In April 1952, tragedy struck Pan Am Flight 202. This passenger plane was on a long journey from Buenos Aires, Argentina to New York City, with several stops in between. The flight was on its third leg, heading from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to Port of Spain in Trinidad, when disaster hit.
The plane, a Boeing 377 Stratocruiser nicknamed “Clipper Good Hope,” took off from Rio just after 1:00 am with 41 passengers and 9 crew members on board. After two hours of flying, the pilots decided to take a shortcut over the vast Amazon jungle.
Shortly after 6:00 am, the pilots sent their last message, reporting their location near Barreiras, Brazil and cruising at 14,500 feet. They expected to check in again near Carolina, Brazil about an hour and a half later, but that message never came.
Alarmed by the silence, authorities began a search for the missing plane. The Brazilian Air Force, the American Air Force, the American Navy, and even the Brazilian Navy all joined the effort, scouring the jungle and coastline for any sign of the aircraft.
Finally, on May 1st, a Pan Am cargo plane spotted the wreckage deep in the Amazon jungle, about 280 miles west of where it was expected to be. Sadly, there were no survivors. The double-decker plane was broken in two and badly burned, scattered across a large area.
A rescue team was sent in, but after flying over the crash site, they realized it was too dangerous to attempt a parachute jump and turned back. An investigation team eventually made it to the wreckage on foot and confirmed that everyone on board had died in the crash.
The cause of the crash was never fully determined, but investigators believe the plane may have broken apart in mid-air due to problems with two of the engines.
A History of Trouble: The Boeing 377 Stratocruiser
Pan Am Flight 202 was not the only accident involving the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser. In fact, this plane seemed to be plagued by trouble.
Pan Am was the first airline to buy the Stratocruiser in 1949, just a few years before the crash of Flight 202. Sadly, there were several other Pan Am Stratocruiser accidents in the following years:
July 1952: A woman died after being blown out of the plane at high altitude because a cabin door wasn’t properly locked.
March 1955: A Pan Am Stratocruiser named “Clipper United States” crashed into the ocean off the coast of Oregon, killing 4 people.
1957: Pan Am Flight 7 disappeared over the Pacific Ocean while flying from San Francisco to Honolulu. There were no survivors.
These were just a few of the accidents involving the Stratocruiser. Throughout its history, this plane had many mechanical problems, especially with its propellers. According to Airline Ratings, the Stratocruiser had an engine failure about every 158 flights! This unreliability led to a total of 13 crashes where the plane’s body was completely destroyed. There were also many other incidents that didn’t result in total hull loss.
The problems with the Stratocruiser led to its retirement from commercial passenger service in the 1960s.