Pan Am Flight 202
Pan American World Airways Boeing 377, Stratocruiser 10-26 · Engine separation, in-flight breakup
From Buenos Aires, Argentina to John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)
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
- Event fatalities
- 50 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 50
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
Boeing 377, Stratocruiser 10-26
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 377
- Category
- Airplane · from aircraft type
- 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
- N1039V
- Operator
- Pan American World Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- 50
- Route
- From Buenos Aires, ArgentinaTo John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)
Cause areas
- Not determined › Not determined
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
Pan American World Airways Flight 202 was a Boeing 377 Stratocruiser aircraft that crashed in the Amazon Basin about 281 nmi southwest of Carolina, Brazil, on April 29, 1952. The accident happened en route from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, during the third leg of a four-leg journey. All 50 people on board were killed in the deadliest-ever accident involving the Boeing 377.
The investigation took place under exceptionally unfavorable conditions, and the exact cause of the crash was not established. However, it was theorized based on an examination of the wreckage that an engine had separated in flight after propeller blade failure.
Flight and disappearance
Flight 202 was an international scheduled passenger flight from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to New York City, New York, with three en route stops scheduled at Montevideo, Uruguay; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. It began its route on the evening of April 28, 1952, in Buenos Aires, and after stopping off in Montevideo, it arrived in Rio de Janeiro at 1:05 a.m. local time (04:05 UTC) on April 29. It departed Rio less than two hours later, at 2:43 a.m. (05:43 UTC), heading for Port of Spain on the third leg of its journey. It was cleared to fly an off-airways route directly to Port of Spain, which took it over the dense forests of the Amazon jungle that were still unexplored at the time.
The flight reported abeam the city of Barreiras in eastern Brazil at 6:16 a.m. local time (09:16 UTC), flying at 14,500 ft under VFR conditions; the pilots estimated that the next position report would be at 7:45 a.m. (10:45 UTC), abeam the city of Carolina in the northeastern state of Maranhão, Brazil. This was the last known message from the flight. Witnesses in the villages of Formosa and São Francisco reported seeing the aircraft overhead at about the time it reported abeam Barreiras; they described the aircraft as operating normally.
When the aircraft failed to report abeam Carolina and then abeam the city of Santarém in northern Brazil, local authorities initiated a missing aircraft alert.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
Later, a 27-man investigation team flew via seaplane to Lago Grande, a tiny Indian village on the Araguaia River less than 40 nmi from the wreckage, with the intention of trekking to the accident site. Unfortunately, the extreme nature of the terrain forced all but seven team members to return to Lago Grande before reaching the site. The remaining seven investigators, running short of water, food and other supplies, were only able to confirm that all on board had died on impact and that a huge fire had consumed the fuselage.
A properly equipped and provisioned second investigation team built a base camp northwest of Lago Grande and finally reached the wreckage on August 15. They determined that the wreckage had fallen to the ground in three main sections. Most of the wreckage, including the fuselage, the starboard or right wing, the root of the port or left wing (including the nacelle for the No. 2 engine but not the engine itself), and the Nos. 3 and 4 engines (normally attached to the starboard wing), had fallen in an area of dense forest about 13 nmi northwest of the base camp. The outer port wing and the No. 1 engine had fallen 765 yd to the northwest of the main wreckage; the empennage and fractured parts of the No. 2 engine (normally attached to the port wing) had fallen roughly 1100 yd north of the main wreckage and 800 yd northeast of the port wing.
Although the No. 2 engine and its propeller were not found, evidence on the port wing root, the No. 2 engine nacelle, the leading edge of the vertical stabilizer, and the horizontal stabilizer led investigators to believe that the engine and/or propeller had failed in flight. There had been two prior engine separation incidents with the 377 on January 24 and 25, 1950. In this case, investigators hypothesized that the propeller failure caused the engine to experience highly unbalanced loads and it eventually separated from the aircraft, precipitating an in-flight breakup. Debris from the propeller and engine may have contributed to the breakup by damaging control surfaces after being flung from the port wing during the failure.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Pan Am Flight 202” (revision 1351749870, 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
Sources
Wikipedia article: Pan Am Flight 202
- Article
- Pan Am Flight 202
- Revision
- 1351749870 · 2026-04-29 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q6143782
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Pan Am Flight 202" (page 7141169, revision 1351749870)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- 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)
- Operation
- flight number in the article title
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the Wikipedia article's infobox and coordinates, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.