Arlington - Arlington

On December 23, 1986 at 05:50 PM, Arlington - Arlington experienced a crash involving Douglas C-54 Skymaster, operated by West Coast Air Cargo, with the event recorded near Pacific Ocean All World.

The flight was categorized as training and the reported phase was flight at a lake, sea, ocean, river crash site.

2 people were known to be on board, 0 fatalities were recorded, 2 survivors were identified or estimated. This corresponds to an estimated fatality rate of 0.0%.

Crew on board: 2, crew fatalities: 0, passengers on board: 0, passenger fatalities: 0, other fatalities: 0.

The listed crash cause is technical failure. The pilot reported that he ditched his DC-4 in the Pacific Ocean on the evening of december 23 after experiencing an uncontrollable n°3 engine fire at the conclusion of a training flight. The ditching occurred in dark night conditions with minimal 10 foot swells having a period of approximately 10 seconds and the aircraft was reported to have remained afloat approximately 10 minutes after the ditching. Although the flight penetrated the Pacific coastal adiz on at least 2 occasions no radar evidence corroborated the penetrations nor was there any receipt of the pilots mayday on 121.5 mhz. No wreckage has been observed along the Washington shoreline since the event. Weather conditions at 1750 hrs pst within 20 miles of the ditching were reported as measured 900 foot overcast with 1.5 miles visibilit in light rain and fog. Surface winds prevailed from the southeast yet the two pilots reportedly drifted northeast covering a distance of at least 14 nautical miles via raft in 16 hours. The board's findings surrounding this event remain undetermined.

Aircraft reference details include registration N96361, MSN 27368, year of manufacture 1944.