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FACTBOX-The world's most famous plane disappearances

09 Jan 2007 08:00:49 GMT
Source: Reuters

Jan 9 (Reuters) - A U.S. navy vessel was set to join the search for an Indonesian airliner with 102 people on board missing for the past eight days, with the hunt focusing on a large metal object detected deep on the sea bed.

Here are some of the world's most famous plane disappearances.

* Bermuda Triangle, Atlantic Ocean: The triangular area between Miami in Florida, the island of Bermuda and San Juan in Puerto Rico, is synonymous with mysterious aircraft and ship disappearances, but their numbers are disputed. The most famous case was in 1945, when five U.S. Navy Avenger airplanes on a routine patrol radioed that they were lost and their compasses were not working. They were never seen again.

* The Andes, Argentina: On October 13, 1972 a Uruguayan air force plane carrying 40 passengers and 5 crew disappeared while crossing the Andes. Seventy-two days later, after everyone on board was presumed dead, 16 survivors emerged. The story of how starvation drove them to eat some of the dead passengers hit the screens as the 1993 movie "Alive".

* The Pacific Ocean: U.S. aviator Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared on July 2, 1937 while attempting to fly around the world along the equator. In her last radio message Earhart, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, had reported running out of fuel. Despite an extensive search, no trace of the two or wreckage was ever found.

* The Sahara, and Mediterranean: French pilot and writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery and his navigator disappeared in the Sahara Desert in 1935, but were rescued from death by dehydration four days later by a Bedouin on a camel. On July 31, 1944, Saint-Exupery disappeared over France's Mediterranean coast while on a mission to survey German troop movements. The author of the global best-seller "Le Petit Prince" was never seen again, but his wrecked Lockheed Lightning P-38 plane was found some 60 years later on the seabed off Marseille.

Sources: Reuters, Encarta

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Last updated:Tue Jan 9 08:02:17 2007