Did Murray make the right decision about ditching into the swells & wind, or did he just get lucky? Did Garrett's inadvertent shutdown of the #1 engine doom the flight?
Capt. Murray did make the correct decision to land towards the wind - across the swells, he was the captain of the flight and he should be allowed to make the final decisions, especially during the era before CRM. The flight engineer's mistake most definitely added to the predicament they were in, and increased their rate of descend, also decreasing their capability to maintain level flight. His quick thinking later on, allowed the captain to continue to fly towards the surface of the ocean, and successfully water land the Super Constellation. There are too many cases, even in today's modern aviation environment, where the aircraft had experienced an engine failure during takeoff, the crew acted in a hurry, and did not follow the protocol of the checklists, where some of the steps to follow are the confirmation of the correct switches or levers to be shutdown or turned off, the crewmembers just proceeded to shutdown the wrong engine by mistake with catastrophic consequences. One case that comes to mind is the crash of Millon Air in Manta, Ecuador, on October 1996. Excellent video as always 👌🏻
I find it fascinating that there were actually two divergent schools of thought about the safest way to ditch! 🤔 It seems that the land based crews had one philosophy, while the flying boat crews did it all differently! Given that latter guys are the ones who bring aircraft down into the water on each flight, my money is with them! 😉
@@daviddunsmore103 That's what Murray thought too. To be fair, the "into the swells" option requires very careful timing, so as to land on the backside of a swell...landing into the face of a swell would be suicidal. Depending on ocean conditions, the interval between swells might be adequate or it might be very tight. It sounds like the interval was very close and would have required a very precise landing, except that Murray got lucky by finding an area of relatively calm, which can apparently be produced by interference between wave systems.
A tragedy for many, but fortunately a very over engineered liferaft saved more than might have been. Great US engineering. I used to be taken to Manchester Airport (UK) in I think the 1960s. At 2am a Connie landed from Spain disgorging tourists carrying stuffed donkeys and wearing straw hats dressed for Spain in UK summer. The highlight was take off an hour or so later. Noise and flames as the engines started then ran up before taxiing. I only flew in boring " blowlamps " as my uncle called them!
I was a young USAF Medic stationed at Lajes Field in the Azores during 1968-69. The Tennessee Air National Guard came through on one of their monthly training missions in a Lockheed Constellation C-121 and let us know that they had seats available on a first come first serve basis to the Canary Islands. I grabbed my best buddie and we got leave and scrambled for two seats aboard. I had flown on USAF C-141's and large Comercial Airlines by then but the Constellation was much smaller and quaint, like going back in time. From the passenger seats you could see into the cockpit and see the crew just like in the bygone days, nothing was blocked or locked but of course we were all Military anyway. If I remember right it was about 6 hours over nothing but water to get there and after a week of enjoying the main island of Tenerife and the wonderful Spanish people and architecture it was all too soon to climb back aboard and head back to work. It was a beautiful trip aboard a classic airplane to a grand vacation paradise, a once in a lifetime adventure. I'll never forget it.
My family had been on this Constellation not long before it crashed. We were flying from the United States to Edinburgh, Scotland. My dad was an Air Force medic and we were beginning a three-year tour in Scotland. I remember the flight well. The Constellation was beautiful inside and out and everyone on the flight crew was fantastic.
I have 2500 hours on the Connie (USAF EC-121), and think she was the finest aircraft of her time, and the best 3 engine aircraft ever built (I probably have 30 3-engine landings... and one crash).
Ha, best 3 engine aircraft! Since you're an experienced Connie pilot, I'd love to get your insight / input on some future projects...let me know AviationHorrors@gmail.com if you'd be interested in contributing to / reviewing future scripts, there are at least two other Connie incidents that I'm studying for future episodes.
Reminds me of how to tell a DC-6 from a DC-7 (which had the same engines as the Super Connie), a four engine plane with three blade propellers or a three engine plane with four blade propellers.
It is interesting that it's deficiencies were never fixed. The interference drag of the triple vertical fin/rudder design. The lack of a constant cross section for the fuselage. Something to worry the DC7C .
Great job on this accident. I worked for tigers for 35 yrs and knew John Murray as a very good aviator.....I think it was a miracle anyone survived in that wx..JP
Thanks! Based on your experience, if you think of anything that I could have done better, please hit me up at AviationHorrors@gmail.com. I'm planning to do an episode on Flying Tiger 739 in the future as well.
Can't believe I never learned about this incident before today. In January 1961, I was a passenger on the McGuire AFB-Frankfurt trip aboard a C-118. At the time of the Flying Tigers ditching I was on temporary duty in France instead of at my base in Germany. I met a girl in Laon while there, her roommate had an old Citroen car, and I suppose we were having too much fun to read the news that week. After the trip on the C-118, all my subsequent Atlantic crossings were on jet aircraft.
Hard to second guess a pilot in command when he is confronting... Storm winds Rough seas Engine failure Nightime Middle of ocean And many people survived?
This was perhaps the THIRD ACCIDENT within a year of FTL Constellations resulting in their suspension by MAC of them carrying passengers. When I was in passenger service at Travis AFB, CA in '66-thru early '68 Tigers was strictly doing cargo flights only. However when DC-8-63s replaced B-707-320s in MAC contract flights and other carriers dropped out Tigers having the 63s was reutilized for passenger contracts until the Southeast Asia conflicts ended. I flew on one FTL such flight and all went well.
I flew on a United Airlines DC-8 super 63 in the last row, SEA to HNL. We hit a little turbulence and I could look down the length of the fuselage and it was like a snake with all the twisting, ups and downs and sideways I thought the nose was going to touch the tail. :-) FYI for those who don't know the super 60's were really long single aisle jets.
Thanks for sharing your experience. Yeah, 1962 in particular was a bad year for Flying Tiger / Constellations. In addition to FT923, another FTL Constellation disappeared in March 1962 enroute to Clark Air Base, possibly due to sabotage, along with another that crashed near Burbank, CA in December.
@@AviationHorrors The same company losing 3 aircrafts the same year… These were the days… Nobody knows if it was actually a sabotage for flight 739 in March '62 since nothing had been retrieved.
@@julosx Right, nothing is definitively know about Flying Tiger 739. However, the testimony from the crew of a merchant ship, describing two explosions, points toward inflight explosion, which points away from other known Constellation issues (e.g. engine problems).
I remember one incident that happened on that flight from Greece to home in USA...a flight stewardess was from Ireland...she had an emotional breakdown...she started crying and had not met fine people like we were, all small farmers from the Southern United States, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, on this Charter Flight...she had to sit down and recover and about passed out...and had to get some oxygen. Apparently, she was used to Rude snooty customer...we were not like that...and had a emotional breakdown....and did not know we existed.
Back in the day, I smoked DMT with a Flying Tiger pilot. He was worried, because the following day, at dawn, he was due to fly a plane load of soldiers to Vietnam. But everything worked out fine, and he retired about ten years ago.
As the captain present, I think his experience assessment and evaluation of conditions of sea and plane likely made the landing less treacherous than the prescribed method, which may not account for all variables of reality actually present. Sadly lives were lost and mistakes were made. How about the success of swimming after the (one remaining) departing raft in stormy waves ? seems quite miraculous indeed !
I understand Capt Murray continued flying which indicated at least a level of vindication. Features on accidents on the transatlantic route would be interesting. Because of its geographical location, Shannon had an important role and was take off or scheduled landing point for many of these ill fated flights.
He did fly again for Flying Tigers. It's sad and ironic that, after surviving a storm in the Atlantic, Murray drowned a few years later while snorkeling off Wake Island during a stopover enroute to Asia.
Re: Shannon & Atlantic accidents, if you're not already familiar, check out the book Cleared For Disaster by Michael O'Tool, which discusses a number of accidents in Ireland.
I believe this aircraft stopped in Gander Newfoundland for refuelling and general maintenance tasks before crossing the Atlantic. My father was part of the ground crew who worked on these overseas flights in Gander. Makes me wonder if he worked this flight?
I was a radar operator in an EC-121-K of VW-11 flying missions out of Keflavik, Iceland. My crew was due to leave out of Keflavik when we diverted down to the ditching site to serve as the Search and Rescue commander as we had a large search radar and various types of radio communication equipment. When we were briefed before leaving Keflavik, we were told there probably wouldn’t be survivors due to the weather and sea state. We stayed on scene until the ship responding to the ditching had picked up the survivors and rafts. I have old 8mm movies from 8,000 feet that show sea state and a couple of ships. Our aircraft was a military version of the Lockheed Super Constellation designed for airborne early warning.
Re: EC-121, there was a USAF EC-121H that crashed at sea off the coast of Maine in 1967, due at least in part to a problem with the Power Recovery Turbine...perhaps not so different from FT 923. Unfortunately, there were no survivors.
@@AviationHorrors I saw a couple of ships but had no idea of their names. The squadron I was in flew what was named “barriers” between Iceland and Greenland and Iceland and the Faroe Islands. My crew was due to leave Keflavik in the early morning hours for a regular mission. When we got to the hanger, we were told we would be going south to be the on scene SAR commander due to our radar and communication equipment. I’m guessing it took us a couple of hours to get to the site of the ditching as we probably flew around 220 knots per hour. The film I made was in daylight and we were on scene for 8 or 10 hours. The EC-121-K could patrol for 15+ hours as I flew on missions exceeding 15 hours. Our home base was Argentia, Newfoundland and we deployed to Keflavik for two weeks to fly the “barriers” on each side of Iceland. There were two squadrons stationed at Argentia, VW-11 and VW-13. Before I was assigned to VW-11, the squadrons used to fly from Argentia to the Azores and back. One of the squadrons lost an EC-121-K during a flight to the Azores. This happened before I was stationed at Argentia. I was told that the plane just vanished. The Navy had a P2V squadron doing anti submarine out of Keflavik. One of the P2Vs disappeared patrolling the gap between Iceland and Greenland in 1962. My crew was to do a regular “barrier” between Iceland and Greenland and one of our officers was a qualified parachutist and the headquarters in Keflavik was thinking of letting him parachute over Greenland if current search parties found wreckage. I think saner thinking prevailed and the idea of him parachuting out of a perfectly good airplane over Greenland got scrapped. The search for the P2V ended with nothing being found. The wreckage was found in the late 1960s but I don’t remember the circumstances now. I graduated from LSU in 1968 and I think the P2V was finally found in 1967 and my first thought was, Hey! I remember that and was there at the time it happened.
@@AviationHorrors The North Koreans shot down an EC-121 around the time of the USS Pueblo incident. I don’t remember if it was a Navy or Air Force EC-121. The Pima Air and Space Museum just south of Tucson has an Air Force EC-121 on display. I saw an EC-121 on display at McClellan AFB at Sacramento in the late 1990s. It was actually a VW-13 aircraft repainted as an Air Force plane. There is a Navy EC-121 at a museum in Pensacola and there was one restored at Rantoul in Illinois. The one that was at Rantoul was restored by guys who had been in AEWBARRONPAC and other Navy squadrons. That aircraft was moved but I don’t remember where.
@@jeffingram9916 Interesting story about the PV-2 that disappeared and was subsequently discovered, it sounds like this would be Navy flight LA-9 at Kronborg glacier in Greenland. I'll be doing some further research. Do you know of anyone who might have first-hand knowledge of that incident?
Hey, never heard this one! Great Vid, you got a new subscriber! Good call Capt Murray, PAX, LISTEN to the flight Attendants - they are NOT just `Trolley Dollies`!
Great video. This seems to be a great example of a collection of errors as things go along. While desperation says climb on the raft, it should have been righted first. Chances for survival increase by having things right, even if it takes time to do so. They would have fit better, had access to the emergency equipment, and so on. I also don't understand the reasoning behind not turning towards any ships. Once you are in trouble, locate ships and head toward them to make your ditch near them. Once in a race, I was on fire and instead of stopping and getting out immediately, I let the car continue rolling towards a corner station. My reasoning was that I closed the gap to fire extinguishers much quicker at the 70 mph I was rolling than the 7 mph the corner worker could do carrying two fire bottles. The plane flying at 150 kt would close the gap to help much faster than ship steaming at 20 kt.
The Canadian aircraft carrier, HMCS Bonaventure and DE HMCS Athabaskan were on the scene around noon of the 24th and transferred four survivors requiring medical attention to the carrier's sick bay by the carrier's helicopter. The Bonaventure also took aboard 12 dead who were then kept in the ship's milk storage refrigerator and all were transferred ashore on the 27th at Shannon Ireland. Less than three weeks later, HMCS Bonaventure participated in the Cuban blockade during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962.
wow, I cannot imagine putting an aircraft down in 20 foot seas at night in a storm, hats off to the crew for their skills and courage under duress, it could have been a totally different outcome................I flew either Flying Tiger Lines or Seaboard World to Nam in 1970, the plane was a pile, the auto-pilot did not work, we could not dump fuel so we had to circle and burn all that fuel off. Plus I am sure we were overloaded as when we left March AFB it took forever to get off the ground, I swear my butt scraped on the barb-wire fence at the end of the runway when we finally got airborne.
Connie's was & still is a great plane. They only came out little too late when other plane models was coming out that had a lot better advantages technology wise. The triple tail sweetheart. She still is & always will be a Heartbreaker in my eyes.
To consider the result purely skill, one would have to believe the pilot able to repeatedly ditch into stormy seas with large swells and produce similar results. I say any sucessful night ocean ditching blind even on a plate glass sea absolutely requires at least some degree of luck.
Sure..thinking outside the box led pilot to a clear spot, that happened to be there ; Also, lucky to even remember, then risk returning to cockpit to get a flashlight.
Do we know if the the no. 1 engine restart was attempted again after descending to lower altitude? Air density and carb freezing at altitude were common issues with piston engine restarts back then.
What an enormous foulup. How do you not triple check the engine you're cutting fuel to? As to the actions of Murray in ditching at an angle to the wind and swells almost certainly saved the lives of most if not all on board. Trying to land parallel to 20 foot waves would have inevitably led to the breakup of the fuselage and separation of both wings - I can't see how it would have done anything but turned turtle and sank had he attempted to turn 90 degrees to the wind and waves.
I got chills while flying over the North Atlantic and looking down out of the window into the sea 30,000 feet below, I could see white ice caps and ice bergs, this was on a Boeing 707...From Athens Greece to NY City via a stop in Paris, France to refuel at Orley Airport...I saw a few of those Frenchy Women and they spoke little English...I was 17 years old...and realized the danger below, and did not like it...
Dumping fuel was the first thing that came to my mind as soon as they lost their second engine, but I wasn't sure if the Constellation had that capability. To find out later in the video that they could have dumped fuel, but failed to do so, really leaves me scratching my head... 🤔 As long as you have enough total combined thrust available to maintain altitude, then you can fly along for as long as you like with all the fuel that you have, BUT everything changes if your available thrust suddenly isn't enough for you to maintain a safe airspeed without having to lower the nose, which means that you are thereafter cashing in your altitude chips for airspeed. Note that this is a distinctly limited time opportunity, as your altitude is always finite. ⏳️ Even if your rate of descent is relatively slow, an unstoppable loss of altitude dictates that you will reach the surface of the earth within a circle that has a radius defined by the maximum distance that you can fly at the speed you are moving in the time it takes to deplete your altitude at the rate that you are losing it. If you can cause your aircraft to shed weight (such as through dumping fuel) and therefore reduce your rate of altitude loss, then your circle of options grows greater, which may make all the difference in terms of reaching an airport and executing a safe landing, versus being forced to ditch into a stormy ocean far from immediate help. Ideally, lightening the load would improve your aircraft's performance to the point that it could actually maintain altitude entirely, which means that you could thereafter fly to any potential landing site for which you have the fuel available to reach. Given how much excess fuel that this aircraft had on board, and how critical it was to avoid the perils of ditching into a stormy ocean far from land, I'm shocked that the Captain failed to employ fuel dumping to improve their odds, if only to stretch their powered glide closer to the Irish coastline in order to improve their prospects of being swiftly found and rescued. Even if they had managed to get within a hundred miles of the Irish coastline, a couple of ground based radio direction finding stations could have utilized triangulation to fix the position of the aircraft's last known radio transmission, which would have considerably sped up rescue operations.
According to Tiger in the Sea, Murray thought about it and decided that the 5% difference in total weight wasn't worth giving up the insurance in terms of flying time. But I tend to agree that dumping fuel would have been prudent, especially when ditching became increasingly likely.
Ever hear of the Da Nang Glider. In 1969 an EC-121R suddenly lost all 4 engines a once while over Viet Nam. They were able to restart all 4 engines but were never able to find the cause when they landed at base. My uncle was in the same squadron at the time and has some pictures of them flying around with one engine out.
Thanks for sharing, that's a really interesting story and I'm adding it to the list for future projects. Let me know AviationHorrors@gmail.com if you'd be willing to share any pictures or insight your uncle has about the incident.
@@AviationHorrors You might find that simply utilizing a "dead room" in your house helps tremendously -- and it's free! Push comes to shove, a closet with clothes in it will work wonders as an anechoic recording booth. This channel is going places.
Major Kong haha, I actually did try recording in the closet but it didn't turn out well...I was probably too close to the mic or something. I'll try again, thanks! BTW I love the Dr Strangelove reference, Maj Kong.
Something not mentioned, but which I think is very important, is the maintenance history of this aircraft, with particular attention given to the radial engines. Had they been properly examined and serviced, and how many hours were on each engine?
I went to Corporate Flight Attendant Training in 2012 and again in 2015. Our Emergency Instructor was a former USMC Pilot and Survival Instructor. Our Ditching Drills duplicated/simulated All of these conditions which involved inverted life rafts that had to be righted, goggles to simulate temporary blindness from fuel spills on the water, and in My case, my life vest was punctured as well as another classmates; she I have bonded since then. The instructor was Hateful to us at just the right time to make it real. I do not regret this at all.
That sounds like great training. Interesting to note that they simulate blindness due to fuel spillage, that seems to be a theme in ditching incidents.
@@AviationHorrors The intensity of awareness more than made up for not having motion-based simulators at this school; a Former Pan Am Stewardess founded this school at FXE long before such schools existed for Private Jet Cabin Crews.
@@KevinBreak It meant that this was serious business. He shouted "Do you think you could do this in real life?" from the edge of the pool. It proved that being in top physical shape is critical.
I get the being hateful part. In real life, things can go crazy in an emergency and everyone isn't pleasant. In Explorers, several of us took Lifesaving in the winter in the local YMCA with a professional lifesaving group. The "victims", all bigger than us, tried to drown us and fought with us, just like we'd encounter in a real drowning emergency. It made us think faster and made us better.
Two 20 man life rafts, souls on board 76. Not how many men the cockpit life raft was designed to hold, but it certainly wouldn't have held more than the others. Someone at Lockheed didn't do their math.
How on earth does an aircraft experience *two* engine fires due to different reasons - crazy odds. Also, they skip over the biggest issue of all, how all the rafts were not staged and ready to go as soon as they came to rest. Like he says, everyone survived the landing, yet they lost 50% due to drowning.
Flying Tiger Freight' (twin) had an 'excursion' through the streets and high rises of Chicago Illinois in 1950's? AM radio of the day, was the repeated re-broadcast of the cockpit hysteria, as it maneuvered on one engine... Another event, back in the day....other carrier's 'Constellation' leaving Chicago's O'Hare (ORD) was totaled as the pilots, after rotation, inadvertently reversed the props on one side.. late 1950-early 60's?
Why didn’t the C118 have the ability to xmit & receive radio contact w/ Flt.923? This obviously would have made it much easier to stay close during critical times. What am I missing here?
Also, the 3350 engines were notorious for losing power and complete engine failure due to clogged oil passages thru the power recovery systems. The fix was to completely tear down the engine and re-drill (larger) passages. The systems in question are similar to what a torque converter on an automatic transmission accomplishes.
Yup, I've already done some research and have plans to do an episode on Flight 19. Not sure about Eastern Airlines Flight 401, I think it's been covered well elsewhere, I try to focus on lesser-known or more mysterious incidents.
@@AviationHorrors Well how about the rash of flight hijackings in the 70s, and the DB Cooper copy cats? I don't think many people know about them. I didn't know 401 was well covered. The interesting bit there is the reported ghost sightings on other planes that had used salvaged parts of 401 of departed crew members.
@@buckberthod5007 The DB Cooper copy cats are a great idea. Like you said, they're not well-known. The one that comes to mind is the guy who was studying criminal law and working part-time as a National Guard helicopter pilot. He actually participated in the search for himself.
@@buckberthod5007 Good idea, the Ghosts of 401 would be a great Halloween episode. Though for this year, I have an episode about a certain haunted hangar in mind...
Yes shutting down a good running engine doomed the Connie to her watery grave, regarding the fire wall shut off valves, a simple fix of painting each lever a different colour, No-1 Red, No-2 Blue, No-3 Green,and No-4 Yellow with the engine number stamped in black .Dumping excess weight i e luggage would give the Connie Driver a better chance of reaching the nearest field, or ditching in calmer waters. Connie was never a happy lady, alway having a hissy fit.
So what was the final outcome? What did the investigation board state was the root cause of the accident? Was the crew found to be at fault? What became of the Capt. and the rest of the crew?
So in this case passenger should have inflated their vests? Without one I can understand the rush to get on the raft, other Ones should of just held on. Least Captain didnt kill everyone as often.
The #4 (right, outer) engine was the only one that stayed healthy throughout the flight. The #1 (left, outer) was the one that had an RPM over speed due to the flight engineer activating the emergency cutoff lever. According to the accident report, the #1 engine might have been starved of oil (due to Garrett actuating the emergency shut off) long enough to cause "gross engine damage".
If Garrett had survived, he may have committed suicide or faced criminal charges. Drowning may have been the 'best' future he could have faced. Imagine you making a grossly incompetant mistake that killed so many people. Truly a flight crew from hell, imagine the death toll if the passengers were not military paratroopers? Or this crew had manned flight 1549. It would not have been a miracle...
You'd think that with a passenger aircraft ditching in the middle of a storm, there wouldn't be any survivors to speak of. Probably because most passengers were military personnel, they prevented panic, which would probably have killed most people who would just jump into the water. Or, as in the case of the Ethiopian Airlines that ditched in relatively calm seas at broad daylight, many passengers did inflate their lifevests *before* getting out which ensured they never got out because in the water filled cabin, they floated towards the ceiling. Those without inflated lifevests could dive and exit through the submerged exits. Out of 175 souls on board, only 50 survived.
A lot of people have never heard of this incident because it involved mainly a bunch of military bums and their freeloader families. If it had more commercial, you’d hear about it.
![BOWKYLION - วิงวอน (ex-change) [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/cLdnZWDaO-w/mqdefault.jpg)
Did Murray make the right decision about ditching into the swells & wind, or did he just get lucky? Did Garrett's inadvertent shutdown of the #1 engine doom the flight?
Capt. Murray did make the correct decision to land towards the wind - across the swells, he was the captain of the flight and he should be allowed to make the final decisions, especially during the era before CRM. The flight engineer's mistake most definitely added to the predicament they were in, and increased their rate of descend, also decreasing their capability to maintain level flight. His quick thinking later on, allowed the captain to continue to fly towards the surface of the ocean, and successfully water land the Super Constellation.
There are too many cases, even in today's modern aviation environment, where the aircraft had experienced an engine failure during takeoff, the crew acted in a hurry, and did not follow the protocol of the checklists, where some of the steps to follow are the confirmation of the correct switches or levers to be shutdown or turned off, the crewmembers just proceeded to shutdown the wrong engine by mistake with catastrophic consequences.
One case that comes to mind is the crash of Millon Air in Manta, Ecuador, on October 1996.
Excellent video as always 👌🏻
I find it fascinating that there were actually two divergent schools of thought about the safest way to ditch! 🤔
It seems that the land based crews had one philosophy, while the flying boat crews did it all differently! Given that latter guys are the ones who bring aircraft down into the water on each flight, my money is with them! 😉
@@daviddunsmore103 That's what Murray thought too. To be fair, the "into the swells" option requires very careful timing, so as to land on the backside of a swell...landing into the face of a swell would be suicidal. Depending on ocean conditions, the interval between swells might be adequate or it might be very tight. It sounds like the interval was very close and would have required a very precise landing, except that Murray got lucky by finding an area of relatively calm, which can apparently be produced by interference between wave systems.
A tragedy for many, but fortunately a very over engineered liferaft saved more than might have been. Great US engineering. I used to be taken to Manchester Airport (UK) in I think the 1960s. At 2am a Connie landed from Spain disgorging tourists carrying stuffed donkeys and wearing straw hats dressed for Spain in UK summer. The highlight was take off an hour or so later. Noise and flames as the engines started then ran up before taxiing. I only flew in boring " blowlamps " as my uncle called them!
I was a young USAF Medic stationed at Lajes Field in the Azores during 1968-69.
The Tennessee Air National Guard came through on one of their monthly training missions in a Lockheed Constellation C-121 and let us know that they had seats available on a first come first serve basis to the Canary Islands. I grabbed my best buddie and we got leave and scrambled for two seats aboard. I had flown on USAF C-141's and large Comercial Airlines by then but the Constellation was much smaller and quaint, like going back in time. From the passenger seats you could see into the cockpit and see the crew just like in the bygone days, nothing was blocked or locked but of course we were all Military anyway. If I remember right it was about 6 hours over nothing but water to get there and after a week of enjoying the main island of Tenerife and the wonderful Spanish people and architecture it was all too soon to climb back aboard and head back to work. It was a beautiful trip aboard a classic airplane to a grand vacation paradise, a once in a lifetime adventure. I'll never forget it.
I'm jay--eee--ealous, noice🤓
My family had been on this Constellation not long before it crashed. We were flying from the United States to Edinburgh, Scotland. My dad was an Air Force medic and we were beginning a three-year tour in Scotland. I remember the flight well. The Constellation was beautiful inside and out and everyone on the flight crew was fantastic.
I have 2500 hours on the Connie (USAF EC-121), and think she was the finest aircraft of her time, and the best 3 engine aircraft ever built (I probably have 30 3-engine landings... and one crash).
Ha, best 3 engine aircraft! Since you're an experienced Connie pilot, I'd love to get your insight / input on some future projects...let me know AviationHorrors@gmail.com if you'd be interested in contributing to / reviewing future scripts, there are at least two other Connie incidents that I'm studying for future episodes.
Reminds me of how to tell a DC-6 from a DC-7 (which had the same engines as the Super Connie), a four engine plane with three blade propellers or a three engine plane with four blade propellers.
Wow ditched at sea in high wind and waves and saved over 1/2 the people. That is some good flying.
Constallation is absolutely gorgeous plane!
It is interesting that it's deficiencies were never fixed. The interference drag of the triple vertical fin/rudder design. The lack of a constant cross section for the fuselage. Something to worry the DC7C .
Great job on this accident. I worked for tigers for 35 yrs and knew John Murray as a very good aviator.....I think it was a miracle anyone survived in that wx..JP
Thanks! Based on your experience, if you think of anything that I could have done better, please hit me up at AviationHorrors@gmail.com. I'm planning to do an episode on Flying Tiger 739 in the future as well.
Can't believe I never learned about this incident before today. In January 1961, I was a passenger on the McGuire AFB-Frankfurt trip aboard a C-118. At the time of the Flying Tigers ditching I was on temporary duty in France instead of at my base in Germany. I met a girl in Laon while there, her roommate had an old Citroen car, and I suppose we were having too much fun to read the news that week. After the trip on the C-118, all my subsequent Atlantic crossings were on jet aircraft.
Excellent video. Thank you for all the work you put into it.
Hard to second guess a pilot in command when he is confronting...
Storm winds
Rough seas
Engine failure
Nightime
Middle of ocean
And many people survived?
VERY well done and presented. Wasn’t aware of the TL 923 flight that I recall. Horrific, but THEN..any ditching at sea, WOULD BE..
This was perhaps the THIRD ACCIDENT within a year of FTL Constellations resulting in their suspension by MAC of them carrying passengers. When I was in passenger service at Travis AFB, CA in '66-thru early '68 Tigers was strictly doing cargo flights only.
However when DC-8-63s replaced B-707-320s in MAC contract flights and other carriers dropped out Tigers having the 63s was reutilized for passenger contracts until the Southeast Asia conflicts ended. I flew on one FTL such flight and all went well.
I flew on a United Airlines DC-8 super 63 in the last row, SEA to HNL. We hit a little turbulence and I could look down the length of the fuselage and it was like a snake with all the twisting, ups and downs and sideways I thought the nose was going to touch the tail. :-)
FYI for those who don't know the super 60's were really long single aisle jets.
Thanks for sharing your experience. Yeah, 1962 in particular was a bad year for Flying Tiger / Constellations. In addition to FT923, another FTL Constellation disappeared in March 1962 enroute to Clark Air Base, possibly due to sabotage, along with another that crashed near Burbank, CA in December.
@@AviationHorrors The same company losing 3 aircrafts the same year… These were the days… Nobody knows if it was actually a sabotage for flight 739 in March '62 since nothing had been retrieved.
@@julosx Right, nothing is definitively know about Flying Tiger 739. However, the testimony from the crew of a merchant ship, describing two explosions, points toward inflight explosion, which points away from other known Constellation issues (e.g. engine problems).
I flew on a Flying Tiger DC-8 from Travis AFB to MCAS Iwakuni, Japan in October '75. Long hop, but a good flight.
I remember one incident that happened on that flight from Greece to home in USA...a flight stewardess was from Ireland...she had an emotional breakdown...she started crying and had not met fine people like we were, all small farmers from the Southern United States, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, on this Charter Flight...she had to sit down and recover and about passed out...and had to get some oxygen. Apparently, she was used to Rude snooty customer...we were not like that...and had a emotional breakdown....and did not know we existed.
Back in the day, I smoked DMT with a Flying Tiger pilot. He was worried, because the following day, at dawn, he was due to fly a plane load of soldiers to Vietnam. But everything worked out fine, and he retired about ten years ago.
Awesome job, Sir. Never heard of this one before. Keep up the great work.
"Who knows?"...You learn something new everyday. Great documentary.
As the captain present, I think his experience assessment and evaluation of conditions of sea and plane likely made the landing less treacherous than the prescribed method, which may not account for all variables of reality actually present.
Sadly lives were lost and mistakes were made. How about the success of swimming after the (one remaining) departing raft in stormy waves ? seems quite miraculous indeed !
I understand Capt Murray continued flying which indicated at least a level of vindication. Features on accidents on the transatlantic route would be interesting. Because of its geographical location, Shannon had an important role and was take off or scheduled landing point for many of these ill fated flights.
He did fly again for Flying Tigers. It's sad and ironic that, after surviving a storm in the Atlantic, Murray drowned a few years later while snorkeling off Wake Island during a stopover enroute to Asia.
Re: Shannon & Atlantic accidents, if you're not already familiar, check out the book Cleared For Disaster by Michael O'Tool, which discusses a number of accidents in Ireland.
Yes. I have that book. Very intetesting.
You knocked it out of the park with this one.
The book called Tiger In The Sea is excellent and details this flight
This channel is a treasure. Thank you for the hard work! :)
I believe this aircraft stopped in Gander Newfoundland for refuelling and general maintenance tasks before crossing the Atlantic. My father was part of the ground crew who worked on these overseas flights in Gander. Makes me wonder if he worked this flight?
I was a radar operator in an EC-121-K of VW-11 flying missions out of Keflavik, Iceland. My crew was due to leave out of Keflavik when we diverted down to the ditching site to serve as the Search and Rescue commander as we had a large search radar and various types of radio communication equipment. When we were briefed before leaving Keflavik, we were told there probably wouldn’t be survivors due to the weather and sea state. We stayed on scene until the ship responding to the ditching had picked up the survivors and rafts. I have old 8mm movies from 8,000 feet that show sea state and a couple of ships. Our aircraft was a military version of the Lockheed Super Constellation designed for airborne early warning.
So you guys actually observed the Celerina during the recovery of the survivors?
Re: EC-121, there was a USAF EC-121H that crashed at sea off the coast of Maine in 1967, due at least in part to a problem with the Power Recovery Turbine...perhaps not so different from FT 923. Unfortunately, there were no survivors.
@@AviationHorrors I saw a couple of ships but had no idea of their names. The squadron I was in flew what was named “barriers” between Iceland and Greenland and Iceland and the Faroe Islands. My crew was due to leave Keflavik in the early morning hours for a regular mission. When we got to the hanger, we were told we would be going south to be the on scene SAR commander due to our radar and communication equipment. I’m guessing it took us a couple of hours to get to the site of the ditching as we probably flew around 220 knots per hour. The film I made was in daylight and we were on scene for 8 or 10 hours. The EC-121-K could patrol for 15+ hours as I flew on missions exceeding 15 hours. Our home base was Argentia, Newfoundland and we deployed to Keflavik for two weeks to fly the “barriers” on each side of Iceland. There were two squadrons stationed at Argentia, VW-11 and VW-13. Before I was assigned to VW-11, the squadrons used to fly from Argentia to the Azores and back. One of the squadrons lost an EC-121-K during a flight to the Azores. This happened before I was stationed at Argentia. I was told that the plane just vanished. The Navy had a P2V squadron doing anti submarine out of Keflavik. One of the P2Vs disappeared patrolling the gap between Iceland and Greenland in 1962. My crew was to do a regular “barrier” between Iceland and Greenland and one of our officers was a qualified parachutist and the headquarters in Keflavik was thinking of letting him parachute over Greenland if current search parties found wreckage. I think saner thinking prevailed and the idea of him parachuting out of a perfectly good airplane over Greenland got scrapped. The search for the P2V ended with nothing being found. The wreckage was found in the late 1960s but I don’t remember the circumstances now. I graduated from LSU in 1968 and I think the P2V was finally found in 1967 and my first thought was, Hey! I remember that and was there at the time it happened.
@@AviationHorrors The North Koreans shot down an EC-121 around the time of the USS Pueblo incident. I don’t remember if it was a Navy or Air Force EC-121. The Pima Air and Space Museum just south of Tucson has an Air Force EC-121 on display. I saw an EC-121 on display at McClellan AFB at Sacramento in the late 1990s. It was actually a VW-13 aircraft repainted as an Air Force plane. There is a Navy EC-121 at a museum in Pensacola and there was one restored at Rantoul in Illinois. The one that was at Rantoul was restored by guys who had been in AEWBARRONPAC and other Navy squadrons. That aircraft was moved but I don’t remember where.
@@jeffingram9916 Interesting story about the PV-2 that disappeared and was subsequently discovered, it sounds like this would be Navy flight LA-9 at Kronborg glacier in Greenland. I'll be doing some further research. Do you know of anyone who might have first-hand knowledge of that incident?
Hey, never heard this one! Great Vid, you got a new subscriber! Good call Capt Murray, PAX, LISTEN to the flight Attendants - they are NOT just `Trolley Dollies`!
This is the exactly what I was waiting for.
A well researched video, thank you. I have subscribed 👍
Great video. This seems to be a great example of a collection of errors as things go along. While desperation says climb on the raft, it should have been righted first. Chances for survival increase by having things right, even if it takes time to do so. They would have fit better, had access to the emergency equipment, and so on. I also don't understand the reasoning behind not turning towards any ships. Once you are in trouble, locate ships and head toward them to make your ditch near them. Once in a race, I was on fire and instead of stopping and getting out immediately, I let the car continue rolling towards a corner station. My reasoning was that I closed the gap to fire extinguishers much quicker at the 70 mph I was rolling than the 7 mph the corner worker could do carrying two fire bottles. The plane flying at 150 kt would close the gap to help much faster than ship steaming at 20 kt.
I've been waiting for a new episode :)
Great subject but output volume very low. My equip turned all the way up & still must use headphones.
Thanks for the feedback (pun intended?). I'm working on improving audio for upcoming episodes.
The Canadian aircraft carrier, HMCS Bonaventure and DE HMCS Athabaskan were on the scene around noon of the 24th and transferred four survivors requiring medical attention to the carrier's sick bay by the carrier's helicopter. The Bonaventure also took aboard 12 dead who were then kept in the ship's milk storage refrigerator and all were transferred ashore on the 27th at Shannon Ireland. Less than three weeks later, HMCS Bonaventure participated in the Cuban blockade during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962.
Great video,with insight and excellent detail.Nice job.Writing this whilst looking at my 1/72 Trans World Connie sat on my microwave!
wow, I cannot imagine putting an aircraft down in 20 foot seas at night in a storm, hats off to the crew for their skills and courage under duress, it could have been a totally different outcome................I flew either Flying Tiger Lines or Seaboard World to Nam in 1970, the plane was a pile, the auto-pilot did not work, we could not dump fuel so we had to circle and burn all that fuel off. Plus I am sure we were overloaded as when we left March AFB it took forever to get off the ground, I swear my butt scraped on the barb-wire fence at the end of the runway when we finally got airborne.
Wow what a scary flight and crash must have been so awful for all. Rip those that died
Excellent work!
This is scary and improbable - all those engine failures independent of each other - I have never flown on a jet and have no plans to!
And now airliners only have 2 engines.
What a hellish experience!Poor souls!Very bad luck.
Connie's was & still is a great plane. They only came out little too late when other plane models was coming out that had a lot better advantages technology wise. The triple tail sweetheart. She still is & always will be a Heartbreaker in my eyes.
I've always thought the Connie is the best-looking prop airliner...you can't beat that curved / streamlined fuselage shape.
That was one tough plan!!! Do one on Clint Eastwoods ordeal when he was in the service pls! Not to many people know about what happened to him..
To consider the result purely skill, one would have to believe the pilot able to repeatedly ditch into stormy seas with large swells and produce similar results.
I say any sucessful night ocean ditching blind even on a plate glass sea absolutely requires at least some degree of luck.
Sure..thinking outside the box led pilot to a clear spot, that happened to be there ; Also, lucky to even remember, then risk returning to cockpit to get a flashlight.
can’t wait for your next vid 😉
Do we know if the the no. 1 engine restart was attempted again after descending to lower altitude? Air density and carb freezing at altitude were common issues with piston engine restarts back then.
Exactly my question. They should have been attempting to restart that no. 1 engine all the way down.
What an enormous foulup. How do you not triple check the engine you're cutting fuel to?
As to the actions of Murray in ditching at an angle to the wind and swells almost certainly saved the lives of most if not all on board. Trying to land parallel to 20 foot waves would have inevitably led to the breakup of the fuselage and separation of both wings - I can't see how it would have done anything but turned turtle and sank had he attempted to turn 90 degrees to the wind and waves.
I got chills while flying over the North Atlantic and looking down out of the window into the sea 30,000 feet below, I could see white ice caps and ice bergs, this was on a Boeing 707...From Athens Greece to NY City via a stop in Paris, France to refuel at Orley Airport...I saw a few of those Frenchy Women and they spoke little English...I was 17 years old...and realized the danger below, and did not like it...
The Connie is the most beautiful airliner ever built.
the original 'Queen Of The Skies"
Dumping fuel was the first thing that came to my mind as soon as they lost their second engine, but I wasn't sure if the Constellation had that capability.
To find out later in the video that they could have dumped fuel, but failed to do so, really leaves me scratching my head... 🤔
As long as you have enough total combined thrust available to maintain altitude, then you can fly along for as long as you like with all the fuel that you have, BUT everything changes if your available thrust suddenly isn't enough for you to maintain a safe airspeed without having to lower the nose, which means that you are thereafter cashing in your altitude chips for airspeed. Note that this is a distinctly limited time opportunity, as your altitude is always finite. ⏳️
Even if your rate of descent is relatively slow, an unstoppable loss of altitude dictates that you will reach the surface of the earth within a circle that has a radius defined by the maximum distance that you can fly at the speed you are moving in the time it takes to deplete your altitude at the rate that you are losing it.
If you can cause your aircraft to shed weight (such as through dumping fuel) and therefore reduce your rate of altitude loss, then your circle of options grows greater, which may make all the difference in terms of reaching an airport and executing a safe landing, versus being forced to ditch into a stormy ocean far from immediate help.
Ideally, lightening the load would improve your aircraft's performance to the point that it could actually maintain altitude entirely, which means that you could thereafter fly to any potential landing site for which you have the fuel available to reach.
Given how much excess fuel that this aircraft had on board, and how critical it was to avoid the perils of ditching into a stormy ocean far from land, I'm shocked that the Captain failed to employ fuel dumping to improve their odds, if only to stretch their powered glide closer to the Irish coastline in order to improve their prospects of being swiftly found and rescued.
Even if they had managed to get within a hundred miles of the Irish coastline, a couple of ground based radio direction finding stations could have utilized triangulation to fix the position of the aircraft's last known radio transmission, which would have considerably sped up rescue operations.
According to Tiger in the Sea, Murray thought about it and decided that the 5% difference in total weight wasn't worth giving up the insurance in terms of flying time. But I tend to agree that dumping fuel would have been prudent, especially when ditching became increasingly likely.
Whatever happened to Flying Tiger Airlines?
@@Stephanie-we5ep Thanks 😄
Ever hear of the Da Nang Glider. In 1969 an EC-121R suddenly lost all 4 engines a once while over Viet Nam. They were able to restart all 4 engines but were never able to find the cause when they landed at base. My uncle was in the same squadron at the time and has some pictures of them flying around with one engine out.
Thanks for sharing, that's a really interesting story and I'm adding it to the list for future projects. Let me know AviationHorrors@gmail.com if you'd be willing to share any pictures or insight your uncle has about the incident.
So good. Small suggestion - upgrade your audio. 🙏 #BlessUp
That's valid, thanks for the input.
@@AviationHorrors You might find that simply utilizing a "dead room" in your house helps tremendously -- and it's free! Push comes to shove, a closet with clothes in it will work wonders as an anechoic recording booth. This channel is going places.
Major Kong haha, I actually did try recording in the closet but it didn't turn out well...I was probably too close to the mic or something. I'll try again, thanks! BTW I love the Dr Strangelove reference, Maj Kong.
@@AviationHorrors The stars truly aligned when that role fell into Slim Pickens' lap.
I think your audio recording is fine
Something not mentioned, but which I think is very important, is the maintenance history of this aircraft, with particular attention given to the radial engines. Had they been properly examined and serviced, and how many hours were on each engine?
I went to Corporate Flight Attendant Training in 2012 and again in 2015. Our Emergency Instructor was a former USMC Pilot and Survival Instructor. Our Ditching Drills duplicated/simulated All of these conditions which involved inverted life rafts that had to be righted, goggles to simulate temporary blindness from fuel spills on the water, and in My case, my life vest was punctured as well as another classmates; she I have bonded since then. The instructor was Hateful to us at just the right time to make it real. I do not regret this at all.
That sounds like great training. Interesting to note that they simulate blindness due to fuel spillage, that seems to be a theme in ditching incidents.
@@AviationHorrors The intensity of awareness more than made up for not having motion-based simulators at this school; a Former Pan Am Stewardess founded this school at FXE long before such schools existed for Private Jet Cabin Crews.
What do you mean, "he was hateful at the right time"?
This sounds really interesting.
@@KevinBreak It meant that this was serious business. He shouted "Do you think you could do this in real life?" from the edge of the pool. It proved that being in top physical shape is critical.
I get the being hateful part. In real life, things can go crazy in an emergency and everyone isn't pleasant. In Explorers, several of us took Lifesaving in the winter in the local YMCA with a professional lifesaving group. The "victims", all bigger than us, tried to drown us and fought with us, just like we'd encounter in a real drowning emergency. It made us think faster and made us better.
Two 20 man life rafts, souls on board 76. Not how many men the cockpit life raft was designed to hold, but it certainly wouldn't have held more than the others. Someone at Lockheed didn't do their math.
How on earth does an aircraft experience *two* engine fires due to different reasons - crazy odds. Also, they skip over the biggest issue of all, how all the rafts were not staged and ready to go as soon as they came to rest. Like he says, everyone survived the landing, yet they lost 50% due to drowning.
The rafts were in the wings
SUBSCRIBED!
Flying Tiger Freight' (twin) had an 'excursion' through the streets and high rises of Chicago Illinois in 1950's? AM radio of the day, was the repeated re-broadcast of the cockpit hysteria, as it maneuvered on one engine...
Another event, back in the day....other carrier's 'Constellation' leaving Chicago's O'Hare (ORD) was totaled as the pilots, after rotation, inadvertently reversed the props on one side.. late 1950-early 60's?
Sounds interesting...do you know any more specifics on either incident?
Why didn’t the C118 have the ability to xmit & receive radio contact w/ Flt.923? This obviously would have made it much easier to stay close during critical times. What am I missing here?
Also, the 3350 engines were notorious for losing power and complete engine failure due to clogged oil passages thru the power recovery systems. The fix was to completely tear down the engine and re-drill (larger) passages. The systems in question are similar to what a torque converter on an automatic transmission accomplishes.
The C-118 was in radio and visual contact with FTL 923, but lost sight when the Connie descended below the cloud deck just before ditching.
Never got to fly on one if these. Not that I know of anyway. Maybe when I was very young.
Excellent work. Better? Improve hollow audio. Enjoying all of your others too. Keep it up!
Do you have plans on doing a video on Flight 19 from '45? Can't forget the search plane that also went down looking for em. Or one on Flight 401?
Yup, I've already done some research and have plans to do an episode on Flight 19. Not sure about Eastern Airlines Flight 401, I think it's been covered well elsewhere, I try to focus on lesser-known or more mysterious incidents.
@@AviationHorrors Well how about the rash of flight hijackings in the 70s, and the DB Cooper copy cats? I don't think many people know about them. I didn't know 401 was well covered. The interesting bit there is the reported ghost sightings on other planes that had used salvaged parts of 401 of departed crew members.
@@buckberthod5007 The DB Cooper copy cats are a great idea. Like you said, they're not well-known. The one that comes to mind is the guy who was studying criminal law and working part-time as a National Guard helicopter pilot. He actually participated in the search for himself.
@@buckberthod5007 Good idea, the Ghosts of 401 would be a great Halloween episode. Though for this year, I have an episode about a certain haunted hangar in mind...
sounds like the inquiry tried to scapegoat murray to distract from obvious maintainence issues well beyond his control.
Yes shutting down a good running engine doomed the Connie to her watery grave, regarding the fire wall shut off valves, a simple fix of painting each lever a different colour, No-1 Red, No-2 Blue, No-3 Green,and No-4 Yellow with the engine number stamped in black .Dumping excess weight i e luggage would give the Connie Driver a better chance of reaching the nearest field, or ditching in calmer waters. Connie was never a happy lady, alway having a hissy fit.
Only hero's.
In this story.
OK which engine was it starboard or port..
Cos it shows both...or did they both fail..
Do you like do any crash or mystery ones or something
So what was the final outcome?
What did the investigation board state was the root cause of the accident?
Was the crew found to be at fault?
What became of the Capt. and the rest of the crew?
So in this case passenger should have inflated their vests? Without one I can understand the rush to get on the raft, other Ones should of just held on. Least Captain didnt kill everyone as often.
Only time I ever flew in one was transatlantic in 1954. I remember that it was dark, hot and I didn't have my blanky!
Inevitably, fingers must be pointed. That is expedient, rather than reasonable.
Three engines fail (#1 fail to restart) and they blame the pilot?
Why could they not get the erroneously shut down the #4 engine restarted?
The #4 (right, outer) engine was the only one that stayed healthy throughout the flight. The #1 (left, outer) was the one that had an RPM over speed due to the flight engineer activating the emergency cutoff lever. According to the accident report, the #1 engine might have been starved of oil (due to Garrett actuating the emergency shut off) long enough to cause "gross engine damage".
If Garrett had survived, he may have committed suicide or faced criminal charges. Drowning may have been the 'best' future he could have faced. Imagine you making a grossly incompetant mistake that killed so many people.
Truly a flight crew from hell, imagine the death toll if the passengers were not military paratroopers?
Or this crew had manned flight 1549. It would not have been a miracle...
You'd think that with a passenger aircraft ditching in the middle of a storm,
there wouldn't be any survivors to speak of.
Probably because most passengers were military personnel, they prevented panic, which would probably have killed most people who would just jump into the water.
Or, as in the case of the Ethiopian Airlines that ditched in relatively calm seas at broad daylight, many passengers did inflate their lifevests *before* getting out which ensured they never got out because in the water filled cabin, they floated towards the ceiling.
Those without inflated lifevests could dive and exit through the submerged exits.
Out of 175 souls on board, only 50 survived.
Typical enquiry results-blame the pilot even when it is blindingly obvious that the pilot saved the situation... RIP Tiger 923
Why did they not divert to Iceland?
I was Like # 1000 what I win??!! Lol
A high five ✋🏼😎
If it worked it was the right decision civillians far away from the event are rarely the best judges of events
A lot of people have never heard of this incident because it involved mainly a bunch of military bums and their freeloader families. If it had more commercial, you’d hear about it.