Continental Airlines Flight 11

Continental Airlines Flight 11, registration N70775, was a Boeing 707 aircraft which exploded in the vicinity of Centerville, Iowa, United States, while en route from O'Hare Airport, Chicago, Illinois, to Kansas City, Missouri, on May 22, 1962. The aircraft crashed in a clover field near Unionville, in Putnam County, Missouri, killing all 45 crew and passengers on board. The investigation determined the cause of the crash was a suicide bombing, committed as insurance fraud.

Crash

The perpetrator, Thomas G. Doty, arrived at the gate just moments before departure.

Flight 11 departed O'Hare at 8:35 p.m. The flight was routine until just before the Mississippi River when it deviated from its filed flight plan to the north to avoid a line of thunderstorms. In the vicinity of Centerville, Iowa, the radar image of the aircraft disappeared from the scope of the Waverly, Iowa, Flight Following Service. At approximately 9:17 p.m. an explosion occurred in the right rear lavatory, resulting in the separation of the tail section from the fuselage. The flight crew initiated the required emergency descent procedures and donned their smoke masks due to the dense fog that formed in the cabin immediately after decompression. Following the separation of the tail, the remaining aircraft structure pitched nose down violently, causing the engines to tear off, after which it fell in uncontrolled gyrations. The fuselage of the Boeing 707, minus the aft 38 ft, and with part of the left and most of the right wing intact, struck the ground, headed westerly down a 10-degree slope of an alfalfa field.

Witnesses in and around both Cincinnati, Iowa and Unionville reported hearing loud and unusual noises at around 9:20 p.m. Two more saw a big flash or ball of fire in the sky. A B-47 Stratojet bomber flying out of Forbes Air Force Base in Topeka, Kansas was flying at the altitude of 26500 ft in the vicinity of Kirksville, Missouri. The aircraft commander saw a bright flash in the sky forward and above his aircraft's position. After referring to his navigation logs, he estimated the flash to have occurred at 9:22 p.m. near the location where the last radar target of Flight 11 had been seen. Most of the fuselage was found near Unionville, but the engines and parts of the tail section, and left wing were found up to 6 mi away from the main wreckage.

Of the 45 individuals on board, 44 were dead when rescuers reached the crash site. One passenger, a 27-year-old man, died of internal injuries at Saint Joseph Mercy Hospital in Centerville, Iowa, an hour and a half after being rescued.