Transocean Air Lines Flight 501
Curtiss C-46F-1-CU · Controlled flight into terrain
From Wiley Post Will Rogers Memorial Airport (BRW) to Fairbanks International Airport (FAI)
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
- 4 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Unknown
- 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
Curtiss C-46F-1-CU
- Aircraft type
- Curtiss C-46
- 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
- N68963
- Operator
- Transocean Air Lines
- Onboard fatalities
- 4
- Route
- From Wiley Post Will Rogers Memorial Airport (BRW)To Fairbanks International Airport (FAI)
Approximate · Estimated position: Fairbanks, Alaska, near the place the Wikipedia article names. Not the accident site.
From the Wikipedia article
Transocean Air Lines Flight 501 (flight number: TL501, callsign TALOA 501) was a domestic cargo flight of Transocean Air Lines within the US state of Alaska from Umiat Airport to Fairbanks International Airport. On 30 December 1951, on this flight, the Curtiss C-46F-1-CU N68963 crashed while approaching Fairbanks, killing all four occupants.
Accident sequence
While the aircraft was on approach to Fairbanks, the pilots reported that they had missed the airport's radio range and stated that the aircraft's radio compass (ADF) had failed. The last radio contact took place two minutes later at 22:07, when the pilots stated that they were at the western edge of the radio range. The wreckage of the aircraft and the bodies of the four occupants were only found four days later, on 3 January 1952.
Accident investigation
The Civil Aeronautics Board took over the investigation into the cause of the accident. The final report was completed on 18 June 1952 and published five days later. In the report the investigators noted that the weather was as forecast and thus could not have had any significant influence on the accident. The investigators stated that the accident was caused by the pilots' failure to follow instructions and the failure to use radio navigation facilities, which resulted in the aircraft deviating considerably from its course.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “Transocean-Air-Lines-Flug 501” (revision 251249468, 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
Sources
German Wikipedia article: Transocean-Air-Lines-Flug 501
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 251249468 · 2024-12-14 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q113579163
- 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
- de Wikipedia article "Transocean-Air-Lines-Flug 501" (page 12324167, revision 251249468), translated into English with AI assistance
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- place the Wikipedia infobox site links (Wikidata 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 article lead
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the German Wikipedia article's infobox, translated into English with AI assistance, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.