1965 Argentine Air Force C-54 disappearance

1965 Argentine Air Force C-54 disappearance (also known as TC-48 Flight or The Cadets Flight) refers to the disappearance of an Argentine Air Force Douglas C-54 Skymaster carrying cadet graduates from the Military Aviation School that disappeared between Howard Air Force Base in Panama and El Salvador International Airport on 3 November 1965. The last contact with the aircraft was 30 or 40 minutes after take-off, when the pilot reported a fire in one of the engines and notified the control tower of San José International Airport in Costa Rica that they intended to divert there. The aircraft never arrived and all passengers and crew are missing, presumed dead. The disappearance is considered the greatest mystery of Argentine aviation.

Flight

The C-54 took off from El Palomar on October 31, 1965 to the Military Aviation School. The crew consisted of 9 members; 5 officers and 54 cadets, thus totaling 68 occupants. The training flight would take them to San Francisco. During the trip, a second Douglas DC-4 was used, the TC-43 that carried the rest of the promotion. Both aircraft departed the following day, and flew to the Cerro Moreno base in Chile where, after a technical stopover, the flight continued to the Las Palmas base in Lima, Peru. There they spent the night and incorporated two cadets from the Peruvian Air Force, which were distributed in both planes. On November 2 they flew to Panama with a technical stopover in Guayaquil (Ecuador); and the next day, they had to complete the journey between the Howard Air Force Base and San Salvador International Airport (El Salvador).

Accident

At about 05:49, the aircraft took off from Howard Air Force Base on the Pacific side of the Panama Canal Zone with a second Douglas DC-4. The two aircraft would fly together to San Salvador International Airport, keeping sporadic radio contact for the duration of the flight.

The last two transmissions from the aircraft were at 06:27 when the DC-4 reported to Panama tower confirming that it had reached position "Mike-5" without incident at an altitude of 6500 and was heading for San Salvador. The "Mike-5" position is a navigational point close to Escudo de Veraguas island on the Panamanian Caribbean Mosquitoes Gulf of the Bocas del Toro Province. The weather conditions for this first part of the route were not the best, the forecast indicated severe turbulence, heavy rain, and visibility from very limited to zero.

At 06:36 the pilot of the C-54 reported a fire in engine 3, and engine 4 had stopped working. The crew reported that it would attempt to land or ditch the aircraft in the water. The broadcast was picked up by Tegucigalpa ATC and a Lacsa cargo plane pilot. The cargo plane pilot recommended landing at Limón International Airport or El Coco International Airport, now called Juan Santamaría International Airport, but the aircraft never arrived.

After that time, a large number of conflicting reports began to emerge, such as a third broadcast from the flight at 07:05 that said that the aircraft was flying over Bocas del Toro, heading towards Puerto Limón, where firefighters and ambulances were being mobilized while waiting for the aircraft.