A great many ships and planes are said to have vanished without trace over the decades in a vast triangular area of ocean with (imagine) corners at Bermuda, Florida and Puerto Rico. But a new examination for a BBC series provides plausible (explain) for the disappearance of two British planes in the area, with the (lose) of 51 passengers and crew. One plane probably suffered from catastrophic technical (fail) as a result of poor design, while the other is (like) to have run out of fuel.

Sixty years ago, (commerce) flights from London to Bermuda were new and perilous. It would require a refuelling stop on the Azores before the 2,000-mile flight to Bermuda. The planes would have been operating at the (limit) of their range. Today planes arriving at the tiny Atlantic island need sufficient reserve fuel to divert to the US East Coast 700 miles away, in case of (emerge).

And the planes of the post-war era were far less (rely) than today's airliners. British South American Airways (BSAA), which operated the route, had a grim (safe) record. In three years it had had 11 serious accidents and lost five planes with 73 passengers and 22 crew members killed, sometimes in mysterious circumstances.

For example, on 30 January 1948 a BSAA Avro Tudor IV called Star Tiger disappeared without trace. Twenty-five passengers and a crew of six were on board the plane.

The official investigation into the (disappear) concluded: “What happened in this case will never be known and the fate of Star Tiger must remain an unsolved mystery.”