(SA) Saga Of The Bessie Jane

Adventure! Tonight's gripping story by Ron Evans is entitled, The Saga of the Betsy Jane. I'm reading you Betsy Jane over.

This is Miami Control Tower. Can you give me your position? You've got engine trouble? Over? I'm alerting the Coast Guard for you. Over. Hello?

Hello? Betsy Jane? Do you read me? Come in Betsy Jane. You're gonna make it? Seems like he's crashed. It's that little four seat that took off 20 minutes ago. Pilot and three passengers. I'd better get hold of the Coast Guard.

My name is Jeff Miles, and that Mayday distress call from Betsy Jane wasn't the first one I'd experienced, but it sure was the most unusual. It was a warm summer afternoon a few years ago when the small aircraft took off on route to Bermuda.

Within minutes of receiving my call, the Coast Guard had sent out two helicopters and a cutter to search the area. In cases like these, sooner or later, fateful story can be told by either survivors or pieces of wreckage. But no trace of Betsy Jane was found during the five-day search. The case was closed and attributed to freak weather

conditions in the immediate area. To the supernatural lovers, the Betsy Jane was regarded as yet another victim of the Bermuda Triangle. Yet the facts behind the disappearance of Larry Pedler and his three passengers were to prove that both assumptions were wrong, as you are now about to hear.

Larry Petler and his girlfriend, Gwen Smythe, had flown from their homes in Hamilton, Bermuda, to spend the weekend at Miami with two American friends, Mark Grayson and Jenny Eldred. They stayed at the Barracuda Hotel, and on the morning of their departure, Mark and Jenny called us a farewell and share a last drink.