Pan Am Flight 816
Pan American World Airways Boeing 707-321B · Crashed during takeoff; cause undetermined
From Auckland International Airport (AKL) to San Francisco International Airport (SFO)
Event
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Unknown
- Event fatalities
- 78 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 79
- Survivors
- 1
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 1 serious · 0 minor (NTSB)
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Boeing 707-321B
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 707
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N417PA
- Operator
- Pan American World Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- 78
- Route
- From Auckland International Airport (AKL)To San Francisco International Airport (SFO)
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 121: Air carrier (scheduled international passenger service)
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Initial climb
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Collision with ground/water
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Not determined › Not determined
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
Pan Am Flight 816 was an international flight from Auckland, New Zealand, to San Francisco, California, via Tahiti, French Polynesia, and Los Angeles, California. It was operated by a Pan Am Boeing 707 bearing the registration N417PA and named Clipper Winged Racer. On July 22, 1973, at 10:06 P.M. local time, the Boeing 707 took off from Faa'a International Airport in Papeete. Thirty seconds after takeoff, the airliner, carrying 79 passengers and crew, crashed into the sea. All occupants except 1 passenger were killed.
Accident description
At 9:52 PM the crew contacted air traffic control requesting permission to take off from runway 04 instead of 08. Two minutes later, Flight 816 began taxiing. The crew then asked if they could be assigned flight level (FL) 230 (23000 ft) as their cruising altitude, rather than the intended FL 330 (33000 ft. At 10:04 PM the controller cleared Flight 816 for takeoff, but the crew did not acknowledge this transmission.
Eyewitnesses reported seeing the aircraft make a sudden 90-degree turn soon after takeoff, along with a flash from the aircraft. The sole survivor reported a loud cracking sound immediately before the crash. At 10:06 PM, the controller heard a loud sound over the radio, saw flashes on the water, and activated the emergency response. A sea search by naval ships and private craft recovered 12 bodies and one survivor. The sole survivor of the accident was a Canadian citizen. He told investigators that he felt the aircraft was in a dive, took the brace position, and "woke up" in the water. The crash of Flight 816 is the deadliest aviation disaster to occur in French Polynesia.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
By 31 July, M. Lemaire, president of the French commission of inquiry, declared that it was unlikely that a criminal act had taken place.
The cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder are believed to have sunk in 2300 ft of water, and were never recovered. It is believed that an instrument failure during the climb out turn may have contributed to the accident.
Due to the flight recorders not being found, no official cause was determined.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Pan Am Flight 816” (revision 1364981740, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
NTSB remarks
NMBR FOUR WHL LOCKOUT-DEBOOST VALVE DMGD CAUSINGBRAKE DRAG,OVRHEAT WHL,INTRNL TIRE FIRE,TIRE BLEW
NTSB's remark from its 1962–1981 archive, as recorded (abbreviated, at most 98 characters): the archive has no narrative
Sources
Wikipedia article: Pan Am Flight 816
- Article
- Pan Am Flight 816
- Revision
- 1364981740 · 2026-07-19 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q7129577
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record
- Event ID
- 19730722P047955
- Case number
- Unknown
- Dataset
- historical-pre1982
- Source SHA-256
- abe1a933b4b73583d61684309f7f0610c281e3c1de3537c6471bf2a98ba6481d
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Pan Am Flight 816" (page 14104246, revision 1364981740); merged with NTSB case NTSB19730722P047955 (PRE1982 tblFirstHalf (one row per aircraft, grouped by date, place and time))
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports); gaps and aircraft details from NTSB record NTSB19730722P047955
- Operation
- flight number in the article title
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- Wikipedia: not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (4)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Pan Am Flight 816" and NTSB case NTSB19730722P047955, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this event outside the United States Wikipedia's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- From NTSB's 1962-1981 archive (PRE1982), which holds at most a short remark (98 characters, abbreviated) instead of a narrative; the accident type, phase of flight, causes and conditions are NTSB's codes, decoded as the archive defines them.
- Reviewed means this record passed the site's consistency check, not that it was checked against a narrative or report - there is none to check against.
- The operation category is mapped from the archive's operator and operation codes and has not been reviewed.