The Most Corrupt Investigation In Aviation History - The Mysterious Fate Of Pan Am Flight 7 

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"Any evidence of an explosion could have been destroyed by an explosion." Wow. Real Sherlock move there Pan Am.

damn mispronouncing epitome hit him so hard, that he had to take an entire sponsorship based around that singular event.

just a couple weeks ago my wife's grandpa asked me to help him get on the interwebs to buy tickets to fly out to see his daughter, wife's aunt, and asked to see what tickets were on Pan Am, he was surprised to learn they had gone out of business over 30 years ago

What I find weird is that there were distress signals picked up that matched the frequency of the life rafts onboard in the days following, but instead of mobilizing search teams to find the source they shrugged it off. Noting the amount of corruption in the rest of the investigation it leaves you to wonder if they willfully left a raft of survivors to perish adrift at sea.

"A suicidal phyco, desperate businessman and a threatened politician get on a plane..." Literally could have been anything

Just imagine your plane going down in flames, and you miraculously survive the ditch and now you have a professional crew with a radio sending SOS on your life raft...but no one comes due to poor SAR effort and the airline trying to cover up the situation. Believing that you'll be saved in no time but instead, just drifting away for an ultimate slow death on the Pacific ocean for those reasons is just so unnerving.

My grandpa was a pilot in Pan Am during the time of the accident and until it was sold/bankrupt. I never met him, but my dad says it was "company policy" that if any aircraft accident happened, they'd just grab a piece of a body (fingers, an arm) or even a piece of clothing from a victim and tell the family they had retreived the whole body. Then since the funeral would be with a closed coffin, they'd place said piece of body/clothing inside of the coffin with a big metal plate to make enough weight for an human being at the height of the person who died. No one would know there wasn't an actually person there. I always thought it was something to give peace to the family, so they'd bury their loved ones (in their mind) and have clousure. Now I realized that Pan Am just didn't want to spend money to actually retrieve the whole bodies.

It really sounds like so many people wanted this plane to go down, almost makes you wonder if they acknowledged each other before destroying the plane

Searching for Flight 7: “Sir, I’ve found something!” “Nah, that ain’t it.” “Okie dokie”

Plot twist: there were two unrelated simultaneous sabotage plots

I dated a girl in the mid seventies who's mother flew as a stewardess with Pan American on 377s. She told me that her best friend, another stewardess was lost on flight 7. She also told me that the airplane already had a reputation for mechanical issues. Recently Smithsonian Magazine published an interesting article which reflected the content of this video. As to the issues with the Curtiss propellors, it is a fact the the hundreds of Boeing C-97s never experienced the propellor failure issues the the Stratocruisers did.

"Hey, we're getting distress signals near where that missing plane probably went down, wanna check it out?" "No." "Okay... are you at least going to investigate what happened?" "The plane crashed." Bravo pan am. Brilliant work 👏

I'm still getting my head wrapped around the ability to purchase life insurance at the airport like you'd insure a parcel at the post office. Just nuts.

Pilot here, the bearing noted as “eleven” is more likely to be 211, as the flight was southwest bound from San Francisco to Honolulu, not northeast bound. The magnetic variation is still pretty much the same in that area today as it was in 1957, and a direct line from San Francisco to Honolulu gives us a magnetic bearing of 239°. Now the route wasn’t as perfectly direct as that, and the compass deviation from aircraft components likely influenced that number, so a bearing of 211 is very likely to be what their instruments told them, which they then stated on that tape

The craziest part of this whole story is the bomber who actually expected the plane to take off on time!

I was sure you were going to tell us “Mrs. Payne’s new husband bore a strikingly similar resemblance to her late husband, whose demise was surely the luckiest break ever.”

It's painful to realise that so many people lost their lives because it corruption and ignorance. To abandon those emergency signals and flare reports..it's criminal.

Pilot here, some thoughts I had on this, particularly the distress call transcript: - Propeller issues could have caused an engine fire, especially in a "runaway prop" scenario, where a variable pitch propeller gets stuck in its "fine pitch" setting." Imagine that your car was powered by four separate engines, each with its own gearbox, and suddenly one engine gets stuck in first gear while speeding down the highway. The components of the engine overspeed and get very hot, which could easily lead to a fire. - Regardless, piston engines of that era were really pushing the boundaries of what was possible with internal combustion, and were just years away from being surpassed by more reliable and powerful turboprops and jets. Fires were rare but not unheard of. - "What about 3 engine" is probably a question about 3 engine performance. Assuming they could extinguish the fire, the crew's next assessment would have to be whether they could limp to safety on 3 engines with 1 shutdown. Usually "Engine 3" refers to a specific engine while "3 engine" means flying the airplane on 3 engines. - The fuel management discussion might be related to diverting fuel away from the fire, by shutting off fuel flow to the engine and probably also transferring fuel out of the nearby wing tanks. I can't make sense of the phraseology, though. Maybe the numbers correspond to fuel tanks? Fuel tanks, though, are usually named according to their location (i.e. Right Wing Inboard). Not sure of the scheme on the 377. - An onboard fire could easily compromise the radios long before the ditching. Since the antennae are all over the plane, even a wing fire could fry the wiring necessary for transmission.

Good gawd. This whole thing is like a real life Agatha Christie novel. How many shady characters can you put on one ill-fated flight to Hawaii?

Great video. Given PanAm's history of "mysterious accidents" from the 50s - 90s, I'm amazed they could sell anyone a ticket.

I just can’t imagine ever being in a search and rescue and saying “yeah that’s probably just someone testing equipment” and not even sending a single person to go investigate. I get that’s kinda the whole point of the video but I can’t imagine ever being a person who could just let something like that slide.

If you would have told me fifteen years ago that I would stop what I’m doing to listen to someone who I never met, tell me a story about a plane that crashed 70 years ago I would have said no chance in hell but here I am addicted to this channel.

They seemed completely uninterested in even saving potential survivors... let alone solving the mystery of what caused the accident.

What makes me the most suspicious is the disregard for the SOS-signals. Like... what were they affraid of to find, if someone had survived and would talk?

Barely Sociable uploading is an event in my apartment, all six of us are sitting in front of the couch to watch this.

It makes me so angry that they literally could have saved these people if they just hadn’t dismissed the radio signals as “unrelated.” I can’t imagine their reasons for doing so. It’s obvious the survivors were alive for quite a while after the crash.

One of the crew members, William Fortenberry, was co-pilot on the famous " Nash-Fortenberry" UFO incident in 1952.

Just found your channel tonight, must compliment you on many things. The clearly enunciated voiceover, actual period recordings of the 377 model Boeing rather than "filler" stock video of unrelated aircraft were a refreshing thing to see for an information video like this. Finally, the absolutely amazing piano cover of "Bloody Tears" of Castlevania fame on the end credits was something that hit me right in the nostalgia.

Seems like an Agatha Christie novel, where everyone is guilty.

No joke. I was boarding a flight from Honolulu to LAX when I received the notification this video was uploaded. LMAO. I’m happy to report we landed safely.

Suggest you might want to consider doing a story on the rail accident mentioned in the newspaper headline at 23:24, where on September 15, 1958, a commuter train ran off the Newark Bay Drawbridge, killing 48. The exact reasons why the train failed to stop for red signals and derails protecting the open drawbridge are still unknown to this day.

Can you imagine having to hold people hostage just to convince the government that there needs to be an investigation AFTER A PLANE CRASH?!

"Never make fun of someone for misprouncing a word. They most likely learned the word through reading."

Plane disappearences are so interesting to me, the idea that something so massive with so many people inside can just nope out of existence with little to no evidence for why, it's terrifying. Edit: I'm getting tired of people saying oh the world is bigger it makes sense, oceans are big I get it now alright stop sending the same response ur not original lmao

Imagine getting on a plane with a plan to sabotage it, only to discover that someone else on the plane beats you to it

Out of all the unsolved mystery channels on youtube, yours is definitely the most interesting one I've ever come across. Highly analytical, objective, and far from the other channels who are highly sensationalized. You respect the mystery and evidence and people involved while making it sound intriguing and making your own research, showing us the evidence you found. I can't think of any other channel that puts as much effort into its mystery content as you do. Cheers.

I don't know why, but that kinda haunts me knowing that they heard an SOS from that area with the plane's last 2 tail numbers, but that nothing was done about finding the survivors there

I feel like “Most Corrupt” is just Pan Am’s middle name at this point.

I imagine anytime a family member goes missing it must be terrifying for those involved. But *man* ...I cannot imagine what it must be like having a family member board a flight, expecting to pick them up when they land or to check in with you once they reach their destination, and then just nothing. And then hearing through the grapevine that the flight just *disappeared.* Fuckin hell, talk about a nightmare scenario.

Regarding Flight 7's right-hand turn, was it possible that when they started to get an issue (fire on board or on an engine) the captain decided to turn back towards the ship so as to increase their chances of survival - but the fire (or whatever) overtook them too quick and they had to ditch instead.

It would make for a great story if two separate people just happened to intend to bring down the same aircraft at the same time. Especially if both attempts were not enough to cripple the plane - if it had its proper maintenance.

Reminds me a lot of this guy, Slightly Sociable except he does boat mysteries. When are we getting a crossover ep? :)

Just discovered your channel. Very good. This case was covered up. Not enough work was done by investigators. RIP to all aboard that plane

This is an incredibly detailed account of a way long ago mystery which changed many lives forever. Incidents like this ricochet through society, altering life paths of those left behind to fend for themselves into the future. A well done piece here that I'm sure is appreciated by relatives of these souls as well as those just interested in historically unsolved events.

Dude this whole story reads like a murder mystery novel, several different murder/suicide plots going on plus incompetence and mechanical issues.

The best part about this is that I’ve been super into air disasters recently, the worst part is I’m flying from San Francisco to Hawaii in 3 days Edit: for everyone asking, no I did not make it.

Very cool. The first officer on the flight, Bill Wygant, was my great Uncle. It was interesting to know the facts of this disaster which somehow my entire family was unaware of. I was always told growing up that Romance of the Skies just disappeared without a trace. Nice to know that someone at least has some ideas!

I've been following air disasters for most of my adult life (I'm 71 now) and this one is new to me. Good work! I've just subscribed.

Quote of the day " The various passengers were in relatively good condition , despite , you know , being dead "

Real talk, man, from a native Brazilian Portuguese speaker: you pulled off a lot of the pronunciations of names, cities, etc. really well in this video! That's some quality endorsement for the sponsor right there lmao

I think the William and Harriet Pain link is the most intriguing. Especially that she remarried 2 days later and her neighbor. What if William convinced the neighbor to take the flight and pose as him? That would explain eloping to Tijuana so quickly.

This is the best mystery I’ve seen on RU-vid so far. Great job covering all the facts involved.

Being a pilot myself I really love all these airline mystery’s keep it up

Number 2 engine flaming out (or losing compression) would result in a loss of thrust from that engine. The resulting uneven engine thrust would have resulted in an initial LEFTward yaw. This could have caused a spooked pilot to jam in rudder exceeding design spec and causing the mentioned break in the J arm / vertical stabilizer. With a broken vertical stabilizer, life would get hard fast and would surely mandate a ditch. That said, with pitch control still in working order a glider landing would not be entirely impossible though would be a very difficult feat... EDIT: This would not explain what caused the initial failure but could explain the proceeding events

I just wanted to say that I appreciate videos like this. I come home tired and I just heat something up and let this run and it's awesome. I'm so glad I ran into this channel.

Really great deep dive. The best. Congratulations.

Before "SOS", there was "CQ", or "CQD" (either "seek you", or derivation of the french word "security", the "D" added by Marconi). The operators age and training would determine which they might use, or both as was done by the sinking Titanic.

"We're going to build a flying hotel. What could go wrong?"

Edit: great vid! You had me editing, researching, and commenting multiple times lol def will be back for more. 41:50 I’ve gone back through all the emergencies from top 5 manufacturers with 10 or more souls on board post WW2 through 1960 and SOS would not be used here. I really struggle to see why they were so quick to think this. This was long after the adopted mayday procedure and when that wasn’t adhered to, declaring emergency is the alternative. SOS seems the most illogical ironically. Feels like confirmation bias. These pilots would have to be egregiously undertrained in aviation and have zero knowledge on nomenclature & protocol. 37:45 this is not controversial in the least. Reference China Airlines 611 for examples of even a modern aircraft behaving similarly. Moreover, while a limited investigation, they still understood how explosive material affects structures. Reference incidents like United 629 in 1955 or National 601. But most counter to this claim of an explosion which lacks any tangible, verifiable evidence that can be defended in good faith, the debris field was FAR too limited for a catastrophic mid air explosion. It’s well documented even in the 50s how spread works - see examples above and compare their debris fields. This whole line of objective re: disintegration via propeller a proper answer seems to contend with some evidence not only logical, but proven to be the case previously. Absent any of the prototypical signs exhibited by midair explosions, it would have been highly irresponsible for them to conclude such was the case. That said, given the events of the investigation, speculation seems fair as normal burden of proof clearly has been corrupted. This feels like a rare incident where Occam’s razor might lean toward the speculative end of things

Amazing videos man! Great narration and great audio and visuals! You make every story 10x more exciting to listen to!

This report feels like a MadLib that someone filled in with whatever made them look less bad. 🤔 The amount of times companies show 0 regard for human life is extremely depressing.

Well here's a wild guess: Perhaps one or more engines on one side of the plane caught fire and/or the propeller flew off. This alone would have given them asymmetric thrust, which could have resulted in their deviation from the normal flight path. If two engines went out, then the pilots would have to ditch. Perhaps their distress call was faint because, by the time they made it, they were too low and the curvature of the Earth prevented it from being properly heard. Maybe they did a relatively successful ditching but, believing the plane would float for longer than it did, perhaps many people stayed on our near the plane and were sucked down when the plane sank.

With all the unprecedented incompetence that took place with this search and rescue, it makes you wonder if this was a planned crash. Perhaps there was something on-board the plane that really just needed to never be found, and the lives lost onboard were an unfortunate byproduct of such a plan.

Great content! I can't believe I'm only finding your channel now. 🙌

“Had been a Navy Frogman for 22 years”. Hmmm? That raises a few eyebrows. For those of us in the modern era that might not raise any red flags. But the Navy “frogmen” most commonly refers to the Navy UDT. The Underwater Demolitions Team. That was created in part to avoid the problems the Marines had landing on Tarawa. The job of the UDT was to scout out the landing beaches, and use precision explosives underwater to clear a path through coral reef’s to give the landing craft direct access to the beach heads. The tasks and roles of this elite specialized force evolved over time until they became what we now know as the Navy Seals. A member of the Navy UDT would have an almost unparalleled working knowledge of explosives, plus in 1957 relatively easy access to them. I mean the dude blew up a public road.

Barely Sociable out here just casually dropping the most high quality content on RU-vid.

I must say, the segue into the Babble ad was seriously seamless. Well done!🎉

I’m so glad I stumbled upon your channel. Love the content.

It's videos like this that shows why RU-vid should have documentary awards.

A lot of us talk about how channels like Discovery, TLC, A&E etc used to put out quality content - I believe we have channels like this, spiritual successors to the quality content we knew and loved - clearly the desire to entertain and inform is alive and well in those few, top-shelf channels. Many thanks for all the effort and polish you put into these videos man 👍🍻

i really enjoy listening to you while working on the road

Very well researched. I feel like I've taken a very deep dive into this mystery.

The line between conspiracy and coincidence is razor thin in these cases. It would be really interesting (though perhaps not entirely ethical) to go through the passenger lists on plane crashes that we know were not caused by passenger sabotage and see how suspicious people become once they are looked into. To me it seems more likely that you would find people who look guilty the more you are looking for guilty parties. Whereas in cases such as Pilot error/suicide we know the passengers did not cause it so we don't do deep dives into their lives. At the very least it might give us a better idea how likely it is that there would be so many parties with motive to bring this plane down.

A bit of speculation from a 40-year Amateur Radio operator here. "CQ" is derived from "seek you," and is a general call to other stations. It is still used today on Amateur Radio frequencies. Trans-oceanic flights used (and still use) HF frequency bands for voice communications, because of their long-range nature. The "CQ CQ Syracuse New York" stuck out to me as I read the transcript. It seems likely to have been a call from another aircraft somewhere in the Eastern US--it seems especially likely since the crash took place in the afternoon local time, when the upper half of the HF spectrum (roughly 13-30 MHz) propagate signals easily from the East Coast in the evening hours to the Pacific islands. Further, this all took place right at the solar cycle peak--the largest peak in 400 years of recorded history--which has a great enhancing effect on global HF signal propagation. At that time of year, the HF bands are generally enhanced anyway, but with a solar cycle peak, signals can be incredibly strong at thousands of miles over this generally reliable radio path. So this is the longest RU-vid video comment ever that is essentially saying, "I think it's unlikely that the CQ Syracuse call had anything to do with Flight 7." Of course, that means that it's possible that other comms in the transcript may also have come from other sources. None of this contributes to what may have happened to Flight 7, but I was inspired by the detailed analysis in this video to add a bit more to it for the few who may be interested.

What a fabulous video. So well-researched. So frightening. So helpful to save many many lives.

Wow this was so well done. I have been watching things on air crashes for years and I've never heard about this one.

The Pan Am CEO from 1927 to 1968, Juan Trippe, was a political operator who wanted Pam Am to have exclusive rights to oversees travel. This is covered superbly in a Howard Hughes biopic with Leo DiCaprio: THE AVIATOR. There was so much crooked in the workings of the CAB .. FAA. They still aren't clean. The movie is a great look behind the scenes at an industry that was a gold mine.

The ads you do are funny, and I always look forward to the ad portion of your video because of them. You could do stand up and call it Barely Comedic and I'd by a ticket right away.

Such a fascinating story, well told!

Outstanding narration.

LOVE the old school intro Barely!

If this were a mystery novel, the twist would be that it's all true. Everyone involved was either a fraudster, a hijacker, or never even got on the plane, and then Pan Am staged a coverup. At some point over the Pacific everyone all at once got up and started pulling out their guns, bombs, parachutes, etc., and then looked at each other like "wait, wtf are you doing? I was going to do that".

I’ve lived in Honolulu for my whole life and somehow have not heard of this story it was quite interesting from the start 10/10!!! In love with the content

This is a great Chanel. Deserves more subs. Liked and subscribed.

If the passengers were walking around the cabin at impact, and the impact was hard enough to leave marks from seat belts, the passengers would have been thrown around the cabin and almost certainly have shown evidence of severe impacts.

I have to truly commend you on investigating this accident, particularly to the survivorship bias. I am a private pilot who, to better my own flying, studies almost every modern day accident from airliners to general aviation. I don’t know what your experience or knowledge of aviation is but this is by far one of the best reports I’ve seen. Bravo. In today’s training we are taught that a multi engine aircraft suffering a single engine flameout or loss of a single engine is almost never a true disaster. This is why you see so many videos and stories of 737s or similar having catastrophic fires almost always landing with no injuries or casualties. You can almost always rely on a single engine. Even in single engine aircraft, if you’re high enough, you can usually “glide” at what’s known as Best glide speed and make it down safely. Bravo on your investigation.

What an awesome introduction. Very well written and great delivery.

This was excellent, subscribed

Also around 43:22 "number on fire" probably has a word missing. Pilots refer to their engines as numbers, from left to right. If you're in a pilot's seat, on your left would be engine 1, on your right would be engine two (on a two engine plane.) I think it's likely they were stating that one of their engines were on fire. This is still how it's reported to this day.

Lack of evidence makes people to create all sorts of theories... Here is mine. Engine n3 exploded and got caught on fire. Debris probably hit the tail damaging vertical stabs. Plane started turning right, some passangers got knocked out, some made it to their seats and equipped life vests, probably breathing in fumes of n3 engine since it's near the fuselage. The crew, after battling for control over plane, decided to declare emergency but they were rapidly going out of the reach. Pilots hard land the plane on water, tail disconnects on impact. There might be survivors who tried to radio but were never heard properly. The end.

Wow! Exceptionally well detailed by you! Thanks!!

Fascinating. Thanks for your good work here.

We flew to Hawaii a few years ago out of SFO. While in general I love flying, I admit spending hours and hours over empty ocean made the hair on the back of my neck raise up. Ditching is *not* something you want to do in any aircraft, even a modern one - and not in a packed sardine can full of tourists like our flight was. That 5 hour flight was about 4 1/2 hours too long, especially with the screaming kids behind us. I can't imagine trying to deal with that crowd in an emergency...

"The route was a straight shot from California into the Pacific Ocean..." yeah, sounds about right

I must say, I have yet not found another RU-vidr that is transistioning better into sponsors than you do!

Wow! I appreciate your posting, thanks.

Doctor: I'm sorry, you got 50 minutes to live. Please spend the time wisely Me: Ahh the corruption of aviation

As someone with a lit of family working in airlines through the years, pan am's penny pinching is anything but news. What really surprised me is an airline thinking a trans-pacific flight with only 36 passengers could ever be profitable

Another pilot here, tactical military, airline transport, and general aviation. The issue with propeller runaways on the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser's combination of the Pratt and Whitney 4360 quadruple-row, 28-cylander radial engine and the Hamilton Standard 2J17 four-bladed variable pitch propeller, as noted, was well known at the time of this and other accidents and incidents contemporary to the loss of PAA 007. The P&W 4360 was the state of the art large radial aircraft engine of its time. It benefitted from the rapid improvements in conventional (i.e. non-jet) engine design that occurred during WWII. At that time, the 4360 was the largest, most powerful, and most complex production piston engine that had ever been built. Because of its power and complexity it was understandably challenging to maintain properly when compared to earlier engines of its general type. Further complicating the potential for dangerous failures, I am told, was that unlike previous engines of similar but less complicated design, the 4360 had a magnesium alloy propeller shaft. Designers chose this innovation for its significantly lighter weight as compared to the more commonly used steel alloy. Magnesium was not only lighter than steel, it was still very structurally strong. The drawback of magnesium was that if it were significantly overheated it could spontaneously combust and burn uncontrollably with a white hot fire. At the time of the engine's design this was not considered problematic because the worst anticipated airborne engine fire would not create temperatures intense enough to ignite a magnesium propeller shaft. What design engineers failed to anticipate would be a sufficiently elevated shaft temperature from a source, other than from an engine fire, that would be high enough to ignite the magnesium. That's where the design of the Hamilton Standard propeller comes into the story. The Hamilton Standard constant speed (i.e. variable pitch) propellers mounted on the 377's massive P&W 4360 engines were approximately 17 feet in diameter and featured state of the art hollow steel blades and "hydromatic", engine oil pressure-actuated blade pitch control. When a constant speed 2J17 prop lost pitch control, it's blades rapidly drove to the fine (high RPM) position, and if throttle were not very quickly reduced to the associated engine by the pilot, the prop would increase RPM catastrophically (runaway prop) often severely damaging the engine, and worst case overspending the propeller RPM and in some cases resulting in shearing of some or all of the blades. If only one or three blades sheared, the resultingly severe out-of-balance forces could, and in several cases did, rip the engine and its nacelle completely from the wing! Even if a runaway prop structurally survived the overspeed with all of its blades still! intact, it could generate enough friction heat around the shaft to ignite its magnesium structure. The emergency procedure for a propeller shaft fire was to steeply dive the aircraft to produce enough volume of cold air through the engine to extinguish the fire in the magnesium shaft, a very dangerous maneuver for a large transport aircraft even under the best of circumstances!