Pan Am Flight 759 was a regularly scheduled domestic passenger flight from Miami to San Diego, with en route stops in New Orleans and Las Vegas. On July 9, 1982, the Boeing 727 flying this route crashed in the New Orleans suburb of Kenner after being forced down by a microburst shortly after takeoff. All 145 on board, as well as eight people on the ground, were killed.
Aircraft and crew
The aircraft involved, a 14-year-old Boeing 727-235, registration N4737, construction number 19457/518, was delivered to National Airlines on January 31, 1968. The aircraft was powered by three Pratt & Whitney JT8D-7B turbofan engines, and was renamed from 37 Susan/Erica to Clipper Defiance after National was merged with Pan Am.
At the time of accident, the aircraft was carrying 137 passengers and one non-revenue passenger in the cockpit jumpseat, along with a crew of seven. The captain was 45-year-old Kenneth L. McCullers, who had 11,727 flying hours, including 10,595 hours on the Boeing 727. McCullers was described by others as an "above average" pilot, who was "comfortable" to fly with because of his excellent judgment and ability to exercise command. A total of 153 people were killed (all 145 passengers and crew on board and 8 on the ground). The child's mother and 4-year-old sister were killed; the father was at work when the accident occurred. In all, six houses were demolished, while five houses sustained significant damage. Contributing to the accident was the limited capability of then current wind shear detection technology. The New York Times reported that:
<blockquote>According to witnesses, a wind shear alert was mentioned on New Orleans Airport radio frequencies on July 9, before Flight 759 took off. But the flight crew had been briefed with a recorded weather advisory that was two hours old, though airport routine is for hourly recordings of weather information. There were no procedures at the airport for advising flight crews that updated weather announcements were available.</blockquote>
As a result, millions of dollars were paid out as compensation to various families affected by the crash. Flight 759, along with Delta Air Lines Flight 191 which crashed due to similar circumstances three years later, led to the development of the Airborne wind shear detection and alert system and the Federal Aviation Administration mandate to install windshear detection systems at airports and on board aircraft in the U.S. by 1993.
Victims
Nationalities of passenger, crew and ground fatalities
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-style="background:#ccccff;"
!rowspan=1|Nationality||colspan=1|Passengers||colspan=1|Crew||colspan=1|Ground||colspan=1|Total
|- valign="top"
|Australia|| style="text-align:center;" |2|||||| style="text-align:center;" |2
|- valign="top"
|Brazil|| style="text-align:center;" |7|||||| style="text-align:center;" |7
|- valign="top"
|Canada|| style="text-align:center;" |6|||||| style="text-align:center;" |6