1954 Cathay Pacific Douglas DC-4 shootdown

The 1954 Cathay Pacific Douglas DC-4 shootdown was an incident on 23 July 1954, when a Cathay Pacific Airways DC-4/C-54 airliner was shot down by a PLA Air Force fighter aircraft. The event occurred off the coast of Hainan Island, where the plane was en route from Bangkok to Hong Kong, killing 10 of 18 passengers and crew on board. The crew of five was headed by British captain Phil Blown. In all, one flight crew member, one cabin crew member and eight of the thirteen passengers were killed in the attack and subsequent crash of the airliner.

Although the aircraft was originally manufactured for the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) as a Douglas C-54 Skymaster, it was subsequently converted to civilian airliner standard, and sold firstly to KLM, and later to Cathay Pacific. Hence the incident is known as "the DC-4 shootdown", to acknowledge that the aircraft was no longer a C-54, and that it was not being used for military purposes.

Flight and attack

The flight originated in Singapore.

On 22 July 1954, VR-HEU took off from Bangkok at 20:19 GMT after being delayed in Bangkok for an hour due to mechanical problems on its No. 2 engine. The flight was bound for Hong Kong.

At 23:40 GMT, when the DC-4 was cruising at 9,000 ft and roughly 10 mi east of the international air corridor line off Hainan Island and only 31 minutes from Hong Kong, two Lavochkin La-11 fighters of the 85th Fighter Regiment, 29th Fighter Division, People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF), appeared behind VR-HEU, one above it on the DC-4's starboard rear side and the other on its port side. At approximately 23:44 GMT, the fighters opened fire, hitting the two outboard engines (numbers 1 and 4) which caught fire. The number 4 engine's auxiliary and main fuel tanks were also ablaze.

While captain Phil Blown took evasive actions to avoid further damage, co-pilot Cedric Carlton issued blankets to passengers instructing them to place them on the back of their seats for protection against the bullets. Radio operator Stephen Wong made an initial distress call at 23:45 GMT: "Kai Tak Tower, Cathay XXX, Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! No. 1 port engine on fire, losing altitude, requesting all possible assistance." Wong made 10 mayday calls before VR-HEU ditched. Cathay Pacific engineer G. H. Cattanach, travelling as a passenger, tried to make the passengers comfortable when it became known that the plane was going to ditch.

VR-HEU began losing altitude and at 5000 ft, its rudder control was shot off. Travelling at 350 mph, Blown tried his utmost to evade incendiary bullets fired by the fighters by taking evasive action, weaving the Skymaster left and right. At 2000 ft, the right aileron was shot off and the plane began uncontrollably turning right. The captain then countered the increasing turn by shutting down engines 1 and 2 and applying full power on engine 3. Approximately two minutes after the initial attack, unable to maintain controlled levelled flight, Blown decided to ditch the Skymaster in rough open seas that included 15 ft waves and a 25 kn wind.

The starboard wingtip was the first to hit the water, severing the right wing between the number 3 and 4 engines. The impact caused the tail to break off and float off 50 yd from the main wreckage. The main fuselage now floated at an angle of 45 degrees with the rear open fuselage pointing towards the sky.

After the plane ditched into the ocean, the attacking fighters, flying at around 1000 ft, ceased firing at the Skymaster, made a turn around the wreckage, and headed towards Sanya. While nine passengers and crew were killed by bullets and the subsequent ditching, nine others survived and escaped from the sinking plane. Blown and his co-pilot escaped through a broken starboard sliding window, which had water coming in fast.

With all survivors floating on the water with no life vests, co-pilot Carlton suddenly noticed that a Mrs Thorburn was hanging on to a raft still in its case. Fearing the bright yellow rubber raft might attract the attention of PLAAF fighters, it took Carlton twenty minutes to finally inflate the rubber dinghy and lift all nine passengers in. Once all were on the dinghy, concern remained that the attacking planes might return; some of the dazed, injured passengers, with their clothes in shreds, hid under a plastic sunshade covering the edges of the dinghy. Although Blown and passenger Peter Thacher kept watch, the attacking planes never returned.