Flying Tiger Line Flight 739
Lockheed Constellation L-1049H · Disappearance, possible in-flight explosion
From Travis Air Force Base (SUU) to Tan Son Nhat International Airport (SGN)
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
- 107 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 107
- Survivors
- 0
- 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
- 0 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
Lockheed Constellation L-1049H
- Aircraft type
- Lockheed Constellation L-1049
- 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
- N6921C
- Operator
- Flying Tiger Line
- Onboard fatalities
- 107
- Route
- From Travis Air Force Base (SUU)To Tan Son Nhat International Airport (SGN)
- 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 135: Air taxi & commuter (international military passenger contract)
- 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
- Not recorded
- 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
- Missing aircraft, not recovered
- 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
- Miscellaneous › Undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
Flying Tiger Line Flight 739 was a Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation propliner that disappeared on March 16, 1962, over the western Pacific Ocean. The aircraft, which had been chartered by the United States Army, was transporting ninety-six military passengers from Travis Air Force Base in California to Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Saigon, South Vietnam. After refueling at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, the Super Constellation disappeared while en route to Clark Air Base in the Philippines. All 107 aboard were declared missing and presumed dead.
The airliner's disappearance prompted one of the largest air and sea searches in the history of the Pacific. Aircraft and surface ships from four branches of the US military searched more than 144000 sqmi during the course of eight days. A civilian tanker observed what appeared to be an in-flight explosion believed to be the missing Super Constellation, though no trace of wreckage or debris was ever recovered.
The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) determined that, based on the tanker's observations, Flight 739 probably exploded in-flight, though an exact cause could not be determined without examining the remnants of the aircraft. This was the deadliest single-aircraft aviation accident involving the Super Constellation.
Flight
The accident aircraft was a five-year-old Lockheed L-1049H Super Constellation with 17,224 airframe hours. It carried eleven American civilian crew members and ninety-six military passengers. The flight was operated by the Flying Tiger Line as Military Air Transport Service (MATS) Flight 739, chartered by the United States Army.
The Super Constellation carried 93 Ranger-trained Army communications specialists en route to South Vietnam. Their orders were to relieve soldiers in Saigon who had been training South Vietnamese troops to fight Viet Cong guerrillas. Also on board were three members of the South Vietnamese military. The flight crew consisted of eleven civilians based out of California, including seven men, under the command of Captain Gregory P. Thomas.
Flight 739 departed Travis Air Force Base, California, at 05:45 GMT, on March 14, 1962, and set its course for Saigon. There were four planned refueling stops: Honolulu International Airport in Hawaii; Wake Island Airfield; Andersen Air Base in Guam; and Clark Air Base in the Philippines. The flight arrived at Guam at 11:14 GMT, on March 15, after being delayed for minor maintenance on engines numbers 1 and 3 at Honolulu, and later at Wake Island. The aircraft departed from Guam at 12:57 GMT with an estimated time of arrival at the Philippines at 19:16 GMT. The Super Constellation carried nine hours' worth of fuel for the six-hours-and-nineteen-minutes' flight of 1600 mi.
Eighty minutes after departure, at 14:22 GMT, the captain radioed a routine message and gave his position as being 280 nmi west of Guam at coordinates. The aircraft was expected to reach at 15:30. At that time, the Guam International Flight Service Station experienced temporary communication difficulties with heavy radio static. At 15:39 the Guam radio operator attempted to contact Flight 739 for a position report but was unable to establish contact. The aircraft was not seen or heard from again.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The Clark Field Rescue Coordinating Center declared the aircraft missing on the morning of March 16, 1962. United States Navy officials reported that they believed that the aircraft had crashed closer to Guam than the Philippines. At the time of the disappearance, the weather was clear and the sea was calm. The Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, and Marines ordered aircraft and ships to the area.
The first day of searching continued overnight. Over the first two days in the search, vessels crisscrossed 75000 sqmi of ocean. US Secretary of the Army Elvis Stahr told newspapers that "we have not given up hope that it will be found and that those aboard are safe," and that a "maximum effort" was being made. After four days of searching, Major General Theodore R. Milton of the 13th Air Force told newspapers that although the chance of finding survivors was doubtful, every effort would be made "as long as there is any hope at all."
Search efforts included aircraft from Clark Air Field, the United States Seventh Fleet, and the Air Force detachment at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan. Additionally, surface ships and aircraft from numerous US bases in the western Pacific contributed to the search efforts. After eight days, however, the search was called off. The search, which was at the time one of the largest to ever take place in the Pacific, had covered more than 200000 sqmi of ocean.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Flying Tiger Line Flight 739” (revision 1371364305, 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
UNDET DUE TO LACK OF EVIDENCE. ACFT DMG AND INJURY INDEX PRESUMED.
NTSB's remark from its 1962–1981 archive, as recorded (abbreviated, at most 98 characters): the archive has no narrative
Sources
Wikipedia article: Flying Tiger Line Flight 739
- Article
- Flying Tiger Line Flight 739
- Revision
- 1371364305 · 2026-08-26 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q5463546
- 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
- 19620315P000001
- Case number
- Unknown
- Dataset
- historical-pre1982
- Source SHA-256
- abe1a933b4b73583d61684309f7f0610c281e3c1de3537c6471bf2a98ba6481d
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Flying Tiger Line Flight 739" (page 1917635, revision 1371364305); merged with NTSB case NTSB19620315P000001 (PRE1982 tblFirstHalf (one row per aircraft, grouped by date, place and time))
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from Wikidata (P17)
- 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 NTSB19620315P000001
- 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 (5)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Flying Tiger Line Flight 739" and NTSB case NTSB19620315P000001, 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.
- The NTSB record dates it 1962-03-15 and the Wikipedia article 1962-03-16; Wikipedia's date is used.
- 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.