Episode 2661
Pan Am Flight 214
Sat, 2024-Aug-17 00:50 UTC
Length - 2:00
Direct Link
Welcome to Featured Wiki of the Day, your daily dose of knowledge from Wikipedia’s finest articles.
The featured article for Saturday, 17 August 2024 is Pan Am Flight 214.
Pan Am Flight 214 was a scheduled flight of Pan American World Airways from Isla Verde International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Friendship Airport near Baltimore, and then to Philadelphia International Airport. On December 8, 1963, while flying from Baltimore to Philadelphia, the Boeing 707-121 serving the flight crashed near Elkton, Maryland. All 81 occupants of the plane were killed. The crash was Pan Am's first fatal accident with the 707, which it had introduced to its fleet five years earlier.
An investigation by the Civil Aeronautics Board concluded that the probable cause of the crash was a lightning strike that had ignited fuel vapors in one of the aircraft's fuel tanks, causing an explosion that destroyed the left wing. The exact manner of ignition was never determined, but the investigation increased awareness of how lightning can damage aircraft, leading to new regulations that resulted in safety improvements. The crash also inspired research into the safety of several types of aviation fuel and into ways of changing the design of aircraft fuel systems to make them safer in the event of lightning strikes.
This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:50 UTC on Saturday, 17 August 2024.
For the full current version of the article, see Pan Am Flight 214 on Wikipedia.
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