Donations are never expected but appreciated: paypal.me/miniaircrash
Join My Discord:   / discord  

707 Image: Ken Fielding
JetPort Image: Jon Proctor
747 Image: Eduard Marmet http://www.airliners.net/photo/PanAm...
707 Image: https://www.flickr.com/people/2334403...
Northwest Memorial: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...


This is the story of pan am flight 799. Pan am, In a way it was the emirates of its day. It had a wide route network, amazing on board product and a kind of je ne sais quoi that very few airlines have. Over its long storied history it operated a lot of ground breaking planes, including the 707. On the 26th of december 1968 a cargo 707 was on its way from LA to Cam Rahn in Vietnam with two stopovers in Anchorage and da nang vietnam. The flight wasnt off to a good start, the leg from LA to anchorage was fine but they couldnt land at anchorage due to bad weather, so the captain opted to land at nearby Elmendorf airport. This made things a bit difficult for pan am, pilots who would fly the next leg were at the airport in anchorage and now theyd have to commute to elmendorf. In the grand scheme of things its not a big deal but its a nuisance nonetheless. When they finally got to Elmendorf both pilots got to talk a bit and they chatted about the plane. Apparently the thrust reverser on engine number 4 was being a bit troublesome.

On top of that timing at Alaska was another tricky thing, a lot of planes overflew alaska, so you had to take off at a specific time and take your place in the imaginary highway in the sky so that planes were spaced out by a very safe margin. But it would be hard for flight 799 to stick to those timings on the 26th of december as they were having some trouble on the ground. They had some fuel calculation issues and they needed more fuel to be added to the plane, then they couldnt get the engines to start as the ground equipment was having some issues. By 6:02 am the plane was alive and it was headed for the runway.

But the plane was held up again, the pilots wanted to climb to 31,000 feet and then climb to 35,000 feet after burning some fuel,but since they were delayed they missed their takeoff window, if they were to take off right now they'd have some traffic conflicts with those long range planes. There was another way they could take off right now and just cruise at a lower altitude but that would burn too much fuel and so the pilots opted to wait for 45 minutes and there the plane stood in the freezing cold for 45 minutes. Finally it was time for them to go they would be taking off from runway 23 as it was longer, as the crew did their checklist they called for a follow me vehicle, its basically a truck or car that you follow if youre not familiar with the airport.

They taxied, the captain was focused on taxing the plane safely on the icy taxiway, the first officer was on the radio with oceanic control making sure that there were safe to climb and the flight engineer was busy crunching the numbers to see how quickly theyd be able to get up to 35000 feet. Even as the plane lined up the first officer was on the radio with oceanic control making sure that their takeoff time was correct. Once everything was done the captain looked over to the first officer and said “okay you got it”. The four jet engines on the 707 roared to life pushing the plane down the runway. The plane lifted off into the sky, but instantly something was wrong. Their control columns began vibrating, this was a warning, They were very close to a stall. People watching from the airport saw the plane take off but they could tell that it was struggling to gain altitude. Soon the plane stopped climbing altogether, its right wing began to drop and within seconds the nose did as well. 2700 feet from the foot of runway 23, the right wingtip contacted the frozen ground and the plane crashed. None of the three people onboard survived.