Pan Am Flight 217
Pan Am Flight 217 was a Boeing 707 that crashed near Caracas, Venezuela while on a flight from New York City, USA on December 12, 1968. Though pilot error was to blame, the National Transportation Safety Board concluded the probable cause was undetermined. There were no survivors. Aircraft and crew Pan Am Flight 217 was operated by a Pan American World Airways (Pan Am) Boeing 707-321B (registration N494PA, named Clipper Malay). The aircraft was less than a year old — its first flight was on March 7, 1968, and it was delivered to Pan Am on March 28. There were nine crew members, including eight from the United States and one from Sweden. The captain was 50 years old and had 24,000 flight hours' experience, including 6,737 hours on the Boeing 707. Accident description The aircraft took off from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport on a scheduled flight to Caracas Simon Bolivar International Airport on December 12, 1968. As the aircraft was nearing Caracas, it disappeared from air traffic control's radar screens. At 22:05 local time, the aircraft crashed into the Caribbean Sea and exploded. At this point, a call was made to the Venezuelan Navy to search