The Ilyushin Il-62 is a Soviet long-range narrow-body jetliner conceived in 1960 by Ilyushin. As successor to the popular turboprop Il-18 and with capacity for almost 200 passengers and crew, the Il-62 was the world's largest jet airliner when first flown in 1963. The seventh quad engined, long-range jet airliner to fly, it was the first such type to be operated by the Soviet Union and a number of allied nations.
A jet airliner or jetliner is an airliner powered by jet engines. Airliners usually have two or four jet engines; three-engined designs were popular in the 1970s but are less common today. Airliners are commonly classified as either the large wide-body aircraft, medium narrow-body aircraft and smaller regional jet.
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.
The Consolidated C-87 Liberator Express was a transport derivative of the B-24 Liberator heavy bomber built during World War II for the United States Army Air Forces. A total of 287 C-87s were officially delivered from Consolidated Aircraft plant in Fort Worth, Texas. The plant also developed and delivered a USAAF flight engineer trainer designated as the AT-22. The AAF C-87A was an executive transport version of the C-87. The United States Navy VIP transport designated as the RY. The last development was a Navy contracted, single tail version with an extended fuselage. Built in San Diego, its USN designation was RY-3 and the AAF had order the design as the C-87C. Those were cancelled and allotted to a Royal Air Force VIP transport designated as the Liberator C.IX
The High and the Mighty is a 1954 American aviation disaster film, directed by William A. Wellman, and written by Ernest K. Gann, who also wrote the 1953 novel on which his screenplay was based. Filmed in WarnerColor and CinemaScope, the film's cast was headlined by John Wayne, who was also the project's co-producer.
Ernest Kellogg Gann was an American aviator, author, sailor, and conservationist. He is best known for his novels and memoirs about early aviation and nautical adventures. Some of his more famous aviation novels include The High and the Mighty and Island in the Sky, both of which were turned into Hollywood movies starring John Wayne. Gann's classic memoir of early commercial aviation, Fate Is the Hunter, is still in print today and considered by many as one of the greatest aviation books ever written. Some of Gann's nautical-themed novels include Fiddler's Green and Soldier of Fortune, which were also turned into major motion pictures.
Pacific Air Lines Flight 773 was a Fairchild F27A Friendship airliner that crashed on May 7, 1964, near Danville, California, a suburb east of Oakland. The crash was most likely the first instance in the United States of an airliner's pilots being shot by a passenger as part of a murder–suicide. Francisco Paula Gonzales, 27, shot both pilots before turning the gun on himself, causing the plane to crash, killing all 44 aboard.
American Airlines Flight 157, a Douglas DC-6, departed on November 29, 1949, from New York City bound for Mexico City with 46 passengers and crew. After one engine failed in mid-flight, a series of critical mistakes by the flight crew caused the pilot to lose control of the plane during the final approach to a routine stopover at Love Field in Dallas, Texas. The airliner slid off the runway and struck a parked airplane, a hangar, and a flight school before crashing into a business across from the airport. 26 passengers and two flight attendants died. The pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer, and 15 passengers survived.
Fate Is the Hunter is a 1961 memoir by aviation writer Ernest K. Gann. It describes his years working as a pilot from the 1930s to 1950s, starting at American Airlines in Douglas DC-2s and DC-3s when civilian air transport was in its infancy, moving onto wartime flying in C-54s, C-87s, and Lockheed Lodestars, and finally at Matson Navigation's short-lived upstart airline and various post-World War II "nonscheduled" airlines in Douglas DC-4s.
The Beechcraft Model 99 is a civilian aircraft produced by Beechcraft. It is also known as the Beech 99 Airliner and the Commuter 99. The 99 is a twin-engine, unpressurized, 15 to 17 passenger seat turboprop aircraft, derived from the earlier Beechcraft King Air and Queen Air. It uses the wings of the Queen Air, the engines and nacelles of the King Air, and sub-systems from both, with a specifically designed nose structure.
Pacific Air Lines was a local service carrier on the West Coast of the United States that began scheduled passenger flights in the mid-1940s under the name Southwest Airways. The company linked small cities in California with larger cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco. Flights later operated to Portland, Oregon, and eventually reached Las Vegas and Reno in Nevada.
United Air Lines Flight 608 was a Douglas DC-6 airliner, registration NC37510, on a scheduled passenger flight from Los Angeles to Chicago when it crashed at 12:29 pm on October 24, 1947 about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) southeast of Bryce Canyon Airport, Utah, United States. None of the five crew members and 47 passengers on board survived. It was the first crash of a DC-6, and at the time, it was the second-deadliest air crash in the United States, surpassed by Eastern Air Lines Flight 605 by only one fatality.
Fate Is the Hunter is a 1964 American aviation disaster drama film from 20th Century Fox, produced by Aaron Rosenberg, directed by Ralph Nelson, that stars Glenn Ford, Nancy Kwan, Suzanne Pleshette and Rod Taylor. Fate Is the Hunter also features Jane Russell, Nehemiah Persoff, Wally Cox, and Mark Stevens. Dorothy Malone also makes an uncredited appearance. The film features an early film score by composer Jerry Goldsmith.
Pan Am Flight 7 was a westbound round-the-world flight operated by Pan American World Airways. On November 8, 1957, the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser 10-29 serving the flight, named Clipper Romance of the Skies, crashed in the Pacific Ocean en route to Honolulu International Airport from San Francisco. The crash killed all 36 passengers and eight crew members.
Transocean Air Lines was an airline based in the United States that operated from 1946, when it was established as ONAT (Orvis Nelson Air Transport Company), until its bankruptcy in 1960. It was based in Oakland, California.
American Airlines Flight 910, a four-engine Douglas DC-6 propliner, collided in mid-air with a single engine Temco Swift on final approach to Dallas Love Field on June 28, 1952, over Dallas, Texas. The DC-6 was carrying 55 passengers and 5 crew members from San Francisco, California. The DC-6 landed with no injuries to any of its 60 occupants, while both occupants of the two-person Swift died when their aircraft impacted the ground.
Caspian Airlines Flight 7908 was a scheduled commercial flight from Tehran, Iran, to Yerevan, Armenia, that crashed near the village of Jannatabad, outside the city of Qazvin in north-western Iran, on 15 July 2009. All 153 passengers and 15 crew members on board died.
American Airlines Flight 28 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight that crashed on October 23, 1942, in Chino Canyon near Palm Springs, California, United States, after being struck by a United States Army Air Forces B-34 bomber. The B-34 suffered only minor damage, and landed safely at the Army Airport of the Sixth Ferrying Command, Palm Springs.
Eastern Air Lines Flight 605 was a domestic flight in the US from Newark to Miami on May 30, 1947. The flight crashed near Bainbridge, Maryland, causing the deaths of all 53 passengers and crew on board in what was then the worst disaster in the history of North American commercial aviation.
Asiana Airlines Flight 214 was a scheduled transpacific passenger flight originating from Incheon International Airport near Seoul, South Korea. On the morning of July 6, 2013, the Boeing 777-200ER operating the flight crashed on final approach into San Francisco International Airport in the United States. Of the 307 people on board, three died; another 187 were injured, 49 of them seriously. Among the seriously injured were four flight attendants who were thrown onto the runway while still strapped in their seats when the tail section broke off after striking the seawall short of the runway. It was the first fatal crash of a Boeing 777 since the aircraft type entered service in 1995.
