Disappearance of a Douglas DC-4 over the Pacific Ocean in 1964
Facilities Management Douglas DC-4 · The disappearance of a Douglas DC-4 over the Pacific Ocean in 1964 occurred on 28 March 1964
From Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL) to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
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
- 9 · 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
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
Douglas DC-4
- Aircraft type
- Douglas DC-4
- 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
- N4726V
- Operator
- Facilities Management
- Onboard fatalities
- 9
- Route
- From Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL)To Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
- 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 91: General aviation (corporate/executive)
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Fire or explosion in flight
- 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
Not plotted · Not plotted: the Wikipedia article gives no coordinates, and its site names no town or airport that matches exactly.
From the Wikipedia article
The disappearance of a Douglas DC-4 over the Pacific Ocean in 1964 occurred on 28 March 1964. On that day a Douglas DC-4 of the US company Facilities Management Corporation, which was to operate a flight from Honolulu to Los Angeles, had to ditch in the Pacific Ocean because of an engine failure. The aircraft and its nine occupants were never found.
Accident sequence
The DC-4 took off from Honolulu at 22:47 PST bound for Los Angeles (scheduled arrival 10:27 PST). At 05:54 PST the pilot reported a severe fire in engine No. 2 and stated that a ditching might become necessary. After that there was no further information. Extensive search efforts were called off after five days; nothing was found.
On the outbound and return flights Los Angeles–Philippines there had been maintenance delays totalling 15–17 minutes. One of the causes of these delays had been a recurring oil leak at the propeller governor assembly of engine No. 2.
The probable cause of the accident was given as an in-flight fire in engine No. 2, which resulted in a ditching at sea. Since the wreckage could never be located, the cause of the fire could not be determined.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “Verschwinden einer Douglas DC-4 im Pazifischen Ozean 1964” (revision 264123562, 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
LAST RADIO MSG AT 1354Z AS POSITION N29-20 135W AT 1337Z.BAD FIRE #2 ENG MIGHT HAVE TO PUT IT IN.
NTSB's remark from its 1962–1981 archive, as recorded (abbreviated, at most 98 characters): the archive has no narrative
Sources
German Wikipedia article: Verschwinden einer Douglas DC-4 im Pazifischen Ozean 1964
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 264123562 · 2026-02-09 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q138019874
- 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
- 19640328P000985
- Case number
- Unknown
- Dataset
- historical-pre1982
- Source SHA-256
- abe1a933b4b73583d61684309f7f0610c281e3c1de3537c6471bf2a98ba6481d
Where each value comes from
- Record
- de Wikipedia article "Verschwinden einer Douglas DC-4 im Pazifischen Ozean 1964" (page 13762647, revision 264123562), translated into English with AI assistance; merged with NTSB case NTSB19640328P000985 (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: none
- 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 NTSB19640328P000985
- Operation
- not stated in the Wikipedia article's infobox or opening paragraph
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- Wikipedia: not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (4)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Disappearance of a Douglas DC-4 over the Pacific Ocean in 1964" and NTSB case NTSB19640328P000985, 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.