 8, 1964, when a Piper Twin Apache (N2157P) vanished in commercial air taxi service in the vicinity of Freeport, with a pilot and 3 passengers returning from vacation to West Palm Beach. His qualifications as pilot were really quite good, some 10,000 hours.
   On December 6, 1965, an Ercoupe F01 was en route from Fort Lauderdale to West End. N99660 faded from radar at 9:43 .a.m. Two persons had been on board. All the appropriate papers were filled, marked missing, and filed away, rendering the usual conclusion: “aircraft damage and injury index presumed.”
   On February 10, 1974, a beefy Cessna Chancellor vanished on a short route between Freeport and Treasure Cay. The pilot was soon sighted between broken clouds above the Treasure Cay airport, and then by radio confirmed it was him. However, N8103Q was never seen again, nor heard from again. No mid air explosion was heard; no whine of an airplane spinning into the sea; no mountainous splash; no debris. 

southerly island,  as his destination. The weather was brilliant; a satellite photo confirmed so. At 10:41 a.m. the Cessna was last seen clearing the shoreline and . . .  
   The strange disappearance on March 26, 1986, of Jose Villa, his five passengers and Navajo Chieftain, is another outstanding example of the bizarre incidents that, weaved together, create the modern mythos of the Bermuda Triangle.

  The weather was a good tropic spring day– temperature was 75 degrees, broken clouds ushered by to the pace of a gusting Gulf Stream trade wind.
   The shore line below was crowded with tourists, spring break had begun for some, and the beaches were a mass of moving colors. Bordering the beaches are the tall condominiums and hotels, palm lined boardwalks and busy beach front businesses. The incoming rows of surf are marked by the advancing thin foaming crests.
   The droning silhouette then headed northeast to West End. Grand Bahama must have come into view in 20 minutes, becoming bigger and bigger every minute.
   Villa next reported himself 10 miles west of West End. In terms of coming in for approach, 5 to 7 minutes before landing. That was the last thing heard from him. The plane was never seen again, and no trace was ever found, even though the approximate last position of the plane was known.
   This is all the more incredible because West End is a customs port of entry into the Bahamas. None of the boats below heard any crash or explosion. The plane was close to land. It was driven by two 350 horse power engines. In minutes they would have been over the island. Villa and his flight must have vanished suddenly, within seconds of his last call. If anybody’s attention was directed to the sky that morning, it was from the sudden silence, a silence made conspicuous when the routine hum of the charter was suddenly noticed to be gone.

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