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Pan Am Flight 708

15 Nov 1966 · Near Dallgow-Döberitz, Germany

Pan American World Airways Boeing 727-21 · Controlled flight into terrain; cause unknown

From Frankfurt Main Airport (FRA) to Berlin Tegel Airport, Berlin, British Sector

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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
3 · all aircraft and ground
Ground fatalities
Unknown
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
Instrument Meteorological Cond

Boeing 727-21

Aircraft type
Boeing 727
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
N317PA
Onboard fatalities
3
Route
From Frankfurt Main Airport (FRA)To Berlin Tegel Airport, Berlin, British Sector
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
Undetermined
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 › Undetermined

Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.

From the Wikipedia article

Pan Am Flight 708 (PA 708) was a cargo flight that crashed on initial approach less than 10 mi west-southwest of its destination airport, Berlin Tegel in Germany, in the early morning hours of November 15, 1966. The flight was operated by a Pan American World Airways (Pan Am) Boeing 727-21, registration N317PA name Clipper München, routing from Frankfurt Airport. All three crew members perished. The cause was undetermined because US investigators were not allowed to survey the impact site at a Soviet military training ground near Dallgow in what was then East Germany, and only half of the aircraft remains were returned by Soviet military authorities in East Germany to their US counterparts in former West Berlin.

Flight details

Flight 708 usually landed at Tempelhof Airport. But because of runway maintenance at Tempelhof, Pan Am shifted its flights to Tegel Airport. At the time of the accident, weather was poor and it was snowing.

The Soviet authorities returned about 50% of the wreckage. Some major components were not returned, including the flight data and cockpit voice recorders, flight control systems, navigation and communication equipment.

At the time of the crash, the Soviet Union did not belong to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Nations belonging to ICAO allow reciprocal visits by official observers in order to improve aviation safety.

Text from the Wikipedia article “Pan Am Flight 708” (revision 1359587563, 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

N317PA DSNDED BLO CLNC LIMIT.CRASHED IN E GERMANY.US INVESTIGATORS NOT ADMITTED TO ACCIDENT SITE.

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 708
Article
Pan Am Flight 708
Revision
1359587563 · 2026-06-16 · retrieved 2026-09-18
Wikidata
Q7129568
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
19661115P010946
Case number
Unknown
Dataset
historical-pre1982
Source SHA-256
abe1a933b4b73583d61684309f7f0610c281e3c1de3537c6471bf2a98ba6481d
Where each value comes from
Record
Wikipedia article "Pan Am Flight 708" (page 9210312, revision 1359587563); merged with NTSB case NTSB19661115P010946 (PRE1982 tblFirstHalf (one row per aircraft, grouped by date, place and time))
Date
Wikipedia infobox: date
Place and country
Wikipedia infobox: site
Map position
Wikipedia: 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); gaps and aircraft details from NTSB record NTSB19661115P010946
Operation
flight number in the article title
Fatalities
Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
Ground fatalities
Wikipedia: not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
Summary
Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (4)
  • One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Pan Am Flight 708" and NTSB case NTSB19661115P010946, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this event outside the United States Wikipedia'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.