Pan Am Flight 812

Pan Am Flight 812
	An identical Boeing 707-320B from Pan Am (1979)
Accident summary
Accident type	controlled flight into terrain
place	68 km northwest of Denpasar , Indonesia
date	April 22, 1974
Fatalities	107
Survivors	0
Injured	0
Aircraft
Aircraft type	Boeing 707-320B
operator	Pan American World Airways
Mark	N446PA
Surname	"Clipper Climax"
Departure airport	Hong Kong International Airport
Destination airport	Denpasar airport
Passengers	96
crew	11
	Lists of aviation accidents

On April 22, 1974, a Boeing 707-320B crashed on Pan-Am flight 812 . The Pan American World Airways (Pan Am) aircraft operated an international scheduled flight from Hong Kong to Sydney and crashed shortly before a planned stopover in Denpasar ( Indonesia ). The 107 occupants, 96 passengers and eleven crew members were killed in the accident.

Crew and airplane

The flight commander was 52-year-old Donald Zinke. The experienced captain had more than 18,000 hours of flight experience, more than 7,000 of them on Boeing 707 aircraft. Zinke was a licensed pilot for Boeing 707/720 and Douglas DC-4 aircraft . First officer and copilot was 40-year-old John Schroeder, who also had a valid pilot's license for Boeing 707/720. His experience was based on over 6000 flight hours, of which over 4700 were on Boeing 707. The third officer Melvin Pratt and the two flight engineers Timothy Crowley and Edward Keating were also experienced and in possession of valid licenses.

The aircraft involved in the accident was a Boeing 707-321B with registration number N446PA. The name of the aircraft was Clipper Climax . The machine was delivered by Boeing to Pan American World Airways on December 16, 1966. By April 22, 1974, the aircraft had flown 27,943 hours with 9,123 landings. The last maintenance took place before the start in Hong Kong. Clipper Climax was with four engines from Pratt & Whitney type JT3D equipped.

flight

The Boeing 707 took off at 11:08 am GMT (7:08 pm China Standard Time ) from Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong. The destination was the Australian port city of Sydney , and a stopover at Denpasar Airport on Bali was planned, which was scheduled to take place at 3:31 p.m. GMT (11:31 p.m. local time).

The flight was routine. At 14:28 GMT, Clipper Climax was taken over by Area Control Center Jakarta and pointed to a lower flight altitude ( flight level 280 instead of 350). At 15:08 GMT, the machine contacted Bali Control. Captain Zinke was instructed to descend to flight level 100, the runway was runway 09. At around 3:26 p.m. GMT, radio contact with the aircraft on approach was broken. According to the voice recorder , Captain Zinke tried to contact ground control, but this did not succeed. Radio messages from the tower to the Boeing 707 did not get through either.

Crash and investigation

Clipper Climax collided with a mountain about 68 km northwest of the airport. The crash area is hilly and overgrown with 20 to 30 meter high trees. The machine broke apart on impact. Wreckage was up to a radius of 50 meters away. Investigations into the damaged trees revealed that fire broke out only after the crash. The landing gear was fully extended.

Investigators from the Indonesian Ministry of Transport could not find any material failure in the aircraft. The engines were also fully functional until the crash. The evaluation of the voice recorder made it difficult for the master to establish radio contact with the ground control. The recorder showed that there were no problems with the usual landing approach. The pilots were also informed of the landscape, which is over 2000 meters high. The pilots were supposed to make a right turn at a distance of 25 kilometers from the airport's beacon, sink to 500 meters and approach runway 09 from the sea.

At 15:18 GMT, according to the voice recorder, the crew observed a difference in the two readings on the radio compass (ADF) . At 3:19 p.m. GMT, Captain Zinke was asked to establish radio contact with Bali Tower on a different frequency. Radio contact was made, Clipper Climax asked permission to go lower. Bali Tower instructed an altitude of 650 meters, which was confirmed at 3:23 p.m. GMT.

Investigators came to the conclusion that the pilots initiated the right turn too early, probably irritated by the contradicting ADF displays.

Victim

There were no survivors among the 107 occupants of the plane. The victims came from a total of eleven nations. Here is an overview of the nationalities:

nationality	Passengers	crew	total
United States United States	17th	9	26th
Sweden Sweden	0	1	1
Denmark Denmark	0	1	1
Japan Japan	29	0	29
France France	18th	0	18th
Australia Australia	16	0	16
Germany BR BR Germany	4th	0	4th
Canada Canada	3	0	3
India India	unknown	0	unknown
Philippines Philippines	unknown	0	unknown
Taiwan Taiwan	unknown	0	unknown
total	96	11	107