Passengers 12 Survivors 2 Date 13 August 1939 Survivor 2 Crew count 4 | Fatalities 14 Aircraft type Sikorsky S-43B Number of deaths 14 Passenger count 12 Location Guanabara Bay | |
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Summary Engine failure resulting in a loss of control Site Guanabara Bay, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Operator Pan American World Airways | ||
The 1939 Pan Am Sikorsky S-43 crash occurred on August 13, 1939, when a Pan Am Sikorsky S-43B aircraft en route from Miami to Rio de Janeiro crashed into Rio's Guanabara Bay, killing 14 of the 16 people on board.
Flight history
The aircraft involved was a three-year-old Sikorsky S-43B airliner registered NC16933. It had first flown in 1936, and had accumulated a total of 3,650 flight hours during its career.
The aircraft took off from Miami on a scheduled international passenger flight to Rio de Janeiro, with many stopovers across the Caribbean and South America. As it neared its destination, the aircraft circled Rio in preparation for a normal approach. As it was circling, however, the left engine lost power, putting the aircraft into a descending left yaw turn. As the yaw grew sharper, the pitch angle also steepened until the aircraft struck a caisson and crashed into Guanabara Bay, about one kilometer from Rio's Santos Dumont Airport. Of the twelve passengers and four crew members, only two passengers survived.