The Douglas DC-7 is an American transport aircraft built by the Douglas Aircraft Company from 1953 to 1958. A derivative of the DC-6, it was the last major piston engine-powered transport made by Douglas, being developed shortly after the earliest jet airliner—the de Havilland Comet—entered service and only a few years before the jet-powered Douglas DC-8 first flew in 1958. Larger numbers of both DC-7B and DC-7C variants were also built.
Capitol Air was a United States supplemental air carrier and, after 1978, a scheduled passenger air carrier based which was operational from 1946 to its bankruptcy filing on November 23, 1984. From 1964, supplemental air carriers were simply charter carriers. Until 1964, however, supplemental air carriers were a scheduled/charter hybrid. Supplemental air carriers were also known as irregular air carriers or nonscheduled carriers. The airline was founded as Capitol Airways in 1946, and renamed Capitol International Airways in 1967. In 1981, the airline changed its name to Capitol Air and was operating scheduled domestic and international passenger flights that year.
Flying Tiger Line, also known as Flying Tigers, was the first scheduled cargo airline in the United States and a major military charter operator during the Cold War era for both cargo and personnel. The airline was bought by Federal Express in 1989.
National Airlines Flight 2511 was a United States domestic passenger flight from New York City to Miami, Florida. On January 6, 1960, the Douglas DC-6 serving the flight exploded in midair. The National Airlines aircraft was carrying 5 crew members and 29 passengers, all of whom perished. The Civil Aeronautics Board investigation concluded that the plane was brought down by a bomb made of dynamite. No criminal charges were ever filed, nor was the blame for the bombing ever determined, though a suicide bombing is suspected. The investigation remains open.
United Air Lines Flight 409 was a scheduled flight which originated in New York City, New York. The final flight destination was San Francisco, California, with stops in Chicago, Denver and Salt Lake City. The aircraft operating the service, a Douglas DC-4 propliner, registered as N30062, crashed into Medicine Bow Peak, near Laramie, Wyoming, on October 6, 1955, killing all 66 people on board. The victims included five female members of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and military personnel. At the time, this was the deadliest airline crash in the history of American commercial aviation. Another 66 lives had been lost earlier that year in the March 22 crash in Hawaii of a United States Navy Douglas R6D-1 Liftmaster military transport aircraft, and 66 had also died in the mid-air collision of two United States Air Force C-119G Flying Boxcars over West Germany on August 11, placing the three crashes in a three-way tie as the deadliest aviation incidents in 1955.
On March 12, 1948, Northwest Airlines Flight 4422 (NC95422) crashed into Mount Sanford, Alaska, with a crew of six and 24 passengers. The flight was a C-54 charter flying back to the United States from Shanghai. The aircraft refueled at Anchorage and took off at 8:12 P.M. to continue on to its destination, New York City. Instead of following the published airway, which detoured around Mount Sanford, the aircraft flew a direct line, crashing into the mountain. After the initial impact the wreckage slid down for about 3000 feet before coming to rest. There were no survivors. The passengers were American merchant mariners, crew members of the tanker SS Sunset, being ferried back home.
A government contract flight is a type of charter airline operation contracted with a government agency.
Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 2 was a Boeing 377 Stratocruiser aircraft that was ditched into Puget Sound, just off Maury Island at the Point Robinson Light, shortly after takeoff from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (Sea-Tac) on the morning of Monday, April 2, 1956.
West Coast Airlines Flight 956 was a scheduled commercial flight in the western United States which crashed on October 1, 1966, approximately 5.5 miles (9 km) south of Wemme, Oregon, southeast of Portland. Thirteen passengers and five crew members were aboard, but none survived. In its first week of service, the aircraft was destroyed by the impact and subsequent fire.
Known for the first few months of its existence as Orvis Nelson Air Transport, Transocean Air Lines was a supplemental air carrier, a type of US airline defined and regulated by the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), the now defunct Federal agency that, from 1938 to 1978, tightly regulated almost all US commercial air transportation. During the time the airline operated, supplemental airlines were charter/scheduled hybrids, legally able to operate a limited amount of scheduled service, which Transocean did, especially towards the end of its existence. Transocean was based in Oakland, California. The airline was among the most operationally capable of the supplemental airlines, regularly operating many thousands of miles from the United States. At times it accounted for over 20% of the revenue of all supplemental air carriers, and it usually was the largest supplemental by revenue. However, Transocean fell on increasingly hard financial times during the 1950s and ceased operating in 1960.
Pennsylvania Central Airlines Flight 410 was a scheduled flight from Chicago, Illinois, to Norfolk, Virginia, with intermediate stops in Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Washington, D.C. On June 13, 1947, the aircraft serving the flight, a Douglas DC-4, crashed into Lookout Rock in the West Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains, while en route to Washington. All 50 passengers and crew on board were killed in what was at the time the second-worst airplane accident in the history of U.S. domestic air travel.
The 1952 Mount Gannett C-124 crash was an accident in which a Douglas C-124 Globemaster II military transport aircraft of the United States Air Force crashed into Mount Gannett, a peak in the Chugach Mountains in the American state of Alaska, on November 22, 1952. All of the 52 people on board were killed.
Alaska Airlines Flight 779 was a contract cargo flight operated on 21 July 1961 by an Alaska Airlines Douglas DC-6A that crashed short of the runway at Shemya Air Force Base with the loss of all six crew members on board.
Capitol International Airways Flight C2C3/26 was a chartered McDonnell Douglas DC-8 Military Airlift Command (MAC) contract flight operated by Capitol Air from McChord Field in Tacoma to Cam Ranh Bay in Southern Vietnam via stopovers at Anchorage and at Yokota Air Base in Japan. The aircraft crashed after a botched take-off attempt from Runway 06R at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport on November 27, 1970. Of the 229 people aboard the jet, 47 perished due to the post-crash fire with 49 people injured.
The crash of Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 1–11 was an accident involving a Douglas DC-7C of the American airline Northwest Orient 8 km (5.0 mi) northeast off Polillo Island, Quezon, Philippines, on July 14, 1960. Of the 58 people on board, 57 survived with 44 suffering from minor injuries and one female passenger losing her life.
Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 324 was a military charter flight from Haneda Airport to McChord Air Force Base. On the morning of January 19, 1952, the flight crashed into Hecate Strait in British Columbia, Canada, while making an emergency landing at Sandspit Airport. All three crew members and 33 of the 40 passengers were killed, making the flight the third-deadliest aviation accident in Canada at the time.
