Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 293
Douglas DC-7C · Unknown
From McChord Air Force Base (TCM) to Elmendorf Air Force Base (EDF)
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
- 101 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 101
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Douglas DC-7C
- Aircraft type
- Douglas DC-7
- 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
- N290
- Operator
- Northwest Orient Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McChord Air Force Base (TCM)To Elmendorf Air Force Base (EDF)
- 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 (domestic 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
- Undetermined
- 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
Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 293 was an American military charter operated on June 3, 1963, by a Northwest Orient Airlines Douglas DC-7C registered N290. The aircraft crashed into the sea off the coast of Alaska, resulting in the deaths of all 101 crew and passengers on board. It was the airline's deadliest disaster until the crash of Northwest Airlines Flight 255 24 years later.
Accident
Flight 293 was chartered by the Military Air Transport Service of the United States Air Force to carry 95 servicemen and their families from McChord Air Force Base in Washington state to Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska. The DC-7 departed McChord at 07:52 Pacific Standard Time. The last radio contact with the plane was at 10:06, when the crew requested a change of flight level. When nothing more had been heard for more than an hour, a search for the aircraft was begun at 11:16. It was not until 19:22 that floating debris was seen 182.5 miles (293.7 km) WSW of Annette Island, Alaska.
Approximately 1,500 pounds of wreckage was recovered, including life vests still encased in their plastic containers and extremely deformed seat frames. None of the bodies of the crew or passengers were ever recovered.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
With the wreckage under 8,000 feet of water, the Accident Review Board concluded that "because of a lack of evidence, the Board is unable to determine the probable cause of the accident."
Text from the Wikipedia article “Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 293” (revision 1346448987, 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
CRASHED IN NO.PACIFIC 116 MI FROM ANNETTE ISLAND. UNDETERMINED,LACK OF EVIDENCE.RECOV DATE 060463.
NTSB's remark from its 1962–1981 archive, as recorded (abbreviated, at most 98 characters): the archive has no narrative
Sources
Wikipedia article: Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 293
- Revision
- 1346448987 · 2026-03-31 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q7060143
- 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
- 19630603P000079
- Case number
- Unknown
- Dataset
- historical-pre1982
- Source SHA-256
- abe1a933b4b73583d61684309f7f0610c281e3c1de3537c6471bf2a98ba6481d
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 293" (page 24999838, revision 1346448987); merged with NTSB case NTSB19630603P000079 (PRE1982 tblFirstHalf (one row per aircraft, grouped by date, place and time))
- Date
- NTSB record NTSB19630603P000079: PRE1982 DATE_OCCURRENCE
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record NTSB19630603P000079
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record NTSB19630603P000079: PRE1982 REGIST_NO, ACFT_MAKE, ACFT_MODEL; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- NTSB record NTSB19630603P000079: operated under Part 135: Air taxi & commuter (mil contract-passg-domestic)
- Fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19630603P000079: PRE1982 TOTAL_ABRD_FATAL of each aircraft, plus people on the ground and others outside the aircraft
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19630603P000079: events.inj_f_grnd
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (4)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 293" and NTSB case NTSB19630603P000079, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this US event the NTSB'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.