physics

Pan Am Flight 843

Pan Am Flight 843 is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Pan Am Flight 843 rather than just read about it. In short: Pan Am Flight 843 was a scheduled domestic commercial flight from San Francisco, California, to Honolulu, Hawaii. On Monday, June 28, 1965, Clipper Friendship, the Boeing 707 operating this route, experienced an uncontained engine failure shortly after take-off, but was successfully able to make an emergency landing at nearby Travis Air Force Base.

Key takeaways

Pan Am Flight 843 belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Pan Am Flight 843 to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Pan Am Flight 843 from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Pan Am Flight 843 was a scheduled domestic commercial flight from San Francisco, California, to Honolulu, Hawaii. On Monday, June 28, 1965, Clipper Friendship, the Boeing 707 operating this route, experienced an uncontained engine failure shortly after take-off, but was successfully able to make an emergency landing at nearby Travis Air Force Base. The engine failure had been caused by faulty installation and maintenance procedures. The accident was filmed by a passenger.

Accident Flight 843, carrying 143 passengers and 10 crew members, departed from San Francisco International Airport around 2:00 pm PST (18:00 UTC). After going through the pre-flight checklist, Captain Charles Kimes, 44, let his co-pilot, Fred Miller, 48, handle the take-off. As the aircraft climbed to an altitude around 800 feet (244 m), the number-4 (outer-right) engine exploded, rupturing the right outboard fuel tank and igniting the fuel inside. The explosion and resulting fire caused the last 25 feet (8 m) of the right wing, along with the damaged engine, to break off from the rest of the aircraft. Captain Kimes radioed the tower, "I don't know whether I can keep it in the air or not." The pilots were able to extinguish the fire, after which they headed for Travis Air Force Base for an emergency landing. During this time, passenger William Richmond and his wife recorded footage of the burning wing with their camera. Finally, about 34 minutes after taking off, and with the landing gear lowered by emergency means, Flight 843 landed safely at Travis, with all 153 people on board surviving unharmed. The success of the landing under the circumstances was described as a "miracle" by the news press.

Investigation Three days before the accident on 25 June, the number-4 engine was overhauled and seemed to work perfectly for 39 flight hours. The cause of the explosion was revealed to be a catastrophic failure of the engine's third-stage turbine disc, resulting from a loss of operating clearance between the disc and the third-stage inner sealing ring. Improper positioning of the turbine rotor, use of the wrong type of tool, and worn parts included in the engine assembly process were blamed for that loss of clearance. The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) accident report states that the inspector on duty during the reinstallation of the turbine rotor "signed off on work he had not inspected".

Aftermath The number-4 engine ripped through the roof of a cabinet shop in San Bruno. Slashing through a wooden beam, the jet engine then penetrated an 8-inch (20 cm) thick concrete wall, damaging equipment outside, and came to rest on a mound of soil. A large section of wing came down on Grand Avenue in South San Francisco, starting a grass fire. A 6-foot (1.8 m) section of the wing hit the ground in Holy Cross Cemetery and a charred chunk of the engine exhaust struck the rear of a housing area, also in South San Francisco. No injuries were reported. While the passengers waited, Pan Am dispatched another 707 to Travis AFB to collect them and continue across the Pacific. This plane's nose gear collapsed on the runway, leaving the passengers dumbstruck. A third aircraft was sent, landing safely. Of the original 143 passengers, all but eight boarded the flight to Hawaii.

Aircraft history N761PA, Boeing 707-321B, Clipper Friendship, C/N 18336, was delivered to Pan Am on June 13, 1962. The aircraft was rebuilt and returned to service after this accident. It made an appearance in the 1966 film Dimension 5. In December 1976 the aircraft was withdrawn from service and placed in storage at Miami, Florida. Pan Am sold this Boeing 707 on March 10, 1977, to Dolphin Aviation, Inc., which in turn sold it to Air Manila, registered RP-C7075, on May 1, 1977. After several more operators, this Boeing 707 was bought on May 7, 1986, by the Boeing Military Airplane Company, and used as a source of spares for the Boeing KC-135E program. Reportedly, portions of the airframe are still extant at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona.

References

Further reading Hiscock, Melvyn (2015). "The Miracle of Flight 843". The Aviation Historian (13): 91–99. ISSN 2051-1930. Power-Waters, Brian (1972). Safety Last. Dial Press.

External links Accident report - Civil Aeronautics Board Pan American Boeing 707-32B YouTube. A Sight Few Have Seen and Lived to Tell About Life magazine. July 9, 1965. Vol. 59, No. 2

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Pan Am Flight 843

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Pan Am Flight 843 claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Pan Am Flight 843 before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Pan Am Flight 843 ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Pan Am Flight 843

In research: Pan Am Flight 843 appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Pan Am Flight 843 in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Pan Am Flight 843 is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1965 in California, Airliner accidents and incidents caused by mechanical failure, Airliner accidents and incidents in California, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Pan Am Flight 843 outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Pan Am Flight 843 in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Pan Am Flight 843 means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Pan Am Flight 843 out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Pan Am Flight 843 in simple terms?

Why does Pan Am Flight 843 matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Pan Am Flight 843?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Pan Am Flight 843.