Pan Am Plane Crash Compilation - Besiege

Pan Am 214 was a commercial passenger flight from Carolina, Puerto Rico to Philidelphia, Pennsylvania with a stopover in Baltimore, Maryland on December 8th, 1963 carrying 81 people.

Crash:

While the plane was in a holding pattern above Elkton, Maryland as it was nearing Philidelphia at 5,000 feet it suddenly exploded mid-air and broke apart with the wreckage landing in a marshy field killing everyone on board.

Investigation:

When the plane was in a holding pattern in a storm a lightning strike hit the outboard left wing which ignited fuel vapors in the No.1 reserve fuel tank causing an explosion that ripped off part of the outboard left wing causing the plane to disintegrate.


Pan Am 806 was a commercial passenger flight from Auckland, New Zealand to Los Angeles, California with stopovers in Pago Pago, American Samoa, and Honolulu, Hawaii on January 30th, 1974 carrying 101 people.

Crash:

The plane was landing using the ILS to runway 5 when it entered a rain shower at 11:39 PM, at 11:41 the plane started to strike treetops 3,865 feet short of the runway before flying for another 236 feet then crashing into the ground and skidding 539 feet, the aircraft struck a 3-foot high mound with the post-crash fire consuming the aircraft killing 97 people with 4 surviving.

Investigation:

The plane was descending at a very high rate that the pilots were unable to prevent, they failed to monitor their instruments and the wind produced by the bad weather caused the plane to descend more, the crew's vision was also limited and optical illusions affected their judgment.


Pan Am 812 was a commercial passenger flight from Hong Kong to Los Angeles, California with stopovers in Denpasar, Indonesia, Sydney, Australia, Fiji, and Honolulu, Hawaii

Crash:

The aircraft was supposed to land at Denpasar but the aircraft's last transmission was at 12:26 AM but was not picked up by the ATC, subsequently, the aircraft was found to have crashed into Mount Mesehe 42 nautical miles northwest of the airport, everyone on board was killed instantly by the force of the impact.

Investigation:

Everything was going fine until at 12:18 AM when the No.1 Automatic Direction Finder (ADF) was moving sporadically and swinging around, the No.2 ADF was working fine and pointing north, the crew believed the No.1 ADF to be right and thought they were nearing the Non-Directional Beacon (NDB) they had to approach, in reality, they were 30 nautical miles north of the NDB but the crew didn't know this so they began to make an early right turn. Because they thought they were approaching the beacon they assumed they were clear of the terrain in the area and requested to descend to a lower altitude, they descended from 12,000 feet on a collision course with Mount Mesehe, if they had stayed at 12,000 feet the accident would've been averted but they descended in the middle of the night into Mount Mesehe.


Pan Am 73 was a commercial passenger flight from Mumbai, India to New York City, New York with stopovers in Karachi, Pakistan, and Frankfurt, West Germany on September 5th, 1986 carrying 388 people.

Incident:

At 4:30 AM while taking on new passengers at Karachi 2 terrorists in security uniforms approached the plane with 2 others following suit, they fired shots and stormed the ramp, and got on the plane with a briefcase full of grenades. The crew was able to escape the plane so the terrorists were forced to "negotiate" with officials with the terrorists killing an Indian-American national, hours later the next night a passenger was able to unlock a door when the firing started, as Pakistani commandos approached the plane at 9:30 PM the Pakistani terrorists started to open fire on passengers, due to the lack of lighting in the plane after the generator stopped working the day previous the terrorists were unable to detonate their explosives and most of the passengers escaped alive. 51 passengers died in the ordeal most of them Indian Nationals, 365 people survived this attack.


Pan AM 759 was a commercial passenger flight from Miami, Florida to San Diego, California with stopovers in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Las Vegas, Nevada on July 9th, 1982 carrying 145 people.

Crash:

The plane lifted off from the runway in New Orleans at 4:08 PM headed for Las Vegas, the plane failed to gain altitude and only climbed to about 150 feet before crashing into a residential area at 4:09 PM killing all 145 people onboard and 8 on the ground totaling 153 fatalities.

Investigation:

The plane had flown into a Microburst shortly after take-off, the strong headwinds and wind shear caused the aircraft to lose lift, the plane couldn't be recovered at all and the pilots didn't know what they flew into causing confusion. At the time Microbursts weren't really known about and weren't seen as a threat, there was only limited microburst detection technology, this crash and Delta 191 contributed to the development of the Airborne wind shear detection and alert system.