American Airlines Flight 444

American Airlines Flight 444
	The American Airlines Boeing 727-223 involved in the incident.
Occurrence
Date	November 15, 1979
Summary	Bombing
Site	near Washington Dulles International Airport ; 38°57′11″N77°27′00″W / 38.953°N 77.450°W
Aircraft
Aircraft type	Boeing 727-223
Operator	American Airlines
Registration	N876AA
Flight origin	Chicago O'Hare International Airport
Destination	Washington National Airport
Occupants	78
Passengers	72
Crew	6
Fatalities	0
Injuries	12
Survivors	78 (all)

Last updated September 11, 2024

American Airlines Flight 444 was a scheduled American Airlines flight from Chicago to Washington, D.C.'s National Airport. On November 15, 1979, the Boeing 727 serving the flight was attacked by Ted Kaczynski (also known as the Unabomber), who sent a pipe bomb in the mail and set it to detonate at a certain altitude. The bomb partially detonated in the cargo hold and caused "a sucking explosion and a loss of pressure," which was then followed by large quantities of smoke filling the passenger cabin, forcing the pilots to make an emergency landing at Dulles International Airport.^[1]^[2]^[3] Twelve passengers had to be treated afterward for smoke inhalation.^[2]

Bombing a commercial airliner, especially one flying through an interstate route as Flight 444 was at the time, and still is, a federal criminal offense. After the incident, the FBI was quickly called in to investigate. The FBI investigators assigned to the case found similarities between the still relatively intact pipe bomb and two bombs that had previously detonated at Northwestern University. This prompted federal authorities to assign the name "Unabomber" (for University and Airline Bomber) to the then-unknown suspect, and sparked one of the longest and most expensive manhunts in FBI history, which finally ended 17 years later with Ted Kaczynski being arrested and charged in 1996.

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This is a list of aviation-related events from 1972.

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This is a list of aviation-related events from 1974. 1974 had been deemed as “the single worst year in airline history” although this has since been surpassed.

This is a list of aviation-related events from 1979.

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Trans World Airlines Flight 514, was a Boeing 727-231 en route from Indianapolis, Indiana and Columbus, Ohio to Washington Dulles International that crashed into Mount Weather, Virginia, on December 1, 1974. All 92 occupants aboard, 85 passengers and 7 crew members, were killed. In stormy conditions late in the morning, the aircraft was in controlled flight and impacted a low mountain 25 nautical miles northwest of its revised destination. The accident was one of two crashes involving Boeing 727 aircraft in the United States that day, the other being the crash of Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 6231 later that evening near Haverstraw, New York.

Pan Am Flight 830 was a scheduled international flight from New Tokyo International Airport in Tokyo, Japan, to Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles, California via Honolulu International Airport in Hawaii. On August 11, 1982, the Boeing 747-121 serving the flight, nicknamed Clipper Ocean Rover, was en route to Hawaii when the airplane was damaged by a bomb that had been placed on board. Despite the damage to the aircraft, Captain James E. "Skipper" O'Halloran III, of Spokane, Washington, First Officer Ray Schuller, and Engineer Neil H. Nordquist, of Novato, California were able to land in Honolulu safely. One person was killed while 284 survived; 16 of them were wounded.

Theodore John Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, was an American mathematician and domestic terrorist. He was a mathematics prodigy, but abandoned his academic career in 1969 to pursue a reclusive primitive lifestyle.

On December 3, 1990, two Northwest Airlines jetliners collided at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport. Flight 1482, a scheduled Douglas DC-9-14 operating from Detroit to Pittsburgh International Airport, taxied by mistake onto an active runway in dense fog and was hit by a departing Boeing 727 operating as Flight 299 to Memphis International Airport. One member of the crew and seven passengers of the DC-9 were killed.

United Airlines Flight 696 was a flight from San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco, California, to Seattle, Washington, with 75 people in board on March 13, 1978, which was hijacked by a man claiming to have a bomb. The incident resulted in no serious injuries and the arrest of the hijacker, Clay Thomas.

References

↑ Lynton, Stephen J.; Sager, Mike; Harden, Blaine (1979-11-16). "Bomb Jolts Jet". The Washington Post . ISSN 0190-8286 . Retrieved 2015-12-12.
1 2 O'Brien, John (1986-03-04). "Federal, State Officials Team Up To Hunt Creator Of 11 Bombs". Chicago Tribune . Retrieved 2015-12-12.
↑ Ranter, Harro. "ASN Aircraft accident Boeing 727-223 Adv. N876AA Washington-Dulles International Airport, DC (IAD)". Aviation Safety Network. Flight Safety Foundation . Retrieved 2020-12-22.

External links

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[washingtonpost-1] Lynton, Stephen J.; Sager, Mike; Harden, Blaine (1979-11-16). "Bomb Jolts Jet". The Washington Post . ISSN 0190-8286 . Retrieved 2015-12-12.

[1986Tribune-2] 1 2 O'Brien, John (1986-03-04). "Federal, State Officials Team Up To Hunt Creator Of 11 Bombs". Chicago Tribune . Retrieved 2015-12-12.

[aviation-safety-3] Ranter, Harro. "ASN Aircraft accident Boeing 727-223 Adv. N876AA Washington-Dulles International Airport, DC (IAD)". Aviation Safety Network. Flight Safety Foundation . Retrieved 2020-12-22.

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v t e Aviation accidents and incidents in the United States and U.S. territories in the 1970s
1970	Cornfield Bomber (February 1970) Eastern Air Lines Shuttle Flight 1320 (March 1970) ALM Flight 980 (May 1970)* Trans International Airlines Flight 863 (September 1970) Wichita State University football team plane crash (October 1970) Southern Airways Flight 932 (November 14 1970) Capitol International Airways Flight C2C3/26 (November 27 1970)
1971	B-52C Lake Michigan crash (January 1971) Colorado Aviation Aero Commander 680 crash (May 1971) Hughes Airwest Flight 706 (June 6 1971) Allegheny Airlines Flight 485 (June 7 1971) Pan Am Flight 845 (July 1971) Alaska Airlines Flight 1866 (September 1971) Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305 (See D. B. Cooper, November 1971)
1972	Mohawk Airlines Flight 405 (March 1972) Delta Air Lines Flight 9570 (May 1972) American Airlines Flight 96 (June 12 1972) Prinair Flight 191 (June 24 1972)* Lake Winnebago mid-air collision (June 29 1972) Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 710 (July 5 1972) Delta Air Lines Flight 841 (July 31 1972) Sacramento Canadair Sabre accident (September 1972) Southern Airways Flight 49 (November 1972) United Air Lines Flight 553 (December 10 1972) Chicago–O'Hare runway collision (December 20 1972) Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 (December 29 1972) Puerto Rico DC-7 crash (December 31 1972)*
1973	DeKalb–Peachtree Airport Learjet crash (February 1973) Ozark Air Lines Flight 809 (July 23 1973) Delta Air Lines Flight 723 (July 31 1973) TWA Flight 742 (August 1973) World Airways Flight 802 (September 8 1973) Texas International Airlines Flight 655 (September 27 1973) Pan Am Flight 160 (November 3 1973) National Airlines Flight 27 (November 3 1973) Iberia Flight 933 (December 1973)
1974	Commonwealth Commuter Flight 317 (January 6 1974) Pan Am Flight 806 (January 30 1974)* Delta Air Lines Flight 523 (February 1974) Eastern Air Lines Flight 212 (September 1974) TWA Flight 514 (December 1 1974) Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 6231 (December 1 1974)
1975	Golden West Airlines Flight 261 (Janaury 1975) Eastern Air Lines Flight 66 (June 1975) Wien Air Alaska Flight 99 (August 1975) Overseas National Airways Flight 032 (November 1975)
1976	Alaska Airlines Flight 60 (April 5 1976) American Airlines Flight 625 (April 27 1976)* Air Manila Flight 702 (June 1976) TWA Flight 355 (September 1976)
1977	Japan Air Lines Cargo Flight 1045 (January 1977) Southern Airways Flight 242 (April 4 1977) Delta Air Lines Flight 1080 (April 12 1977) Encino helicopter crash (August 1977) Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash (October 1977) Air Indiana Flight 216 (December 13 1977) United Airlines Flight 2860 (December 18 1977) Vieques Air Link crash (December 19 1977)*
1978	Continental Airlines Flight 603 (March 1 1978) United Airlines Flight 696 (March 13 1978) National Airlines Flight 193 (May 1978) Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 182 (September 25 1978) Air Caribbean Flight 309 (September 26 1978)* TWA Flight 541 (December 21 1978) United Airlines Flight 173 (December 28 1978)
1979	TWA Flight 841 (April 1979) American Airlines Flight 191 (May 25 1979) Downeast Airlines Flight 46 (May 30 1979) Air New England Flight 248 (June 17 1979) American Airlines Flight 293 (June 20 1979) American Airlines Flight 444 (November 1979)
This list is incomplete. An asterisk (*) denotes an incident that either took place in a U.S. territory, or in adjacent waters thereof. Flying Tiger Line Flight 45 (July 1970) occurred in the United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands

v t e Ted Kaczynski
Targets	American Airlines Flight 444 (1979) Percy Wood (1980) Diogenes Angelakos (1982) Patrick C. Fischer (1982) James V. McConnell (1985) Charles Epstein (1993) David Gelernter (1993)
Works by	Industrial Society and Its Future (1995) "Ship of Fools" (1999) Technological Slavery (2008) Anti-Tech Revolution (2016)
Works about	Unabomber: The True Story (1996 biopic) P.O. Box Unabomber (2011 play) Manhunt (2017 TV series) Unabomber: In His Own Words (2020 documentary) Ted K (2021 biopic)
Related	David Kaczynski