Clipper Victor

Clipper Victor
A Pan Am Boeing 747, similar to Clipper Victor.
Other name(s) Clipper Young America
Type Boeing 747-121
Manufacturer Boeing
Construction number 19643
Registration N736PA
First flight December 24, 1969
Owners and operators Pan American World Airways
In service 1970 to 1977
Fate Collided with a KLM 747 on March 27, 1977 in the Tenerife airport disaster

Clipper Victor was a Boeing 747-121 which began service with Pan American World Airways in 1970. It was the first Boeing 747 to operate a scheduled commercial service and is notable for its brief but significant history.

The aircraft's tail number was N736PA, and Clipper Victor was its original name. Renamed Clipper Young America, N736PA was the first Boeing 747 to make a commercial flight, flying from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport to London Heathrow Airport, after the planned aircraft (N733PA, originally also named Clipper Young America) developed a mechanical problem.[1]

In its first year of service, N736PA also became the first 747 to be hijacked, when it was flown to Cuba on August 2, 1970. Following this incident, the aircraft's name was changed back to Clipper Victor.

On March 27, 1977, Clipper Victor was destroyed in the world's deadliest aviation accident, the Tenerife airport disaster, when a KLM Boeing 747 attempted to take off at Los Rodeos Airport, Tenerife, Canary Islands without clearance from the airport's air traffic controllers and collided with Clipper Victor on the runway. Out of the 396 people on board Clipper Victor, 335 were killed.

References

  1. ↑ UPI (22 January 1970). "Trouble plagued 747 lands in London with 352 aboard". The Bryan Times. Retrieved 2009-06-25.

External links

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