CIVIL AERONAUTICS BOARD
AIRCRAFT ACCIDENT REPORT
THE FLYING TIGER LINE INC.
L-1049H, N6915C,
SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
DECEMBER 24, 1964
SYNOPSIS
A Flying Tiger Line Inc., L-1049H, N6915C, operating as Flight 282, crashed on Sweeney's Ridge, approximately 4.3 miles west-southwest of the San Francisco International Airport at approximately 0031:30 P.s.t. The three crewmembers were fatally injured. There were no passengers. The flight, scheduled as domestic cargo from San Francisco to John F. Kennedy International Airport, Jamaica, New York, had just departed Runway 28L at 0028. At 0031:20 the departure controller advised that they were left of course, and within seconds, ". . . the target stopped, bloomed, and disappeared from the radar scope." All attempts to contact the flight following the target disappearance were unsuccessful.
The Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was that the pilot, for undetermined reasons, deviated from departure course into an area of rising terrain where downdraft activity and turbulence affected the climb capability of the aircraft sufficiently to prevent terrain clearance.
1. INVESTIGATION
1.1 History of the Flight
The Flying Tiger Line Inc., L-1049H, N6915C, Flight 282, was a scheduled domestic cargo flight from the San Francisco International Airport (SFO), San Francisco, California, to the John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), Jamaica, New York. It was originally scheduled to depart at 2100[1] 23 December, but the flight was delayed because of the non-availability of a flight engineer. An engineer obtained from Los Angeles, arrived in San Francisco at 2315, and the flight departed at 0028, 24 December.
The original flight plan was IFR: requested altitude — 11,000 feet; route of flight was San Francisco direct to Sacramento, Victor Airways to JFK; estimated time en route — 9 hours 16 minutes; fuel aboard — 11 hours 3 minutes; alternate airport — Newark, New Jersey. Gross weight of the aircraft was 142,073 pounds[2] of which 29,000 pounds (5,000 gallons) was fuel and 41,078 pounds was cargo.
