Pan Am Flight 160
Pan American World Airways Boeing 707 · Loss of control due to smoke in the cockpit
From John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) to Frankfurt Main Airport (FRA)
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
- 3 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 3
- 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
- Flight
- PA160
- 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
- N458PA
- Operator
- Pan American World Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)To Frankfurt Main Airport (FRA)
- 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 cargo 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 · 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
- Fire or explosion in flight
- 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 › Smoke in cockpit
- Miscellaneous › Written cause
- Personnel › Other
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Boston, MA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
From the Wikipedia article
Pan Am Flight 160 was a scheduled cargo flight which crashed on November 3, 1973. The Boeing 707 of Pan Am crashed after smoke in the cockpit prevented the crew from keeping control of the aircraft, killing all three occupants on board.
Accident
On November 3, 1973, Pan Am flight 160 departed John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York for the destination of Frankfurt with a stop in Prestwick, Scotland. The flight departed at 08:25 EST and was carrying 15,360 lb of chemicals. The first sign of trouble occurred at 09:04 EST with smoke in the lower 41 electrical compartment and this was reported to control. They also mentioned that they were going to divert to Boston. The crew contacted air traffic control (ATC) and was granted a return to JFK. Then, a major setback occurred, which was that the cockpit became thick with smoke. This made them turn back around to Boston. To help get the plane under its maximum landing weight (MLW), the crew descended to 2000 ft to increase the fuel burn rate. The crew requested to land on Runway 33 Left and this was approved by ATC. About this time, the crew shut off all non-essential systems. Soon, the transponder became inoperative. Once they were on final approach, with the airplane properly configured with flaps, the yaw damper was disengaged as a fatal result of critical mistakes during the execution of procedures. Henceforth, this made control of the plane hard at low speeds. Witnesses saw smoke pouring out of the cockpit windows, and the aircraft stalled out and crashed in a near vertical position with nose facing down.
Investigation and cause
Cause
The accident was caused by several factors, including the continued generation of smoke in the cockpit. This amount of smoke led to an uncontrollable emergency situation in which the yaw damper was disabled by turning off the essential bus. This smoke in the cockpit also affected the crew's ability to perform tasks. The source of smoke could not be identified, but most likely the result of a nitric acid leak and improper packing of hazardous material, with a reaction between nitric acid and sawdust producing smoke. The noncompliance of several laws regarding the transport of hazmat goods from all of the complexity, the industry lacking the knowledge of laws, overlapping jurisdictions, and lack of surveillance by the government.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Pan Am Flight 160” (revision 1359587481, 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
UNCOORDINATED DEACTIVATION OF ESSENTIAL POWER. MISC-SPONT CHEM REACTION,IMPROPERLY PACKAGED CARGO
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 160
- Article
- Pan Am Flight 160
- Revision
- 1359587481 · 2026-06-16 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q66827793
- 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
- 19731103P047943
- Case number
- Unknown
- Dataset
- historical-pre1982
- Source SHA-256
- abe1a933b4b73583d61684309f7f0610c281e3c1de3537c6471bf2a98ba6481d
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Pan Am Flight 160" (page 68679665, revision 1359587481); merged with NTSB case NTSB19731103P047943 (PRE1982 tblFirstHalf (one row per aircraft, grouped by date, place and time))
- Date
- NTSB record NTSB19731103P047943: PRE1982 DATE_OCCURRENCE
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record NTSB19731103P047943
- Map position
- NTSB record NTSB19731103P047943: centre of the town the record names (GeoNames, CC BY 4.0)
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record NTSB19731103P047943: 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 NTSB19731103P047943: operated under Part 121: Air carrier (scheduled intl cargo service)
- Fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19731103P047943: PRE1982 TOTAL_ABRD_FATAL of each aircraft, plus people on the ground and others outside the aircraft
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19731103P047943: events.inj_f_grnd
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (4)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Pan Am Flight 160" and NTSB case NTSB19731103P047943, 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.