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Flying Tiger Line Flight 45

27 Jul 1970 · Naha Air Force Base, Okinawa, U.S. Civil Admin. of the Ryukyu Is.

Douglas DC-8 · Controlled flight into terrain in low visibility

From Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to Da Nang Ab, VIET NAM

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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
4 · all aircraft and ground
Ground fatalities
0
Occupants
4
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
Instrument Meteorological Cond

Douglas DC-8

Flight
FT45
Aircraft type
Douglas DC-8
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
N785FT
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)To Da Nang Ab, VIET NAM
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
Approach
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 acts, conditions › Instruments-misread or failed to read
  • Pilot in command › Improper IFR operation
  • Weather › Rain

Approximate · Estimated position: Naha International Airport, the airport the Wikipedia article names as the site. Where on or near it is not known.

From the Wikipedia article

Flying Tiger Line Flight 45 was a regularly scheduled cargo flight by Flying Tiger Line from Los Angeles to Da Nang Air Base in South Vietnam, with intermediate stops at San Francisco, Seattle, Cold Bay, Tokyo, Naha, Hong Kong, and Cam Ranh. On July 27, 1970, the flight, a Douglas DC-8, crashed on final approach as it was trying to make its 4th stopover at Naha Airport (then Naha Air Base) in Okinawa, which was under US administration at the time.

Investigation and cause

Cause

Flying Tiger Line Flight 45 flew from Tokyo to Naha using IFR, and crashed on final approach just as it had passed a low level raincloud.

The investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board concludes that the aircraft encountered a tropical storm while on approach with visibility not reaching 1 mile, only for visibility to increase by 10 to a 100 times once the clouds cleared, blinding the piloting crews and making the approach difficult.

Text from the Wikipedia article “Flying Tiger Line Flight 45” (revision 1363570273, 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

DSCNT DUE INATTENTION OF CREW TO INST ALT REF WHILE ATMTG VISUAL CTCT.MET COND PRECLUDED SUCH CTC.

NTSB's remark from its 1962–1981 archive, as recorded (abbreviated, at most 98 characters): the archive has no narrative

Sources

Wikipedia article: Flying Tiger Line Flight 45
Article
Flying Tiger Line Flight 45
Revision
1363570273 · 2026-07-11 · retrieved 2026-09-18
Wikidata
Q11333487
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
19700727P033587
Case number
Unknown
Dataset
historical-pre1982
Source SHA-256
abe1a933b4b73583d61684309f7f0610c281e3c1de3537c6471bf2a98ba6481d
Where each value comes from
Record
Wikipedia article "Flying Tiger Line Flight 45" (page 72762273, revision 1363570273); merged with NTSB case NTSB19700727P033587 (PRE1982 tblFirstHalf (one row per aircraft, grouped by date, place and time))
Date
NTSB record NTSB19700727P033587: PRE1982 DATE_OCCURRENCE
Place and country
Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record NTSB19700727P033587
Map position
Wikipedia: airport the Wikipedia infobox site links (Wikidata code, OurAirports)
Aircraft, operator and route
NTSB record NTSB19700727P033587: 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 NTSB19700727P033587: operated under Part 121: Air carrier (scheduled intl cargo service)
Fatalities
NTSB record NTSB19700727P033587: PRE1982 TOTAL_ABRD_FATAL of each aircraft, plus people on the ground and others outside the aircraft
Ground fatalities
NTSB record NTSB19700727P033587: events.inj_f_grnd
Summary
Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (4)
  • One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Flying Tiger Line Flight 45" and NTSB case NTSB19700727P033587, 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.