1965 Argentine Air Force C-54 disappearance

The last two transmissions from the aircraft were at 06:27 when the TC-48 reports to Panama tower confirming reached to position "Mike-5" without incident at an altitude of 6500 and heading for San Salvador. The "Mike-5" position is a navigational point close to Escudo de Veraguas island on the Panamanian caribbean Mosquitoes Gulf of the Bocas del Toro Province. The weather conditions for this first part of the route were not the best, forecast indicated severe turbulence, heavy rain, and visibility from very limited to zero. At 06:36 the pilot reported fire on engine 3 and engine 4 stopped working, and will attempt to land or ditch the aircraft to the water, the signal was pickup by Tegucigalpa ATC and a Lacsa cargo plane pilot. The cargo plane pilot recommended to land in Limón International Airport or El Coco International Airport, now called Juan Santamaría International Airport, but the aircraft never arrived.

From this moment on, a large number of cross reports began to emerge, where schedules and data supposedly provided by the TC-48 pilots mismatch, like a third unconfirmed communication at 07:05 stating that the TC-48 reported that it was flying over Bocas del Toro, heading towards Puerto Limón runway, where the emergency had already been declared and firefighters and ambulances were being mobilized while waiting for the aircraft.

In 2008, Teletica journalist Gerardo Zamora interview several witnesses that indicate the aircraft entered to Costa Rican territory by Sixaola, then was seen on Valle La Estrella, and a last witness indicate that saw survivors near Telire, all communities close to the Talamanca Range.[3]

Initial searches for survivors were made by United States Navy until November 17, 1965[4] when attempts ceased, relatives rejected the official version, and continued to demand the search of the plane in the Costa Rican jungle, convinced that the aircraft could well be in some inaccessible place and not in the seabed. The suspicion gained even more force when it became known that some of the elements supposedly rescued and offered as evidence, which belonged to one of the disappeared cadets, had been entrusted by their owner to a colleague who was traveling on the other plane, who more He later handed them over to his superiors. In addition, at that point it was already certain that the aircraft were not in perfect condition and that the TC-48 was flying overweight. Relatives traveled to Central America to restart the search on their own. This is how groups of relatives of cadets and officers entered the Costa Rican jungle over and over again and made contact with the aborigines who lived around the Cordillera de Talamanca, looking for any clue that would allow them to find the whereabouts of their loved ones. However, they only encountered misleading versions, ladino characters, fear and reluctance of the natives, and insurmountable difficulties; ingredients of a mystery that seemed to grow with the passing of the months. Then they would inevitably return empty-handed.

A total of 23 expeditions were made to the Talamanca in Costa Rica jungle, and more than 50 flights in planes and helicopters, the search was stopped in 1967. For the Civil Aviation of Costa Rica and for the relatives, the aircraft is somewhere in the jungle.[5] In 2015 the Argentine Air Forces carried out four searches called Esperanza, both by land and by sea, which ended without results.

The book "TC-48, the cadets plane", written by Ricardo Becerra, a former Army lieutenant and brother of cadet Héctor, mentions thirteen witnesses who saw him fly low in the jungle.

In December 2018 a documentary film "The Last Search" was released in Córdoba, Argentina in local movie theaters, in wich Cecilia Viberti, pilot Esteban Viberti's daughter, describes the searches made in Talamanca, Costa Rica and shares her thoughts about whether the aircraft is located in Costa Rica.[8]