McGuire – Gander – Francfort

On September 23, 1962 at 10:00 PM, McGuire – Gander – Francfort experienced a crash involving Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation, operated by Flying Tiger Line, with the event recorded near Atlantic Ocean All World.

The flight was categorized as charter/taxi (non scheduled revenue flight) and the reported phase was flight at a lake, sea, ocean, river crash site.

76 people were known to be on board, 28 fatalities were recorded, 48 survivors were identified or estimated. This corresponds to an estimated fatality rate of 36.8%.

Crew on board: 8, crew fatalities: 5, passengers on board: 68, passenger fatalities: 23, other fatalities: 0.

The listed crash cause is technical failure. he Super Constellation departed Gander at 17:09 GMT for a military (MATS) charter flight to Frankfurt. Three hours later, at FL210 a fire developed in the no. 3 engine, which was shut down and the propeller feathered. The no. 1 engine oversped 5 minutes later when the flight engineer closed the no. 1 engine firewall shut-off valve in error. The crew were not able to restart the engine, and wanted to divert to Shannon with METO power on the no. 4 engine and reduced power on engine no. 2. The no. 2 engine lost power and finally failed, forcing the crew to carry out a ditching. The left wing broke off, but the fuselage remained intact. The cabin filled with water fast and the aircraft sank nose first in about 10 minutes. The Swiss merchant ship christened 'Celerina' was the first to be on site and its crew was able to evacuate 48 wounded people while 28 others, among them five crew members, were killed. The aircraft sank and was lost.

Aircraft reference details include registration N6923C, MSN 4827, year of manufacture 1958.