Flying Tiger Line Flight 739 was a Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation propliner that disappeared on March 16, 1962, over the western Pacific Ocean. The aircraft, which had been chartered by the United States Army, was transporting ninety-six military passengers from Travis Air Force Base in California to Tan Son Nhut International Airport in Saigon, South Vietnam. After refueling at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, the Super Constellation disappeared while en route to Clark Air Base in the Philippines. All 107 aboard were declared missing and presumed dead.

The airliner's disappearance prompted one of the largest air and sea searches in the history of the Pacific. Aircraft and surface ships from four branches of the US military searched more than during the course of eight days. A civilian tanker observed what appeared to be an in-flight explosion believed to be the missing Super Constellation, though no trace of wreckage or debris was ever recovered.

The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) determined that, based on the tanker's observations, Flight 739 probably exploded in-flight, though an exact cause could not be determined without examining the remnants of the aircraft. This was the deadliest single-aircraft aviation accident involving the Super Constellation.

Flight

The accident aircraft was a five-year-old Lockheed L-1049H Super Constellation with 17,224 airframe hours. It carried eleven American civilian crew members and ninety-six military passengers. The flight was operated by the Flying Tiger Line as Military Air Transport Service (MATS) Flight 739, chartered by the United States Army. Their orders were to relieve soldiers in Saigon who had been training South Vietnamese troops to fight Viet Cong guerrillas. Also on board were three members of the South Vietnamese military. The flight crew consisted of eleven civilians based out of California, including seven men,

Eighty minutes after departure, at 14:22 GMT, the captain radioed a routine message and gave his position as being west of Guam at coordinates (). The aircraft was expected to reach at 15:30. At that time, the Guam International Flight Service Station experienced temporary communication difficulties with heavy radio static. At 15:39 the Guam radio operator attempted to contact Flight 739 for a position report but was unable to establish contact. The aircraft was not seen or heard from again.

Search efforts included aircraft from Clark Air Field, the United States Seventh Fleet, and the Air Force detachment at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan. Additionally, surface ships and aircraft from numerous US bases in the western Pacific contributed to the search efforts.

Speculation of foul play

Flight 739 was one of two Flying Tiger Line flights with military connections that had been destroyed under similar circumstances on the same day. This led both airline officials and the press to offer suggestions of sabotage and conspiracy.

Both Flight 739 and the other aircraft, an L-1049 Super Constellation, departed from Travis Air Force Base at around 09:45 PST on Wednesday, March 14, 1962, and both encountered difficulties several hours later.

Possibility of sabotage

A Liberian tanker, the SS T L Linzen, reported seeing a bright light in the sky near the aircraft's expected position about ninety minutes after the last radio contact. US military officials described it as being a "bright light strong enough to light a ship's decks".