Cherokee 150 Flight Liner  N7202F

The flight was apparently approaching St. Croix. The weather was once again excellent. The date was June 5, 1990. The pilot, Mary Pomeroy, was also a British citizen like John Potter, but the plane was an American registered Piper Cherokee (the number being N7202F).

     At 3:12 p.m. about 7 minutes after takeoff from St. Maarten, Netherlands
     Antilles, she contacted San Juan IFSS, voicing the following
         information:
           "I'm en route from Saint Maarten to Saint Croix flight level four
               five. My E-T-A- is ah fifteen thirty [3:30]."
               Although her voice was hard to hear and distant, minutes
                 later she was heard to articulate:
               "Zero two foxtrot four five at the boundary, over," indicating
                 she was entering U.S. airspace.
                   Then she faded away for good. And she never arrived at
             St. Croix.

           The search got underway, in this case a bit delayed because the tower
       operator at St. Croix had been informed by St. Maarten that the plane
     was on the ground there when he called to check. But the search was
   speedy and thorough when it did get underway. First, the Coast Guard cutter Chilula coordinated the effort with a British Virgin Islands's Police boat; the Coast Guard cutter Nunivak, a helicopter, and two fixed wing C-130 Hercules joined the search.

     They covered 7,300 miles of placid ocean through June 6 and 7 without sighting a trace of the plane. And, more importantly, they detected no signal coming from the Cherokee, which carried ample emergency equipment— not one but two Emergency Locator Transmitters. Floatable objects carried on board included a large orange life raft and several Personal Flotation Devices (PFD).

     Mary Pomeroy was up there in age, a feisty 74 and still flying and vacationing. A simple answer may be implied by her age: that she had a sudden stroke or heart attack. But if so, what silenced her ELTs? They never seem to work in Bermuda Triangle mysteries.