Pan Am Flight 292
Pan American World Airways Boeing 707-121B · Pilot error, controlled flight into terrain
From Martinique Aimé Césaire International Airport (FDF) to New York City
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
- 30 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 30
- 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
Boeing 707-121B
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 707
- 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
- N708PA
- Operator
- Pan American World Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- 30
- Route
- From Martinique Aimé Césaire International Airport (FDF)To New York City
- 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 121: Air carrier (scheduled international passenger service)
- 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
- En route · descent
- 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
- Controlled collision with ground/water
- 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 › Written cause
- Pilot in command › Became lost/disoriented
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
Pan Am Flight 292 was operated by a Boeing 707 that flew into Chances Peak on the island of Montserrat on 17 September 1965 while on a flight from Fort-de-France - Le Lamentin Airport in Martinique to Coolidge International Airport in Antigua and Barbuda. The aircraft was destroyed, and there were no survivors among the 30 passengers and crew on board.
Crash
The aircraft departed Fort-de-France's Le Lamentin Airport on a scheduled flight to New York City via St. John's, Antigua and Barbuda and San Juan, Puerto Rico. There were 21 passengers and a crew of nine on board. While on approach to Coolidge International Airport in stormy weather, at an altitude of 2760 ft, the aircraft hit the 3002 ft-high Chances Peak in Montserrat and caught fire.
Investigation and cause
Cause
The cause was determined to be pilot error: the crew made a navigational error and descended below the safe minimum altitude while unsure of their position.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Pan Am Flight 292” (revision 1375144138, 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
INVESTIGATED AND REPORTED BY UNITED KINGDON. PILOT-DESCNDED BELOW SAFE ALT DUE NAVIGATNL ERROR.
NTSB's remark from its 1962–1981 archive, as recorded (abbreviated, at most 98 characters): the archive has no narrative
Sources
Wikipedia article: Pan Am Flight 292
- Article
- Pan Am Flight 292
- Revision
- 1375144138 · 2026-09-16 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q7129566
- 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
- 19650917P005537
- Case number
- Unknown
- Dataset
- historical-pre1982
- Source SHA-256
- abe1a933b4b73583d61684309f7f0610c281e3c1de3537c6471bf2a98ba6481d
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Pan Am Flight 292" (page 25894758, revision 1375144138); merged with NTSB case NTSB19650917P005537 (PRE1982 tblFirstHalf (one row per aircraft, grouped by date, place and time))
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- 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 NTSB19650917P005537
- 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 (4)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Pan Am Flight 292" and NTSB case NTSB19650917P005537, 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.
- 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.