West Coast Airlines Flight 956

West Coast Airlines Flight 956 was a scheduled commercial flight in the Western United States which crashed on October 1, 1966, approximately 5.5 mi 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.

The probable cause of the accident was "the descent of the aircraft below its clearance limit and below that of surrounding obstructing terrain, but the Board was unable to determine the cause of such descent." This accident was the first loss of a Douglas DC-9, and the first fatalities for the airline. Three of the passengers were employees of the airline.

Timeline

On Saturday, October 1, 1966, a Douglas DC-9 registered in the United States as N9101 operated as Flight 941 southbound from Seattle, Washington, to San Francisco, California, with intermediate stops in Oregon at Portland and Eugene.

After approximately one hour on the ground, the aircraft and crew became northbound Flight 956, which reversed the route and stops of the previous flight. Flight 956 arrived in Eugene at 19:34 and departed for Portland at 19:52. The flight received an Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) clearance via Victor Airway 23 at 12000 ft altitude.

Accident

Under Air Traffic Control radar vector at 20:04:25 PDT, Flight 956 received descent instructions from Seattle Center. Flight 956 acknowledged the transmission to descend to 9000 ft from 14000 ft. Approximately one minute later, the controller advised the flight that Runway 28R was in use at Portland International Airport and instructed the flight to "turn right heading three zero zero." After questioning the direction of the turn, the crew acknowledged "Right turn to three zero zero, roger."

The controller lost radar contact with the flight while it was in the right turn passing through an estimated heading of 240 to 260 degrees. At 20:09:09, the crew was requested to report when established on a heading of 300 degrees. After repeating the request, the crew responded at 20:09:27, "Nine five six wilco." When the radar target failed to return, and no other transmissions were heard from the flight, accident notification procedures were initiated at 20:15.

An F-106 Delta Dart fighter interceptor from McChord Air Force Base (south of Tacoma, Washington) and a HU-16 Albatross seaplane from Portland's air base were dispatched to attempt to locate the missing plane on the night it disappeared. At the time of the disappearance, more than an hour after sunset, the cloud ceiling was at 2900 ft, with the weather consisting of rain.