Mystery Behind the Disappearance of Pan Am Flight 7 That Still Remains Unsolved

The Clipper Romance of the Skies

It was November 8, 1958, when Pan American Airway's Flight 7, a Boeing 377 Stratocruiser, took to the skies departing from San Francisco, California to its destination Honolulu. It had 6 crew members and 38 passengers on board until it mysteriously vanished during its routine trip. The luxury flight which was dubbed the Clipper Romance of the Skies continued to give rise to conspiracy theories even more than 60 years after its disappearance, Smithsonian Magazine reported. Even though a few days after its disappearance, some debris and 19 bodies were recovered from the Pacific Ocean, further investigations could not determine the actual cause of the aircraft vanishing to date.

The Last Contact

The flight took off at 11:51 a.m. from San Francisco and the weather was perfectly fine. The 36 passengers were settled into their seats as the pilot made announcements about their 10-hour-long flight to Honolulu. The flight attendants went about to fulfill their duties and served the guests with champagne, caviar, and a seven-course dinner. The flight consisted of wealthy passengers who boarded with the hopes of getting a luxurious experience for their $300 ticket. But things went south after the pilot sent a radio message to ground control at 5:04 p.m. to give their routine position report that was meant to be submitted each hour. However, when the pilots failed to send out their radio update in the next hour without sending any distress calls, the Air Traffic Control issued an urgent alert of the flight vanishing, Punch Magazine reported.

Search for The Vanished Aircraft

The day after the disappearance of Pan Am Flight 7, there was an extensive aerial search. Submarines and ships were deployed in the region where the plane was last positioned above. It won't be until November 14 of that year when the first breakthrough in the search operation came. Another aircraft that was doing its routine search spotted a possible chunk of wreckage on its radar about 955 miles northeast of Honolulu. 19 bodies were discovered floating in the ocean and the wristwatches on some of them pinpointed the exact moment the flight crashed into the water. The time was 5:25 p.m. which was 21 minutes after the last radio message sent out by the pilots. The Civil Aeronautics Board started investigating the actual cause of the flight's grim fate but ended up delivering an inconclusive report in 1959 that established "no probable cause" for the crash, as reported by Punch Magazine .

Was Internal Foul Play Involved?

The Civil Aeronautics Board formally closed the investigation in 1959 but two men, Gregg Herken and Ken Fortenberry reopened the case informally later on. It was revealed that most of the passengers of the doomed flight died from drowning. The wreckage of the aircraft had burn marks that indicated how the fire happened after it crashed. But Pan Am and the FBI suspected the involvement of a possible "disgruntled employee" of the airlines back in 1957. A flight purser Eugene Crosthwaite's name was brought into question who had a sour relationship with Pan Am due to his questionable behaviors in the past. Crosthwaite was suspected of airing the frustrations of his troubled family life in his line of work and plotting the plane crash. But before Pan Am could brand him as the criminal, they found yet another suspect, Aviation Oil Outlet mentioned.

Was The Faulty Aircraft Responsible?

Knewz.com explored the many difficulties the Boeing 377s have faced over the years. Aviation Oil Outlet revealed that the Boeing 377 models specifically faced problems with their propellers. The infamous aircraft had 7-foot-long Hamilton-Standard Hydromatic propellers with hollow-core steel blades. However, technical errors often caused those aircraft to face issues with imbalance. Another fatal flaw lay in its oil transfer tube that was located in the engine nose. The FAA issued an airworthiness directive (AD) in early 1957 to address this flaw. "As a result of propeller shaft oil transfer bearing failures, several cases of loss of propeller control occurred which make it impossible to feather the affected propellers," they warned. Apparently, 6 months before its final flight, the Pan Am aircraft was ordered to get an engine inspection and replacement or repair by May 31, 1957. Many still suspect the oil transfer issue could have caused the crash of the flight.