Zamboanga – Cotabato – Davao

On March 2, 1963 at 10:05 AM, Zamboanga – Cotabato – Davao experienced a crash involving Douglas C-47 Skytrain (DC-3), operated by Philippine Airlines - PAL, with the event recorded near Mt Boca Davao Oriental.

The flight was categorized as scheduled revenue flight and the reported phase was flight at a mountains crash site.

27 people were known to be on board, 27 fatalities were recorded, 0 survivors were identified or estimated. This corresponds to an estimated fatality rate of 100.0%.

Crew on board: 3, crew fatalities: 3, passengers on board: 24, passenger fatalities: 24, other fatalities: 0.

The listed crash cause is human factor. Flight 984 was on a scheduled domestic flight from Zamboanga to Davao, with an intermediate stop at Cotabato. It departed Cotabato at 0940 hours, with a crew of three and twenty-four passengers, estimating Davao at 1025 hours. At 1002 hours the flight reported to the Company radio station at Cotabato that it was halfway to Davao, at Flight level 60, descending. Later on, it contacted the Company radio station at Davao and requested the Davao weather. After having received weather information the flight advised that its arrival would be delayed on account of bad weather. No aircraft difficulty was reported and this was the last message from the flight. When the aircraft failed to arrive, 30 minutes after its ETA a search was started. The aircraft was subsequently found on Mt. Boca, approximately 50 miles SE of Davao Airport, where it had crashed at an altitude of 3 000 ft around 1130 hours. All 27 occupants were killed.

Aircraft reference details include registration PI-C489, MSN 16115/32863, year of manufacture 1945.