There wasn't a higher proportion of lost ships and planes even before advances in technology. It was a busy area, so a large number of ships and planes were lost, like how an equal murder rate has more murders per square kilometer in a city compared to rural areas.

The whole thing was drummed up in the 60s and 70s when supernatural stuff was having a heyday in popular media.

But this particular triangle of the North Atlantic Ocean was put on the hoodoo map by a story that appeared in Argosy magazine in 1964, "The Deadly Bermuda Triangle."The American author of the piece, Vincent Gaddis, posits the "Bermuda Triangle" as an enigmatic slice of the world that destroys ships and planes without a trace.

But as shipping insurer Lloyds of London notes, the number of incidents is so unexceptional that premiums for voyages within the Triangle are the same as anywhere else in the world. However, such myth-busting facts struggle to rise above the waves of sensationalism.

A more rational explanation comes from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) — the same U.S. agency that recorded the sound of the Titan submersible as it imploded during its ill-fated dive on the Titanic wreck. NOAA says, "There is no evidence that mysterious disappearances occur with any greater frequency in the Bermuda Triangle than in any other large, well-traveled area of the ocean."

Read More: https://www.slashgear.com/1926095/do-ships-still-disappear-in-the-bermuda-triangle/

So it was not methane leaks that let the engines/motors explode?

I've heard the triangle is a lot like a country-sized whirlpool that churns up rogue waves due to cross-path currents and seasonal shifts in said currents.