Divers looking for Gold find B-26 wreckage

[Jimi D Pirate]

Check out the photo section

http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080705/NEWS01/80704031/1002

 

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[mad4wrecks]

A really neat story. I like Pat Clyne's summation of the expedition in the last paragraph.

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

Good Morning: I am curious, I flew in the B-26.and later, it's replacement, the A-26, during the war in the Pacific.

The cabin / cockpit setup requires both the pilot and co pilot to exit the mid hatch door, right side half way back of the fuselage. this means that the crew, if mobile, will bail out first in an emergency.

The fact that the pilot and co-pilot were found with no impact / exit injuries leads me to believe that the rest of the crew also bailed out successfully, but were later lost at sea from one reason or another.. There would be a few minutes from the first man exiting to the last so they would be far apart, especially the crew from the pilots.

The aircraft was found with the engines separated in what appeared to be a high speed impact with the water.

The only conclusion that I can reach is that somehow the engine controls were locked into a max rev.
condition and they were unable to control it. Since they were in a training setup, perhaps they didn't clearly understand how to still use the aircraft "relatively" safely, and with the B-26's known tendency to stall at inconvenient times, may have just panicked and abandoned it as the safest manner to handle it. Probably the correct procedure under the circumstances.

If this is correct, the fault would be in the line / crew chief's pocket, faulty maintenance plus the pilot's inexperience with the aircraft..

After abandoning the aircraft, it would continue flying by itself with the auto pilot / bombing system until it contacted the water. This would place it far from where the men bailed out, hence the difficulty in finding them.

The main weakness with this theory is that the article did not say if any bodies weer found in the aircraft.

K, mi buddy Capt Buzz kill, pick my theory apart.

Don Jose de La Mancha

 

[Saturna]

“Supposedly the plane that was lost had $3 billion on it, supposedly in gold,” Wicburg said. “Naturally, I wanted to find out if this was the Batista plane. I was hoping. I could have used $3 billion. That’ll keep a man digging.”

3 Billion is $3,000,000,000. If gold is $1000/oz. , that means about 3 million ounces. 3 million divided by 16 equals 187,500 pounds.


What is the load limit for a B-26?

Jay

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

good morning Saturna: You asked -->

What is the load limit for a B-26?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Depending upon mission, between 4,000 & 5,500 lbs of bombs.

However, may I suggest using troy weight instead, 12 oz per lb , roughly 32 grams per oz. troy = 35,27 grams av.

Don Jose de La Mancha

 

[Saturna]

With Troy ounces it works out to 3,000,000 oz divided by 12 which is 250,000 pounds of gold.

Either way, that plane would have a difficult time leaving the ground.


Jay

 

[Darren in NC]

Jay, you echoed my exact thoughts when I read that. But of course, all stories of lost treasure grow larger with time.

 

[mad4wrecks]

Possibly it wasn't gold bullion, but maybe gold coins and bars, from the dozens of Spanish galleons that wrecked off Cuba? In that case, each coin & bar would be worth far more than bullion value.

Now someone figure out how many eight escudos that would have to be!

 

[FISHEYE]

This is what i think.The 4th plane that didnt make it to tampa actully had Fulgencia Batista on board and it went to the DR with the gold or money on it.Theres no docs saying that Fulgencia Batista raided any cuban treasury in cuba on jan 1st 1959.He was stealing money from the public for years.He could have had regular shipments of gold or money going out of the country every day.When he took power in cuba there was 400 million in the treasury already.As with all dictators that flee a country they all steal the money or gold and take it with them.People should really do alot of research before they go looking for rumors of treasure.

1959 Jan 1, Fidel Castro took over Cuba. Fidel Castro led Cuban revolutionaries to victory over Fulgencio Batista, who fled to the Dominican Republic.

1959 Jan 3, Castro took command of the Cuban army.

1959 Jan 8, Fidel Castro rolled into Havana a week after Batista fled.


On January 1, 1959, after formally resigning his position in Cuba's government and going through what historian Hugh Thomas describes as "a charade of handing over power" to his representatives, remaining family and closest associates boarded a plane at 3 a.m. at Camp Colombia and flew to Ciudad Trujillo in the Dominican Republic.

Throughout the night various flights out of Camp Colombia took Batista's friends and high officials to Miami, New York, New Orleans and Jacksonville. Batista's brother "Panchín," governor of Havana, left several hours later, and Meyer Lansky, suffering from ill health, also flew out that night. There was no provision made for the thousands of other Cubans who had worked with Batista's regime.

Batista died on August 6, 1973 in Estoril, Portugal.

 

[FISHEYE]

For Example:

One of my relatives was flying this plane.I also got to meet the former gov marcos.

February 26, 1986

A few hours after the Marcos party landed in Honolulu, their luggage arrived - 300 crates on board a C-141 cargo jet. It took twenty-five customs officers five hours to tag the bags and identify the contents. The process was videotaped because of all the money and jewelry found inside.

There were 278 crates of jewelry and art worth an estimated US$5 million. Twenty-two crates contained more than Php27.7 million in newly minted currency, mostly hundred-peso denominations worth approximately US$1,270,000.00 (It was illegal for anyone to depart the Philippines carrying more than Php500 in cash. )

There were other certificates of deposit from Philippine banks worth about US$1 million, five handguns, 154 videotapes, seventeen cassette tapes, and 2,068 pages of documents - all of which were impounded by Customs. The Marcos party was allowed to keep only US$300,000.00 in gold and $150,000.00 in bearer bonds that they brought in with their personal luggage because they declared them and broke no US customs laws.

There were 24 one-kilo gold bars fitted into a $17,000 hand-tooled Gucci briefcase with a solid gold buckle and a plaque on it that read, "To Ferdinand Marcos, from Imelda, on the Occasion of our 24th Wedding Anniversary."