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Flying Tiger Line Flight 183

14 Dec 1962 · Burbank, California, United States

Lockheed 1049H · Loss of control

From Boston Logan International Airport (BOS) to Hollywood Burbank/Bob Hope Airport (BUR)

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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
8 · 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
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

Lockheed 1049H

Aircraft type
Lockheed 1049
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
N6913C
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Boston Logan International Airport (BOS)To Hollywood Burbank/Bob Hope Airport (BUR)
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 domestic 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
Uncontrolled collision with ground/water
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 acts, conditions › Pilot suffered heart attack
  • Pilot in command › Incapacitation

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

From the Wikipedia article

Flying Tiger Line Flight 183 was a Flying Tiger Line cargo flight from Boston's Logan International Airport via Chicago to Burbank's Hollywood-Lockheed Air Terminal. On 14 December 1962 the Lockheed L-1049H Super Constellation used on the flight crashed during the approach. All five people on board were killed. The aircraft crashed into a residential area, where it destroyed two houses and damaged nine residential and two industrial buildings. There were three fatalities in the residential area.

Accident

Approaching Burbank from the west in foggy weather, the aircraft crashed about two kilometres from the airport on Vose Street at about 22:10. According to an eyewitness, the aircraft suddenly banked to the left and plunged nose-first into the ground. The fuel in the aircraft's tanks started fires, and the aircraft's fuselage slid along the ground 150 metres onward from the point of impact. Altogether, damage was caused over an area about 350 metres long and 25 metres wide. The aircraft's crew consisted of captain Karl Rader, first officer David Capro and flight engineer Jack Grey. In addition to them there were two passengers on the flight, all of whom perished in the crash. Many of the area's residents were injured when the aircraft crashed, but only three died.

The accident investigation found that the captain suffered from coronary artery disease that was severe enough to cause incapacitation or even death. In addition, Flying Tiger Line's training records revealed that the first officer had not satisfactorily demonstrated his ability to perform an ILS precision approach in instrument flight conditions. The investigators considered it probable that the captain became incapacitated at a critical stage of the approach, which led to a loss of control that the first officer was unable to correct.

Translated into English with AI assistance from the Finnish Wikipedia article “Flying Tiger Linen lento 183” (revision 20833661, 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

INCAPACITATION OF PLT IN COMD AT CRITICAL PT IN APCH.RESULT,LOSS OF CTL,CO-PLT UNABLE TO RECOVER.

NTSB's remark from its 1962–1981 archive, as recorded (abbreviated, at most 98 characters): the archive has no narrative

Sources

Finnish Wikipedia article: Flying Tiger Linen lento 183
Article
Flying Tiger Linen lento 183
Translation
Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
Revision
20833661 · 2022-10-05 · retrieved 2026-09-19
Wikidata
Q28721006
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
19621214P000033
Case number
Unknown
Dataset
historical-pre1982
Source SHA-256
abe1a933b4b73583d61684309f7f0610c281e3c1de3537c6471bf2a98ba6481d
Where each value comes from
Record
fi Wikipedia article "Flying Tiger Linen lento 183" (page 1335953, revision 20833661), translated into English with AI assistance; merged with NTSB case NTSB19621214P000033 (PRE1982 tblFirstHalf (one row per aircraft, grouped by date, place and time))
Date
NTSB record NTSB19621214P000033: PRE1982 DATE_OCCURRENCE
Place and country
Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record NTSB19621214P000033
Map position
Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates
Aircraft, operator and route
NTSB record NTSB19621214P000033: PRE1982 REGIST_NO, ACFT_MAKE, ACFT_MODEL; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
Operation
NTSB record NTSB19621214P000033: operated under Part 121: Air carrier (scheduled domestic cargo svc)
Fatalities
Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities (the NTSB's 1962-1981 record gives 5)
Ground fatalities
Wikipedia: not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
Summary
Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (5)
  • One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Flying Tiger Line Flight 183" and NTSB case NTSB19621214P000033, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this US event the NTSB's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
  • The NTSB record (NTSB19621214P000033) gives 5 fatalities and the Wikipedia article 8; the article's figure is shown, as the NTSB's 1962-1981 archive often leaves out people killed on the ground and those who died later.
  • 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.