BOAC Flight 911
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G-APFE in 1962
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| Accident summary | |
|---|---|
| Date | 5 March 1966 |
| Summary | In-flight break-up |
| Site | Mount Fuji, Japan |
| Passengers | 113 |
| Crew | 11 |
| Fatalities | 124 (all) |
| Survivors | 0 |
| Aircraft type | Boeing 707–436 |
| Operator | BOAC |
| Registration | G-APFE |
| Flight origin | San Francisco International Airport, San Francisco, California |
| 1st stopover | Honolulu International Airport, Honolulu, Hawaii |
| 2nd stopover | Itazuke Air Base, Fukuoka, Japan |
| Last stopover | Haneda Int'l Airport, Tokyo, Japan |
| Destination | Kai Tak Int'l Airport, Hong Kong |
BOAC Flight 911 (Speedbird 911) was a round-the-world flight operated by British Overseas Airways Corporation that crashed as a result of an encounter with severe clear-air turbulence near Mount Fuji in Japan on 5 March 1966. The Boeing 707-436 on this flight was commanded by Captain Bernard Dobson, 45, from Dorset, an experienced 707 pilot who had been flying these aircraft since November 1960.
The aircraft, registered G-APFE, disintegrated and crashed near Mount Fuji in Japan shortly after departure from Haneda Airport, at the start of the Tokyo–Hong Kong segment. All 113 passengers and 11 crew members were killed in the disaster, including a group of 75 Americans associated with Thermo King of Minneapolis, Minnesota, on a 14-day company sponsored tour of Japan and Southeast Asia. There were 26 couples travelling together in the group, leaving a total of 63 children orphaned.
This was the third fatal passenger airline accident in Tokyo in a month, following on the heels of the All Nippon Airways Flight 60 incident 4 February and Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 402 the day before Flight 911 crashed.
The aircraft arrived in Haneda at 12:40 on the day of the accident from Fukuoka Airport where it had diverted the previous day due to conditions on the ground in Tokyo. The weather there had since improved behind a cold front with a steep pressure gradient bringing cool dry air from the Asian mainland on a strong west-northwest flow, with crystal clear sky conditions. During their time on the ground, the crew received a weather briefing from a company representative, and filed an instrument flight rules (IFR) flight plan calling for a southbound departure from Haneda via the island of Izu Ōshima, then on airway JG6 to Hong Kong at flight level 310 (31,000 feet).
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