 N2770R, the aircraft involved | |
| Hijacking | |
|---|---|
| Date | May 7, 1964 |
| Summary | Mass murder,murder–suicide |
| Site | Contra Costa County, nearSan Ramon, California,U.S. 37°45′33″N121°52′25″W / 37.75919°N 121.87364°W /37.75919; -121.87364 |
 | |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | Fairchild F27A Friendship |
| Operator | Pacific Air Lines |
| IATA flight No. | PC773 |
| ICAO flight No. | PCA773 |
| Call sign | PACIFIC 773 |
| Registration | N2770R |
| Flight origin | Reno–Tahoe International Airport,Nevada |
| Stopover | Stockton Metropolitan Airport Stockton, California |
| Destination | San Francisco International Airport,California |
| Occupants | 44 |
| Passengers | 41 (including the perpetrator) |
| Crew | 3 |
| Fatalities | 44 |
| Survivors | 0 |
Pacific Air Lines Flight 773 was aFairchild F27A Friendship airliner that crashed on May 7, 1964, nearSan Ramon, California, a suburb in theEast Bay, east ofOakland.[1][2] The crash was most likely the first instance in the United States of an airliner's pilots being shot by a passenger as part of amurder–suicide.Francisco Paula Gonzales, 27, shot both pilots before turning the gun on himself, causing the plane to crash, killing all 44 aboard.[3][4][5]
As of May 2021[update], the crash of Flight 773 remains the worst incident ofmass murder in modern California history, one death more than the subsequentPacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771 hijacking in 1987.
Francisco Gonzales, a warehouse worker living inSan Francisco, had been "disturbed and depressed" over marital and financial difficulties in the months preceding the crash. Gonzales was deeply in debt and nearly half of his income was committed to loan repayment, and he had informed both relatives and friends that he "would die on either Wednesday, the 6th of May, or Thursday, the 7th of May". In the week preceding the crash, Gonzales referred to his impending death on a daily basis, and purchased aSmith & Wesson Model 27.357 Magnum revolver through a friend of a friend, with serial number S201645.
The evening before the crash, before boarding a flight toReno, Nevada, Gonzales had shown the gun to numerous friends at the airport and told one person that he intended to shoot himself. Gonzales gambled in Reno the night before the fatal flight and told a casino employee that he did not care how much he lost because "it won't make any difference after tomorrow."[3]
The plane, a twin-enginedturboprop Fairchild F-27, registration N2770R, was a U.S.-built version of theFokker F-27 Friendship airliner. Manufactured five years earlier in 1959, it had accumulated about 10,250 flight hours up to its final flight, withPacific Air Lines as the sole owner and operator.[3]
The F-27 took off from Reno at 5:54 amPDT, with 33 passengers aboard, including Gonzales, and a crew of three, bound forSan Francisco International Airport, with a scheduled stop inStockton, California. The crew consisted of Captain Ernest A. Clark, 52, pilot in command, First Officer Ray E. Andress, 31, copilot, and flight attendant Margaret E. Schafer, 30. Captain Clark had a total of 20,434 hours of flying experience (including 2,793 hours on the F-27), and First Officer Andress had a total of 6,640 hours, with 988 of them on the F-27.[3]
The plane arrived at Stockton, where two passengers disembarked and ten boarded, bringing the plane's total to 41 passengers. Both disembarking passengers reported that Gonzalez was seated directly behind the cockpit. About 6:38 am, Flight 773 lifted off and headed towards San Francisco International.[3]
At 6:48:15, with the aircraft about ten minutes out of Stockton, the OaklandAir Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) received a high-pitched, garbled radio message from Flight 773, and the aircraft soon disappeared from the center'sradar displays.
With Flight 773 minutes from landing, Gonzales, seated directly behind the cockpit, burst into the cockpit and shot both pilots twice. Gonzales's first bullet hit a tiny section of the frame tubing from Captain Clark's seat. His second bullet killed Clark instantly. He then shot First Officer Andress, critically wounding him. Flying at its assigned altitude of 5,000 feet (1,500 m), Flight 773 went into a steep dive of 2,100 feet (640 m) per minute at an airspeed of nearly 400 mph (350 kn; 640 km/h). The wounded Andress made a last frantic transmission as he tried to pull the plane out of the dive. The flight data recorder showed a sharp climb back to 3,200 feet (980 m). Gonzales most likely shot Andress again, fatally, before shooting himself, causing the plane to go into a final dive.[3]
After attempting unsuccessfully to contact Flight 773, Oakland ARTCC asked another aircraft in the immediate vicinity,United Air Lines Flight 593, if they had the plane in sight. Flight 593's flight crew responded that they did not see Flight 773, but a minute later they reported: "There's a black, uh, cloud of smoke coming up through the undercast at, uh, three-thirty, four o'clock position right now. Looks like (an) oil or gasoline fire." Oakland ARTCC realized that the smoke spotted by the United air crew was likely caused by the crash of Pacific Air Lines Flight 773.[3]
Flight 773 crashed into a rural hillside in southernContra Costa County, roughly five miles (8 km) east of what is now the city ofSan Ramon. The plane erupted in flames on impact and dug a crater into the ground. Flight 773's last radio message, from First Officer Andress, was deciphered through laboratory analysis: "Skipper's shot! We've been shot! I was trying to help!".[3]
The official accident report stated that witnesses along the flight path and near the impact area described "extreme and abrupt changes in altitude of Flight 773 with erratic powerplant sounds" before the plane hit a sloping hillside at a relative angle of 90°.[3]
Investigators from theCivil Aeronautics Board (CAB, a forerunner organization to today'sNational Transportation Safety Board [NTSB]) found in the mangled wreckage a damagedSmith & Wesson Model 27.357 Magnum revolver,[6][7] holding six spent cartridges.[3][8] TheFederal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) soon joined the CAB in a search for evidence so that the apparent criminal aspects of the case could be pursued. Investigators found that when Gonzales left San Francisco for Reno the day before the fatal flight, he was carrying the .357, and that he had purchased $105,000 worth oflife insurance (equivalent to $1,060,000 in 2024) at the San Francisco airport, payable to his wife.[9][10] The probable cause stated in the CAB accident report was "the shooting of the captain and first officer by a passenger during flight", and the FBI determined that the suicidal Gonzales was the shooter.[3]
Civil air regulation amendments became effective on August 6, 1964, that required that doors separating the passenger cabin from the crew compartment on all scheduled air carrier and commercial aircraft must be kept locked in flight.[11] An exception to the rule remains during takeoff and landing on certain aircraft, such as the Fairchild F-27, where the cockpit door leads to an emergency passenger exit. The amendments were passed by theFederal Aviation Administration prior to the crash of Flight 773, but had not yet become effective.[citation needed]
