Pan Am Flight 843
Pan American World Airways Boeing 707 321B · Uncontained engine failure leading to partial structural failure
From San Francisco International Airport (SFO) to Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL)
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
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 153
- Survivors
- 153
- 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 321B
- Flight
- PA843
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 707 321
- 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
- N761PA
- Operator
- Pan American World Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From San Francisco International Airport (SFO)To Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL)
- 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 · climb to cruise
- 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
- Engine failure or malfunction
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Miscellaneous acts, conditions › Material failure
- Personnel › Improper maintenance (maintenance personnel)
- Personnel › Inadequate inspection of aircraft (maintenance personnel)
- Personnel › Poor/inadequate design
- Powerplant › Wheel turbine
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
Pan Am Flight 843 was a scheduled domestic commercial flight from San Francisco, California, to Honolulu, Hawaii. On Monday, June 28, 1965, Clipper Friendship, the Boeing 707 operating this route, experienced an uncontained engine failure shortly after take-off, but was successfully able to make an emergency landing at nearby Travis Air Force Base. The engine failure had been caused by faulty installation and maintenance procedures. The accident was filmed by a passenger.
Accident
Flight 843, carrying 143 passengers and 10 crew members, departed from San Francisco International Airport around 2:00 pm PST (18:00 UTC). After going through the pre-flight checklist, Captain Charles Kimes, 44, let his co-pilot, Fred Miller, 48, handle the take-off. As the aircraft climbed to an altitude around 800 feet, the number-4 (outer-right) engine exploded, rupturing the right outboard fuel tank and igniting the fuel inside. The explosion and resulting fire caused the last 25 feet of the right wing, along with the damaged engine, to break off from the rest of the aircraft. Captain Kimes radioed the tower, "I don't know whether I can keep it in the air or not."
The pilots were able to extinguish the fire, after which they headed for Travis Air Force Base for an emergency landing. During this time, passenger William Richmond and his wife recorded footage of the burning wing with their camera. Finally, about 34 minutes after taking off, and with the landing gear lowered by emergency means, Flight 843 landed safely at Travis, with all 153 people on board surviving unharmed. The success of the landing under the circumstances was described as a "miracle" by the news press.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
Three days before the accident on 25 June, the number-4 engine was overhauled and seemed to work perfectly for 39 flight hours.
The cause of the explosion was revealed to be a catastrophic failure of the engine's third-stage turbine disc, resulting from a loss of operating clearance between the disc and the third-stage inner sealing ring. Improper positioning of the turbine rotor, use of the wrong type of tool, and worn parts included in the engine assembly process were blamed for that loss of clearance. The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) accident report states that the inspector on duty during the reinstallation of the turbine rotor "signed off on work he had not inspected".
Text from the Wikipedia article “Pan Am Flight 843” (revision 1363710792, 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
RT.WGTIP & NO.4 ENG.SEPARATED IN FLT. DURING OVERHAUL NO.4 RNG SERVICEABLE WORN PARTS INSTALLED.
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 843
- Article
- Pan Am Flight 843
- Revision
- 1363710792 · 2026-07-11 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q19574756
- 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
- 19650628P005474
- Case number
- Unknown
- Dataset
- historical-pre1982
- Source SHA-256
- abe1a933b4b73583d61684309f7f0610c281e3c1de3537c6471bf2a98ba6481d
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Pan Am Flight 843" (page 45234779, revision 1363710792); merged with NTSB case NTSB19650628P005474 (PRE1982 tblFirstHalf (one row per aircraft, grouped by date, place and time))
- Date
- NTSB record NTSB19650628P005474: PRE1982 DATE_OCCURRENCE
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from Wikidata (P17); country from NTSB record NTSB19650628P005474
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record NTSB19650628P005474: 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 NTSB19650628P005474: operated under Part 121: Air carrier (scheduled intl passg service)
- Fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19650628P005474: PRE1982 TOTAL_ABRD_FATAL of each aircraft, plus people on the ground and others outside the aircraft
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19650628P005474: events.inj_f_grnd
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (4)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Pan Am Flight 843" and NTSB case NTSB19650628P005474, 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.