Philippine Air Lines Flight 785

Philippine Air Lines Flight 785 was a scheduled domestic flight operated by Philippine Air Lines that crashed en route to San Jose Airport, Occidental Mindoro, Philippines.

On June 29, 1966, the flight crashed on the slopes of Mount Rabangan near Sablayan, on the second leg of a Manila-Mamburao-San Jose route that originated from Manila.

This was the deadliest peacetime air disaster in Occidental Mindoro.

Crash

Flight 785 departed from Manila at 10:30 PHT and arrived at Mamburao Airport uneventfully. For the second leg of the route, the flight was cleared to fly under visual flight rules with a minimum en-route altitude of 3,500 ft. The dispatcher stated that he gave a weather briefing to the crew that continuous heavy rain was expected throughout the segment of the flight. He was unsure of the Flight 785's time of departure and arrival at Mamburao until another aircraft relayed a confirmation message, as it was standard procedure. However, this was not observed on this flight.

At 12:04, the flight departed from Mamburao at 12:04. At 12:15, the pilots requested weather information from San Jose. The requested information was transmitted was acknowledged. However, at the same time, a witness saw an aircraft flying at a low altitude towards mountainous terrain at a heading of 065°. Shortly after the aircraft disappeared from sight, the witness heard a loud explosion. Subsequent efforts from the radio station at San Jose to contact the aircraft were unsuccessful.