Pan Am Flight 214
| File:Boeing 707 "Stratoliner", 3rd 707-121 production airplane, N709PA, later delivered to Pan Am.jpg
The aircraft involved in the crash, N709PA, before being delivered to Pan Am
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| Accident summary | |
|---|---|
| Date | December 8, 1963 |
| Summary | Lightning strike |
| Site | Elkton, Maryland, United States Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. |
| Passengers | 73 |
| Crew | 8 |
| Fatalities | 81 (all) |
| Aircraft type | Boeing 707-121 |
| Aircraft name | Clipper Tradewind |
| Operator | Pan American World Airways |
| Registration | N709PA |
| Flight origin | Luis Muñoz Marín Int'l Airport |
| Stopover | Baltimore/Washington Int'l Airport |
| Destination | Philadelphia Int'l Airport |
Pan Am Flight 214 was a scheduled flight of Pan American World Airways from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Baltimore, Maryland, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. On December 8, 1963, the Boeing 707 serving the flight crashed near Elkton, Maryland, while en route from Baltimore to Philadelphia, after being hit by lightning, killing all 81 on board.[1] The accident is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records (2005) as the "Worst Lightning Strike Death Toll."[2][nb 1] It remains the deadliest airplane crash in Maryland state history.
Contents
Flight history
At 4:10 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST) on December 8, 1963, Pan American Flight 214, a Boeing 707-121 jet airliner, registration N709PA,[3] nicknamed Clipper Tradewind (this happened to be the first jet delivered to a United States airline[4]), departed Isla Verde International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It landed as scheduled at Baltimore's Friendship Airport (now Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, or BWI), and 69 passengers disembarked.
At 8:24 p.m., Flight 214 departed for Philadelphia with 73 passengers and eight crew members on board. Because of high winds in the area, the crew chose to wait in a holding pattern with five other airplanes, rather than attempt to land in Philadelphia.[5]
At 8:58 p.m., while in the holding pattern, the aircraft exploded. The crew managed to transmit a final message – "Mayday, mayday, mayday ... Clipper 214 out of control ... here we go" – before crashing near Elkton, Maryland. All 81 people on board were killed.[6]
Investigation
The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) investigated the accident and issued the following Probable Cause statement on March 3, 1965:[5]
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Probable Cause: Lightning-induced ignition of the fuel/air mixture in the no. 1 reserve fuel tank with resultant explosive disintegration of the left outer wing and loss of control.
In response to the CAB's findings, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) asked operators to install lightning discharge wicks (or static dischargers) on all commercial jets flying in US airspace.[7]
Volatile fuel vapor recommendation
On December 17, 1963, nine days after the crash of flight 214, Leon H. Tanguay, director of the CAB Bureau of Safety, sent a letter to the FAA recommending several safety modifications as part of future aircraft design. One modification related specifically to volatile fuel vapors that can form inside partly empty fuel tanks, which may be ignited by various potential ignition sources and cause an explosion. Tanguay's letter suggested reducing the volatility of the fuel/air gas mixture by introducing an inert gas, or by using air circulation.[1] Thirty-three years later[nb 2] a similar recommendation was issued by the NTSB (the CAB Bureau of Safety's successor) after the TWA Flight 800 Boeing 747 crash on July 17, 1996, with 230 fatalities, which was also deemed to have been caused by the explosion of a volatile mixture inside a fuel tank.[8]
See also
Notes and citations
- Notes
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<references />, or <references group="..." />- Citations
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<references />, or <references group="..." />External links
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to [[commons:Lua error in Module:WikidataIB at line 506: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).|Lua error in Module:WikidataIB at line 506: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).]]. |
- Civil Aeronautics Board reports (digitized versions).
- A Pan American promotional film that features Clipper Tradewind (N709PA)
- A picture of the aircraft involved in the accident (archived from the original on 2012-11-04)
- Another picture of the accident aircraft
- Another picture of the ill-fated 707
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ archive.org copy of Guinness Book of World Records entry for Pan Am flight 214
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Accident description at the Aviation Safety Network. Retrieved on 2006-06-12.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ McClement, p. 22.
- ↑ TWA 800 NTSB AAR-00/03 Final Report, adopted August 23, 2000
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- Pages with reference errors
- Pages with broken file links
- Commons category link from Wikidata
- Pan American World Airways accidents and incidents
- Aviation accidents and incidents in 1963
- 1963 in Maryland
- Airliner accidents and incidents in Maryland
- Airliner accidents and incidents involving in-flight explosions
- Airliner accidents and incidents caused by lightning strikes
- Accidents and incidents involving the Boeing 707
- Elkton, Maryland
- 1963 meteorology
