Flying Tiger Line Flight 739 was a Lockheed

L-1049 Super Constellation The Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation is an American aircraft, a member of the Lockheed Constellation aircraft line. The L-1049 was Lockheed's response to the successful Douglas DC-6 airliner, first flying in 1950. The aircraft was also produc ...

propliner A propliner is a large, propeller-driven airliner. Typically, the term is used for piston engine airliners that flew before the large scale advent of airliners of the jet age. With the notable exception of the de Havilland Albatross and Fokker F ...

chartered by the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

military that disappeared on March 16, 1962, over the Western

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...

. The aircraft was transporting 93 U.S. soldiers and three South Vietnamese from

Travis Air Force Base Travis Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base under the operational control of the Air Mobility Command (AMC), located three miles (5 km) east of the central business district of the city of Fairfield, in Solano County, California ...

, California to Saigon, Vietnam. After refueling at Andersen Air Force Base,

Guam Guam (; ch, Guåhan ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States (reckoned from the geographic cent ...

, the Super Constellation was en route to Clark Air Base in the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

when it disappeared. All 107 aboard were declared missing and presumed dead. The airliner's disappearance prompted one of the largest air and sea searches in the history of the Pacific. Aircraft and surface ships from four branches of the U.S. military searched more than during the course of eight days. A civilian tanker observed what appeared to be an in-flight explosion believed to be the missing Super Constellation, though no trace of wreckage or debris was ever recovered. The

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: T ...

determined that, based on the tanker's observations, Flight 739 probably exploded in-flight, though an exact cause could not be determined without examining the remnants of the aircraft. This was the deadliest aviation accident involving the Lockheed Constellation.

Flight

The aircraft was a 5-year-old Lockheed L-1049H Super Constellation with 17,224 airframe hours. It carried 11 American civilian crew members and 96 military passengers.
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The flight was operated by the

Flying Tiger Line Flying Tiger Line, also known as Flying Tigers, was the first scheduled cargo airline in the United States and a major military charter operator during the Cold War era for both cargo and personnel (the latter with leased aircraft). The airline w ...

as Military Air Transport Service (MATS) Charter flight 739. The Super Constellation carried 93

Ranger A Ranger is typically someone in a military/paramilitary or law enforcement role specializing in patrolling a given territory, called “ranging”. The term most often refers to: * Park ranger or forest ranger, a person charged with protecting and ...

-trained Army communications specialists en route to South Vietnam.
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Their orders were to relieve soldiers in Saigon who had been training Vietnamese troops to fight

Viet Cong , , war = the Vietnam War , image = FNL Flag.svg , caption = The flag of the Viet Cong, adopted in 1960, is a variation on the flag of North Vietnam. Sometimes the lower stripe was green. , active ...

guerrillas.
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Also on board were three members of the Vietnamese military. (
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(if links above fail to load report, visi
http://dotlibrary.specialcollection.net
and select "Historical Aircraft Accident Reports (1934–1965)", then retry report links) The flight crew consisted of eleven civilians based out of California, including seven men. The pilot was Captain Gregory P. Thomas. The flight departed Travis Air Force Base, California, at 05:45 GMT, on March 14, 1962, and was destined for Saigon. There were four planned refueling stops:

Honolulu Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...

;

Wake Island Wake Island ( mh, Ānen Kio, translation=island of the kio flower; also known as Wake Atoll) is a coral atoll in the western Pacific Ocean in the northeastern area of the Micronesia subregion, east of Guam, west of Honolulu, southeast of T ...

;

; and Clark Air Base, Philippines. The flight arrived at Guam at 11:14 GMT, on March 15, after being delayed for minor maintenance on engines numbers 1 and 3 at Honolulu, and later at Wake Island. The aircraft departed from Guam at 12:57 GMT with an estimated time of arrival at the Philippines at 19:16 GMT. The Super Constellation carried nine hours' worth of fuel for the eight-hour flight of .
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Eighty minutes after departure, at 14:22 GMT, the pilot radioed a routine message and gave his position as being west of Guam at coordinates (). The aircraft was expected to reach at 15:30. At that time, the Guam IFSS experienced temporary communication difficulties with heavy radio static. At 15:39 the Guam radio operator attempted to contact the flight for a position report but was unable to establish contact. The aircraft was not seen or heard from again.

Investigation

The Clark Field Rescue Coordinating Center declared the aircraft missing the morning of March 16, 1962. Navy officials reported that they believed that the aircraft had crashed closer to Guam than the Philippines. At the time of the disappearance, the weather was clear and the sea calm. The Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, and Marines ordered aircraft and ships to the area. The first day of searching continued overnight. During the first two days of the search, vessels crisscrossed of ocean. Secretary of the Army Elvis Stahr told newspapers that "we have not given up hope that it will be found and that those aboard are safe," and that a "maximum effort" was being made. After four days of searching,

Major General Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of ...

Theodore R. Milton of the

13th Air Force The Thirteenth Air Force (Air Forces Pacific) (13 AF) was a numbered air force of the United States Air Force Pacific Air Forces (PACAF). It was last headquartered at Hickam Air Force Base on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. 13 AF has never been sta ...

told newspapers that although the chance of finding survivors was doubtful, every effort would be made "as long as there is any hope at all."
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Search efforts included aircraft from Guam, Clark Field, the US 7th Fleet, and the Air Force at

Okinawa is a prefecture of Japan. Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan, has a population of 1,457,162 (as of 2 February 2020) and a geographic area of 2,281 km2 (880 sq mi). Naha is the capital and largest city ...

. Additionally surface ships and aircraft from numerous U.S. bases in the western Pacific contributed to the search efforts. After eight days, the search was called off. The search, which was at the time one of the largest to ever take place in the Pacific, had covered more than of ocean.plaintext

Conspiracy theories

Flight 739 was one of two Flying Tiger Line flights with military connections that were destroyed under similar circumstances on the same day. This led both airline officials and the media to offer suggestions of sabotage and conspiracy. Both Flight 739 and the other aircraft, an L-1049 Super Constellation, departed from Travis Air Force Base at around 09:45 PST on Wednesday, March 14, 1962, and both encountered difficulties several hours later. The other aircraft was carrying "secret military cargo" when it crashed in the

Aleutian Islands The Aleutian Islands (; ; ale, Unangam Tanangin,”Land of the Aleuts", possibly from Chukchi ''aliat'', "island"), also called the Aleut Islands or Aleutic Islands and known before 1867 as the Catherine Archipelago, are a chain of 14 large v ...

and caught fire. Flying Tiger Lines released a statement outlining some possible reasons for the two occurrences, including sabotage of either or both aircraft, and kidnapping of Flight 739 and its passengers. The airline also said that these were merely "wild guesses" and that there was no evidence to support either theory.
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Possibility of sabotage

A Liberian tanker, the SS ''T L Linzen'', reported seeing a bright light in the sky near the aircraft's expected position about 90 minutes after the last radio contact.
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U.S. military officials described it as being a "bright light strong enough to light a ship's decks". It was reported that the tanker observed a flash of light approximately west of Guam, followed immediately by two red lights falling to the ocean at different speeds. A

investigation determined that witnesses aboard the tanker also observed what appeared to be vapor trails, and numerous crewmen observed the two fireballs fall into the ocean. The tanker proceeded to the location where the fireballs had been observed to fall into the ocean but was unable to find any trace of the falling objects during their six-hour search. A spokesman at the rescue effort headquarters in Guam said that as time passed with no sign of the aircraft, "more credence is given to the possibility that the tanker may have seen the missing aircraft explode in flight." Officials with the Flying Tiger Line said that their earlier theories of sabotage would be bolstered were the investigation to reveal that an explosion had occurred. The executive vice president of operations said that experts considered it impossible for explosions to occur on the Super-Constellation in the course of normal operation. Additionally he claimed that there was nothing powerful enough aboard the aircraft to completely blow it apart, and that "something violent must have happened." The Civil Aeronautics Board determined that, given the observations of the tanker crew, the flight most likely exploded in midair. As no part of the wreckage was ever found, the CAB was unable to establish a determination of cause. The accident report concluded:

References

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