Pan Am Flight 121 was a scheduled Pan American World Airways flight from Karachi to Istanbul. On the evening of June 18, 1947, the Lockheed L-049 Constellation serving the flight, known as the Clipper Eclipse (previously Clipper Dublin), suffered an engine failure. This led to the overheating of the remaining engines until one caught fire, which spread to the aircraft. The heat from burning magnesium parts caused the engine to fall from the aircraft, leaving it unable to maintain altitude. Early in the morning of June 19, 1947 the plane crashed in the Syrian desert 4 miles (6.4 km) from the town of Mayadin. Fifteen people were killed, including 7 crew and 8 passengers. The three surviving crew members were third officer Gene Roddenberry (who went on to create the original Star Trek television series), the chief purser, and one flight attendant. After rescuing passengers from the burning wreckage, Roddenberry took control as the ranking flight officer and organized scout parties to find aid. By midday, the Syrian Army took the survivors to the hospital at Deir ez-Zor. The majority returned to the United States quickly while Roddenberry remained in Syria for two weeks to answer questions about the crash from the local government.
Prior to the fatal flight, the Lockheed L-049 Constellation known as the Clipper Eclipse had suffered engine problems during a flight earlier that week. This had required it to turn back near Gander, Newfoundland on the outbound leg of the journey, and delayed it for two days.[1] A cylinder was replaced in the number 2 engine, as a failure in the top piston ring was found.[2] A further problem was found in that engine later in the week while in Rome. Captain Joseph Hart, Jr., 42, and chief purser Anthony Volpe were walking under the wing when Volpe spotted what he thought was oil dripping from the engine. It turned out to be hydraulic fluid and required a replacement pump to be installed.[3][4]
Captain Hart's flight crew included first officer Robert McCoy, 25, from Maugansville, Maryland,[5] and third officer Gene Roddenberry, 25, of River Edge, New Jersey.[1] Roddenberry had no role on the plane to perform, as he was "deadheading" – riding as a passenger on the flight without any set duties – although that changed during the flight.[3] There were a total of 36 passengers and crew on the plane.[1]
The plane departed Karachi at 3:37pm on a flight to Istanbul.[3] This was the first leg on the return journey to New York.[6] The flight was expected to take ten and a half hours, and fly at a cruising altitude of 18,500 feet (5,600m).[7] Five hours into the flight, Roddenberry took over from Hart at the yoke to give the Captain a break. While Hart was out of the cockpit, the number one engine developed a fault with an exhaust rocker arm, and so Roddenberry shut the engine down.[3]
Hart returned to the cockpit and evaluated the situation. Knowing that the plane could fly on three engines, and that the local airstrips would not be able to make immediate repairs, he decided to continue on to Istanbul. The remaining engines, however, could not take the increased load and began to overheat. Hart descended the plane in an attempt to cool them, also reducing the power in order to keep them going. At 10 pm, he ordered radioman Nelson Miles to advise local fields of their position, which was recorded as being at 14,000 feet (4,300m), and 50 miles (80km) east of Baghdad, Iraq. The Royal Air Force field at Habbaniya suggested that the Eclipse should land there, but Hart was worried once again about repair facilities and decided to press on. A cockpit alarm activated at around 11:30 pm, indicating that the number 2 engine had caught fire.[8]
Fire suppressant measures failed to extinguish the fire, and the engine quickly became so hot that the magnesium components began to burn. Hart sent Roddenberry back to the passenger compartment to ready them for a crash landing, knowing that the engine would quickly fall from the plane. Hart wanted to take the plane to the airstrip at Deir ez-Zor, Syria, but it became apparent that he did not have sufficient time to make it there. So he began to take the plane down, and ordered Miles to radio a distress message.[8] Roddenberry reassured the passengers that everything was under control. He ordered the flight attendant to stay in her seat while he and Volpe reiterated the crash procedures to the passengers. The chief purser sat next to the flight attendant near the front of the plane, while Roddenberry sat three rows from the rear.[9]
The fire spread to the wing and shortly afterwards, the engine separated from the plane. This ruptured the gasoline lines, feeding the fire. As the plane was descending, a passenger screamed loudly and Roddenberry moved to comfort her; seconds later the plane struck the ground. Roddenberry suffered two broken ribs, not having been strapped down.[10] The aircraft crashed near Mayadin and the Euphrates river at around 3:30 am local time.[1][6][11]
The pilot's attempt to bring the plane down safely in the desert was later praised by one of the surviving passengers. A passenger said that the landing would have been successful had an engine on the port wing not dug into the ground, dragging the plane in that direction in a ground loop and breaking it in two.[12] There were 15 people killed in the crash, 8 passengers and 7 crew members.[6] The impact killed the crew in the cockpit, and ripped the sides of the fuselage away from the plane. This enabled some of the passengers to jump directly from the burning plane to the ground.[13]
Roddenberry plus the surviving crew members began evacuating the injured from the burning plane. Injured passengers were handed over to the uninjured passengers who took them further away. A passenger's seatbelt would not release until Roddenberry forced it open and helped her to safety. He continued to help passengers, and attempted to extinguish fires with a pillow as they spread through the passenger cabin. Soon the fire had spread so much that further trips couldn't be made into the aircraft for survivors. [14] "The last passenger Roddenberry pulled out died in his arms."[15]
Search and recovery
Gene Roddenberry (photographed in 1961) was the ranking flight officer following the crash.
Equipment was gathered from the burning wreckage, including several first aid kits, a number of the passengers' coats and an inflatable life raft. As the only surviving flight officer, Roddenberry took command of the situation,[16] but did so without knowing if the plane's position had been radioed to authorities.[17] First aid was conducted,[16] and after sunrise, the raft was inflated and propped up to provide shade and shelter. Shortly afterwards, a number of desert tribesmen approached the survivors. Roddenberry approached them,[17] and later stated he had influenced them to the extent that they only robbed the dead and spared the survivors.[18]
Spotting telegraph lines in the distance, Roddenberry sent two teams of two men each to follow the wires in both directions and report their findings. After they departed, local townsmen arrived at the crash site. They too stole from the wreckage, and also from the survivors, and after a short while, only their clothing remained. A team reported back that they had found the town of Mayadin, and Roddenberry made the 4 miles (6.4km) desert trek into the town, where he found a telephone and reported in to the airstrip at Deir ez-Zor at around 8am. Syrian Army planes and ground troops were dispatched to recover the survivors.[18] The first public reports of the crash came from a message sent to Pan Am's office in Damascus, detailing who the surviving crew members were.[1] Initial reports had confused the Clipper Eclipse with the Clipper America, which at the time was conducting Pan Am's inaugural around-the-world flight.[1]
By midday, the survivors had been transported by the Syrian Army to the Presbyterian mission hospital at Deir ez-Zor. The most seriously injured of them were transported by plane to Beirut. Roddenberry and the uninjured passengers were flown to Damascus.[19] Several survivors of the Eclipse arrived in the United States on June 23, at La Guardia Airport, New York City.[20] Roddenberry was delayed in Syria, as the government wanted him to aid their investigation into the crash.[21] Following two weeks of questioning, he departed for the United States.[22]
Later in July, surviving crew were questioned at the Civil Aeronautics Board at the Lexington Hotel in New York City. Robert W. Crisp, who was presiding over the investigation, entered into the record a commendation for all three. The purser and flight attendant received further commendations from the Transport Workers Union of America, and one from Roddenberry who wrote of their heroism to the Pan Am flight service department.[23] In February 1948, the official report placed the blame for the crash on Pan Am for failing to replace the number two engine entirely when it developed repeated failures.[24] Roddenberry resigned from Pan-Am following another flight incident;[25] after that, he became a police officer with the LAPD before becoming a television writer and producer, ultimately creating the Star Trek franchise.[26]
The Tenerife airport disaster occurred on 27 March 1977, when two Boeing 747 passenger jets collided on the runway at Los Rodeos Airport on the Spanish island of Tenerife. The accident occurred when KLM Flight 4805 initiated its takeoff run in dense fog, colliding with the rear of Pan Am Flight 1736 still on the runway. The impact and the resulting fire killed all 248 people on board the KLM plane and 335 of the 396 people on board the Pan Am plane, with only 61 survivors in the front section of the latter aircraft. With a total of 583 fatalities, the disaster is the deadliest accident in aviation history.
The Boeing 377 Stratocruiser was a large long-range airliner developed from the C-97 Stratofreighter military transport, itself a derivative of the B-29 Superfortress. The Stratocruiser's first flight was on July 8, 1947. Its design was advanced for its day; its relatively innovative features included two passenger decks and a pressurized cabin. It could carry up to 100 passengers on the main deck plus 14 in the lower deck lounge; typical seating was for 63 or 84 passengers or 28 berthed and five seated passengers.
Deir ez-Zor is the largest city in eastern Syria and the seventh largest in the country. Located on the banks of the Euphrates River 450 km (280 mi) to the northeast of the capital Damascus, Deir ez-Zor is the capital of the Deir ez-Zor Governorate. In the 2018 census, it had a population of 271,800.
Mayadin is a town in eastern Syria. It is the capital of the Mayadin District, part of the Deir ez-Zor Governorate. Mayadin is about 44 kilometers southeast of Deir ez-Zor. The Euphrates River flows through the town. In the 2004 census, the population was 44,028, making it the second most populous town in the governorate.
Third officer is a rarely used civil aviation rank. It was primarily used by Pan Am, particularly on its Clippers flying boats during the infancy of extended range airline routes. The third officer would serve as a relief pilot and aircrew member, and could move between pilot, co-pilot, radio officer, and flight engineer positions to provide a rest period for the primary crews.
Pan Am Flight 6 was a round-the-world airline flight that ditched in the Pacific Ocean on October 16, 1956, after two of its four engines failed. Flight 6 left Philadelphia on October 12 as a DC-6B and flew eastward to Europe and Asia on a multi-stop trip. On the evening of October 15 the flight left Honolulu on a Boeing 377 Stratocruiser Clipper named Sovereign Of The Skies. The accident was the basis for the 1958 film Crash Landing.
Pan Am Flight 526A, a Douglas DC-4, took off from San Juan-Isla Grande Airport, Puerto Rico, at 12:11 PM AST on April 11, 1952 on a flight to Idlewild International Airport, New York City with 64 passengers and five crew members on board. Due to inadequate maintenance, engine no. 3 failed after takeoff, followed shortly by engine no. 4. Nine minutes after takeoff, the aircraft ditched in rough seas 11.3 miles NW of San Juan Airport, broke apart and sank after three minutes. Panicking passengers refused to leave the sinking wreck. 52 passengers were killed, and 17 passengers and crew members were rescued by the USCG. After this accident it was recommended to implement pre-flight safety demonstrations for over-water flights.
Pan Am Flight 1-10 was a Pan American passenger flight from London to Shannon Airport, part of a flight around the world from San Francisco, California, to New York City. On 15 April 1948, the Lockheed Constellation serving the flight crashed 725 meters (2,379 ft) short of Runway 23 at Shannon. Ten flight crew and 20 passengers died in the crash; 1 passenger survived with minor injuries.
Protests against the Syrian government and violence had been ongoing in the Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor since March 2011, as part of the wider Syrian Civil War, but large-scale clashes started following a military operation in late July 2011 to secure the city of Deir ez-Zor. The rebels took over most of the province by late 2013, leaving only small pockets of government control around the city of Deir ez-Zor.
The Lockheed L-049 Constellation was the first model of the Lockheed Constellation aircraft line. It entered service as the C-69 military transport aircraft during World War II for the United States Army Air Forces and was the first civilian version after the war. When production ended in 1946 it was replaced by the improved L-649 and L-749 Constellation.
Al-Salihiyah is a town in eastern Syria, administratively part of the Deir ez-Zor Governorate, located on the western bank of the Euphrates River, south of Deir ez-Zor. Nearby localities include al-Asharah, Mayadin and al-Muhasan to the north and Hajin and al-Jalaa to the south. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics, al-Salihiyah had a population of 4,471 in the 2004 census. The village is located just next to the site of ancient Dura-Europos.
Al-Asharah is a town in eastern Syria, administratively part of the Deir ez-Zor Governorate, located along the Euphrates River, south of Deir ez-Zor. Nearby localities include al-Quriyah to the northeast, Makhan and Mayadin to the north, Suwaydan Jazirah to the southeast and Dablan to the south. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics, al-Asharah had a population of 17,537 in the 2004 census. It is the administrative seat of a nahiyah ("subdistrict") which consists of seven localities with a total population of 96,001 in 2004. Al-Asharah is the third largest locality in the nahiyah. Its inhabitants are predominantly Sunni Muslims. From Arabians Tribes of Tayy Al-Rahabi and Al Uqaydat.
The Deir ez-Zor offensive was executed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, also known as ISIS, against all other opposition forces in the Deir ez-Zor Governorate as part of the Inter-rebel conflict during the Syrian Civil War.
Eugene Wesley "Gene" Roddenberry was an American television screenwriter, producer and futurist best remembered for creating the original Star Trek television series. He was born in El Paso, Texas, but grew up in Los Angeles, California, where his father worked as a police officer. While at school, the young Roddenberry majored in police science and became interested in aeronautical engineering.
Ramaḍān Pāshā al-Shallāsh was a prominent rebel commander of the 1925 Great Syrian Revolt and, prior to that, a military officer in the Ottoman and Sharifian armies.
Pan Am Flight Clipper Panama, Douglas DC-6B N5026K, was a cargo flight from Frankfurt to New York City. On 22 June 1959 it caught fire on takeoff and was destroyed. All six flight crew and two passengers survived.
The following is a timeline of the Syrian Civil War from September to December 2017. Information about aggregated casualty counts is found at Casualties of the Syrian Civil War.
The 2017 Mayadin offensive was a military offensive launched by the Syrian Arab Army against members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in the Deir ez-Zor Governorate, following the breaking of the three-year siege of the city of Deir ez-Zor. The Mayadin offensive, conducted by Syrian Army troops, was conducted with the aim of capturing ISIL's new de facto capital of Mayadin, and securing the villages and towns around it.
The Eastern Syria campaign of September–December 2017 was a large-scale military operation of the Syrian Army (SAA) and its allies against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) during the Syrian Civil War. Its goal was to clear the city of Deir ez-Zor of any remaining ISIL forces, capture ISIL's de facto capital of Mayadin, as well as seize the border town of Abu Kamal, which became one of ISIL's final urban strongholds by the latter stages of the campaign.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
