Trans World Airlines Flight 645
Boeing 707-373C and Israeli Air Force Boeing KC-97 Stratofreighter · Ground collision
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
- 2 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 2
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- 3
- 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
- 1 serious · 3 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
- Military
- 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
Aircraft 1 · Boeing 707-373C
- 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
- N790TW
- Operator
- Trans World Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ben Gurion International Airport (TLV)To John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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
- Collided with object
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Aircraft 2 · Boeing KC-97 Stratofreighter
- Aircraft type
- Boeing KC-97
- 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
- 4X-FPS/037
- Operator
- Israeli Air Force
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Not stated
- 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
- None · no survivors
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
Cause areas
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Estimated position: Ben Gurion International Airport, the airport the Wikipedia article names as the site. Where on or near it is not known.
From the Wikipedia article
The aircraft collision at Tel Aviv-Lod Airport occurred on 30 November 1970, when a Trans World Airlines Boeing 707-373C cargo aircraft (flight number: TW645), during its take-off run from Lod Airport in Israel, collided with a Boeing KC-97 Stratofreighter of the Israeli Air Force that was at that moment being towed across the runway. Two people were killed in the accident.
Accident sequence
The Trans World Airlines Boeing 707 was to operate a cargo flight from Lod Airport to New York Airport with a stopover at Frankfurt Main Airport. The take-off run began at 2:55 at night.
At the same time, three ground technicians were towing a Boeing KC-97 Stratofreighter, which was to be used for a night-time air force exercise, from the eastern to the western part of the airport.
At the time of the accident, the procedures at Lod Airport provided that departures at night should take off eastwards from runway 12. The responsible air traffic controller, Silvia Myers, was not aware of this. The crew of the Boeing 707 received clearance to take off from runway 30. The pilots accelerated the aircraft. Shortly before reaching decision speed, they noticed that the towed and unlit KC-97G Stratofreighter was crossing their path. The pilot flying the Boeing 707 still tried to pull it up immediately in front of the Stratofreighter, but did not succeed. The left wing of his aircraft collided with the tail of the towed aircraft. Both aircraft caught fire in the collision. After the collision the Boeing 707 spun around and then slid into a ploughed field north of the runway.
The three Israel Aerospace Industries employees who were carrying out the towing pulled the aircraft across the runway without paying attention to the approaching traffic. Two of the men towing the Stratofreighter were killed at the scene. The crew of the Boeing 707 survived.
Cause of the accident
After the accident, Transport Minister Shimon Peres appointed a commission of inquiry to investigate the accident. It identified three causes of the accident:
Lack of coordination between air force and civil aviation personnel at the airport, which was used for both civil and military purposes
Misconduct by both civil and military air traffic control
Serious safety deficiencies at Lod Airport
Inadequate safety regulations for carrying out towing operations on the airport grounds were identified as a further cause of the accident. In addition, the air traffic controllers are said to have given the technicians towing the Stratofreighter clearance to cross runway 30 after having, immediately before, given the crew of the TWA aircraft clearance to take off from the same runway.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “Trans-World-Airlines-Flug 645” (revision 261311195, retrieved 2026-09-19) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out; the translation may contain errors, and long articles were cut to their first 700 words. Read the article
NTSB remarks
INVESTIGATION UND JURISDICTION OF ISRAELI GOVT. HIT,DESTROYED,C-97,4XSPS,BEING TOWED ON RWY.
NTSB's remark from its 1962–1981 archive, as recorded (abbreviated, at most 98 characters): the archive has no narrative
Sources
German Wikipedia article: Trans-World-Airlines-Flug 645
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 261311195 · 2025-11-06 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q65246028
- 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
- 19701130P033631
- Case number
- Unknown
- Dataset
- historical-pre1982
- Source SHA-256
- abe1a933b4b73583d61684309f7f0610c281e3c1de3537c6471bf2a98ba6481d
Where each value comes from
- Record
- de Wikipedia article "Trans-World-Airlines-Flug 645" (page 10732103, revision 261311195), translated into English with AI assistance; merged with NTSB case NTSB19701130P033631 (PRE1982 tblFirstHalf (one row per aircraft, grouped by date, place and time))
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from Wikidata (P17)
- Map position
- Wikipedia: airport the Wikipedia infobox site links (Wikidata code, OurAirports)
- 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 NTSB19701130P033631
- Operation
- operator named as an armed force or military unit in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: total_fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: ground fatalities
- Summary
- Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (5)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Trans World Airlines Flight 645" and NTSB case NTSB19701130P033631, 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.
- The NTSB record (NTSB19701130P033631) gives 3 fatalities and the Wikipedia article 2; Wikipedia's figure is shown, as the NTSB only took part in this foreign investigation.
- 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.