Boeing 377 - Safety Record

Safety Record

This aircraft type suffered 13 hull-loss accidents between 1951 and 1970 with a total of 140 fatalities. The worst single accident occurred on April 29, 1952.

• September 12, 1951: United Air Lines' Boeing Stratocruiser "Mainliner Oahu" was being used for a semi-annual instrument check of a captain. At 10:39, the flight was cleared for an ILS approach to the San Francisco Airport. The aircraft, with No. 4 propeller feathered, stalled and abruptly dived from an altitude of approximately 300 feet and was demolished upon impact in San Francisco Bay. All three crew aboard were killed. The probable cause was an inadvertent stall at low altitude.
• April 29, 1952: Pan Am Boeing 377 Stratocruiser 10-26 registration N1039V operating flight 202 en route from Buenos Aires-Ezeiza and Rio de Janeiro-Galeão to New York via Port of Spain crashed in the jungle in the south of the State of Pará. Probable causes are the separation of the second engine and propeller from the aircraft due to highly unbalanced forces followed by uncontrollability and disintegration of the aircraft. All 50 passengers and crew died.
• July 27, 1952: Pan Am Boeing 377 Stratocruiser 10-26 registration N1030V operating flight 201 en route from New York and Rio de Janeiro-Galeão to Buenos Aires-Ezeiza following pressurization problems during climb from Rio de Janeiro, a door blew open, a passenger was blown out and the cabin considerably damaged. One passenger died.
• December 25, 1954: British Overseas Airways Corporation Stratocruiser 10-28 G-ALSA crashed on landing at Prestwick at 0330 hours, killing 28 of the 36 passengers and crew on board. The aircraft had been en route from London to New York City, when, on approach to Prestwick, it entered a steep descent before levelling-out too late and too severely, hitting the ground short of the runway. A number of factors have been attributed to the cause of the crash, including pilot fatigue (the captain was well over his duty limit due to the aircraft being delayed), the landing lights at Prestwick being out of action due to repair and the First Officer either not hearing a command from the Captain for landing lights (which may have helped judge the low cloud base) or mistakenly hitting the flaps, causing the aircraft to stall.
• March 26, 1955: The no. 3 engine and propeller tore loose from the wing, causing severe control difficulties. The aircraft was eventually ditched 35 miles off the Oregon coast. The aircraft, named "Clipper United States", sank after 20 minutes in water of about 1600m deep. There were four fatalities out of the 23 occupants, including two of the crew.
• In April 1956, Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 2 ditched into Puget Sound after the flight engineer mistakenly failed to close the cowl gills on the plane's engines, an error attributed to confusing instrument layout. Although all aboard escaped the aircraft after a textbook ditching, four passengers and one flight attendant succumbed either to drowning or to hypothermia before being rescued.

• In October 1956, Pan Am Flight 6 ditched northeast of Hawaii, after losing two of its four engines. The aircraft was able to circle around USCGC Pontchartrain until daybreak, when it ditched; all 31 on board survived.
• Clipper Romance of the Skies, Pan Am Flight 7, left San Francisco on November 8, 1957, headed for Hawaii with 38 passengers and 6 crew. The 377 suffered a mechanical failure that may have been sabotage, and crashed around 5:25 p.m. in the Pacific Ocean. There were no survivors. There is speculation that two passengers had a motive to bring the plane down. Eugene Crosthwaite, a 46 year old purser, had shown blasting powder to a relative days prior to the flight, and had cut a stepdaughter from his will only one hour before the flight. William Payne, an ex-Navy demolitions expert, had taken out large insurance policies on himself just before the flight, and had a $10,000 debt he was desperate to pay off. The insurance investigator later suspected him of never being on the plane. His wife received at least $125,000 in payouts.
• On June 2, 1958, a Pan Am Boeing Stratocruiser, "Clipper Golden Gate" (registration N1023V), was on a flight from San Francisco to Singapore with some in-between stops. As the aircraft touched down at Manila (runway 06) in a heavy landing in rainy and gusty conditions, the undercarriage collapsed. The plane skidded and swerved to the right, coming to rest 2850 feet past the runway threshold and 27 feet from the edge of the runway. One of the passengers was killed when one of the blades of the number 3 prop broke off, penetrating the passenger cabin.
• On April 10, 1959, at the conclusion of a flight from Seattle to Juneau, Alaska, a Pan Am Boeing 377, named "Clipper Midnight Sun" (registration N1033V), undershot on finals and collided with an embankment. The aircraft caught fire and was destroyed but all passengers and crew survived.
• July 9, 1959: A Pan Am Boeing Stratocruiser, "Clipper Australia" (registration N90941), was on final for Tokyo when the gear was extended, showing three greens. When power was reduced prior to touchdown, the gear unsafe warning horn sounded and a red gear unsafe warning light illuminated. The captain first called for a go-around, but noticed that the airspeed was too low. The gear was retracted quickly and a belly landing was carried out. Zero casualties.
• August 1967: a ground collision with Stratocruiser N402Q; the aircraft was damaged beyond repair.
• May 12, 1970: The Aero Spacelines 377MGT was a converted Boeing Stratoliner. Prototype N111AS first flew on March 13, 1970. In the following period flight testing was carried out, a.o. at Edwards AFB. The accident occurred during the sixth takeoff of Flight Number 12 following the scheduled shutdown of the engine number one at about 109 knots IAS (indicated air speed). The takeoff was being made on runway 22 and the wind was from approximately 200 degrees at about 10 knots. Rotation occurred at about 114 knots and several seconds after rotation, according to one witness, the aircraft turned and rolled to the left, settling as it did so. The left wingtip subsequently contacted the ground, causing a severe yaw. The forward fuselage struck the ground, causing the flight deck to be destroyed. All four crew aboard were killed.