Pan Am Flight 1-10 was a passenger flight from

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

Shannon Airport Shannon Airport ( ga, Aerfort na Sionainne) is an international airport located in County Clare in the Republic of Ireland. It is adjacent to the Shannon Estuary and lies halfway between Ennis and Limerick. The airport is the third busiest ai ...

, during a flight round the world from

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. On 15 April 1948 it crashed short of runway 23. 10 flight crew and 20 passengers died in the crash; 1 passenger survived with minor injuries.

Description

"Pan Am Flight 1-10", flown with the

Pan American Pan-American, Pan American, Panamerican, Pan-America, Pan America or Panamerica may refer to: * Collectively, the Americas: North America, Central America, South America and the Caribbean * Something of, from, or related to the Americas * Pan-Amer ...

Airways

Lockheed Constellation The Lockheed Constellation ("Connie") is a propeller-driven, four-engined airliner built by Lockheed Corporation starting in 1943. The Constellation series was the first pressurized-cabin civil airliner series to go into widespread use. Its press ...

, aircraft NC-88858 named "Clipper Empress of the Skies", departed from a London airport at 0:35 am. At 1:59 am it reported to Shannon Airport that it was at the marker at Limerick Junction. The flight received clearance to land on runway 23 at 2:10 am but reported a

missed approach Missed approach is a procedure followed by a pilot when an instrument approach cannot be completed to a full-stop landing. The instructions for the missed approach may be assigned by air traffic control (ATC) prior to the clearance for the approac ...

ten minutes later. After getting a second clearance to land, it struck a stone fence short of the runway, but perfectly aligned with it. The initial crash ripped the plane apart. The undercarriage and the engines were torn off while the fuselage broke into three pieces. Fire destroyed the remains of the fuselage.

Cause of the accident

The U.S.

Civil Aeronautics Board The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) was an agency of the federal government of the United States, formed in 1938 and abolished in 1985, that regulated aviation services including scheduled passenger airline serviceStringer, David H."Non-Skeds: Th ...

investigated the crash and published its findings on 24 June 1948:

The Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the continuation of an instrument approach to an altitude insufficient to clear the terrain. A contributing factor may have been the failure of the pilot's instrument fluorescent light.

The flight crew had earlier reported trouble with the pilot's instrument

fluorescent light A fluorescent lamp, or fluorescent tube, is a low-pressure mercury-vapor gas-discharge lamp that uses fluorescence to produce visible light. An electric current in the gas excites mercury vapor, which produces short-wave ultraviolet lig ...

. At earlier stops in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

and

this light had failed too, but the maintenance crew in London could not repair it due to lack of spare parts. Shannon Airport had earlier reported a fire in its ILS system, causing the system to fail. By the time the "Clipper Empress of the Skies" arrived, the system was again fully functional.

Passenger list

The lone survivor was a

Lockheed Aircraft Company The Lockheed Corporation was an American aerospace manufacturer. Lockheed was founded in 1926 and later merged with Martin Marietta to form Lockheed Martin in 1995. Its founder, Allan Lockheed, had earlier founded the similarly named but ot ...

employee. He was Lockheed's former maintenance manager at Shannon and, when found, was taken to hospital suffering from extensive burns and abrasions. He believed his injuries happened when he was thrown through the floor of belly baggage compartment which he thinks happened as the tail section fell off the plane. He had unfastened his safety belt when he realised the plane was going to crash, yet other passengers seemed quite calm. He later said that "''I was a little dazed but I was able to get up and walk away''" though worse off than he thought. The wife of the survivor had been waiting at the airport for him to arrive and saw a person staggering away from the burning wreckage. She accompanied Pan Am officials to the crash site to help, not knowing the person she saw was her husband and only survivor. Among those killed in the crash was

Mumtaz Shahnawaz Mumtaz Shahnawaz (1912–1948) was a Pakistani diplomat and writer. She had held degrees in English literature. Family She was born to Arain family of Mian Shahnawaz and his politically active wife, Begum Jahanara Shahnawaz. Thus, she was the g ...

, a Pakistani diplomat and writer and Homi Maneck Mehta, an Indian industrialist.

References

External links

Accident description
at aviation-safety.net
Original Civil Aeronautics Board
Accident Investigation Report">Civil Aeronautics Board">Original Civil Aeronautics Board
Accident Investigation Reportbr>PDF

Alternate link19 Americans Among 30 Killed in Airliner Crash
''Defiance Crescent News'' Ohio {{DEFAULTSORT:Pan Am Flight 0001 10 1948 in Ireland Accidents and incidents involving the Lockheed Constellation Airliner accidents and incidents caused by mechanical failure Aviation accidents and incidents in 1948 Aviation accidents and incidents in Ireland

1-10 1-1 may refer to: * New Year's Day, a public holiday in many countries, held annually on the first of January * Schweizer SGP 1-1, an American glider design * World 1-1, the first level of Nintendo's ''Super Mario Bros'' See also * One-to-one (disa ...

April 1948 events in Europe