October 1972 - October 16, 1972 (Monday)

October 16, 1972 (Monday)

• At 8:59 a.m., a Cessna 310 took off from the airport at Anchorage, Alaska, for a 3½ hour trip to Juneau for a fundraiser. On board was Congressman Hale Boggs of Louisiana, Majority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives and former member of the Warren Commission, as well as and U.S. Representative Nick Begich of Alaska; Begich's aide, Russ Brown; and pilot Don Jonz, the owner of Pan Alaskan Airways. The men never arrived, and no trace of the plane nor its occupants was found after a massive search that ended on November 27, and their location remained unknown more than 37 years later.
• Direct deposit by electronic funds transfer made its debut, as a service of several California banks.
• At 10:30 pm in Rome, two agents of Israel's Mossad shot Wael Zwaiter eleven times as he returned to his apartment building. Zwaiter, suspected by Mossad to have been part of the Black September planning for the Munich massacre, was the first person killed as part of Operation Wrath of God.
• The British soap opera Emmerdale Farm, later simply Emmerdale, telecast its first episode.
• Died: Leo G. Carroll, 85, English actor, best known as Alexander Waverly, the boss of U.N.C.L.E. on The Man from U.N.C.L.E.