This is a photo of Lockheed Super Constellation L-1049H, serial number N6915C, the aircraft that crashed on 24 December 1964. The picture was taken on 31 March 1962, as the aircraft was taking off from the U.S. Air Force Base at Tachikawa, Japan
The Crash of Flying Tiger Flight #282
Plus photos of U.S. Army Nike Missile Artillery Battery sites: SF-51L and SF-51C
The aircraft was a freighter, and it carried a crew of three. It flew into San Francisco International Airport from Japan on 23 December 1964, carrying a full load of freight. The aircraft was then refueled, and there was a change of crew. Very early on 24 December 1964, Captain Jabez Albert Richard, age 49, First Officer Daniel White Hennessy, age 33, and Flight Engineer Paul M. Entz, age 37, taxied to runway 28L; their destination was John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City.
When the aircraft taxied onto a runway for the last time, it weighed 142,073 pounds, within 27 pounds of the allowable takeoff gross weight. Surface weather charts for the evening of December 23 and the early morning hours of December 24 indicate that San Francisco was under the influence of a cold frontal system moving onshore. At the time of the accident rain, low cloudiness, and considerable fog were shown along virtually the entire Pacific coast.
At 30 minutes past midnight the aircraft became airborne. One minute and 30 seconds later the aircraft, with a full load of freight, and a full tank of fuel, slammed in to Sweeney Ridge at an elevation of approximately 860 feet, 65 feet below the ridge top. The three crew members were killed instantly.
The Civil Aeronautics Board found the following probable cause of the crash: "The Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was that the pilot, for undetermined reasons, deviated from departure course into an area of rising terrain where downdraft activity and turbulence affected the climb capability of the aircraft sufficiently to prevent terrain clearance."
Hundreds of people, every week, can be found exercising on the popular Sweeney Ridge Trail. Few, if any, have knowledge of the tragedy that occured within scant feet of where they hike, bicycle ride, run, or walk.
When I first read about the plane crash, I remember thinking, how strange, I have hiked and run on that trail, and I have never seen anything to indicate that a plane crashed there. When I went to Sweeney Ridge a couple of years ago to look specifically for the crash site, it took me about an hour of slogging around through brush before I though I found the site. I wasn't really sure if I located the crash site, but I felt fairly confident that I knew where it was.
I returned to the site a few times since, and located some very small pieces of debris that confirmed that I had located the crash site. I recently decided to document the crash site with photographs, and also document two U.S. Army Nike missile artillery battery sites that are both within two miles of the crash site.
Jef Poskanzer has a web site, which, among other interesting subjects, has very good information about the NIKE MISSILE SITES of the San Francisco Bay Area. The site of SF-51C is located on Sweeney Ridge, and the site of SF-51L is located on Milgara Ridge.
The Golden Gate Recreation Area authorities unfortunately have not seen the necessity to maintain these historically significant Cold War military sites, and they are all in a state of advanced decay.
