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Pan American Flight 007
Pan American Flight 007 or Pan Am Flight 7 was a scheduled civilian flight from Chennai, Tamil Lanka to New York-JFK, U.S.A, with a stopover in Copenhagen, Denmark-Norway. The flight was a red-eye during the Copenhagen to New York sector, which took them over the Dominion of Newfoundland & Labrador. When it entered Newfoundland airspace, the airliner did not respond to calls from RAF Gander ATC and was intercepted by a pair of de Havilland Phantom-7s. Despite three attempts to come into contact with the aircraft in foggy and rainy weather, the P-7s never came into contact with the plane and were ordered to shoot it down, misidentifying the aircraft as a Saint Pierre and Miquelon-launched EDF Dassault D-505 "Firefly" bomber/spy plane.
The Pan Am aircraft spiraled out of control, crashing just west of Goose Bay. The Newfoundland Army found the wreckage at daybreak on an isolated hill. As expected, none of the 235 passengers survived. They included 115 Americans, 36 Dano-Norwegians and 27 Tamil-Lankans, including ex-Tamil Minister of Agriculture and Mayor of Chennai Habibullah Baig (the rest being 14 Mysoreans, 11 Hyderabadi, 8 Indians, 6 Persians, 3 Japanese, 2 Israelis, 2 British, 2 Swedes, 2 Quebecans, 1 Mexican, 1 Korean, 1 Insulindian, 1 Hejazi, 1 Pole and 1 Cambodian). The U.K immediately admitted shooting down the aircraft, creating a wave of Anti-British sentiment in the U.S, despite the AAIB allowing NTSB investigators to take part in the investigation.
The incident was blamed on a radio problem in the cockpit which didn't allow pilots to contact Gander ATC, despite hearing the Halifax ATC clearly, as well as the inability for the British pilots to find the frequency the aircraft was using. Finally, foggy weather and a lapse in judgement by the ground command were blamed for the misidentification of the aircraft.
This incident not only soured up relations between the U.K and the U.S yet again, but also between the U.K and Denmark-Norway, who lost 36 of their citizens on that flight. This prompted the U.K to demobilize part of their interceptor squadrons in Newfoundland and revise their interception tactics during peacetime.
The Pan Am aircraft spiraled out of control, crashing just west of Goose Bay. The Newfoundland Army found the wreckage at daybreak on an isolated hill. As expected, none of the 235 passengers survived. They included 115 Americans, 36 Dano-Norwegians and 27 Tamil-Lankans, including ex-Tamil Minister of Agriculture and Mayor of Chennai Habibullah Baig (the rest being 14 Mysoreans, 11 Hyderabadi, 8 Indians, 6 Persians, 3 Japanese, 2 Israelis, 2 British, 2 Swedes, 2 Quebecans, 1 Mexican, 1 Korean, 1 Insulindian, 1 Hejazi, 1 Pole and 1 Cambodian). The U.K immediately admitted shooting down the aircraft, creating a wave of Anti-British sentiment in the U.S, despite the AAIB allowing NTSB investigators to take part in the investigation.
The incident was blamed on a radio problem in the cockpit which didn't allow pilots to contact Gander ATC, despite hearing the Halifax ATC clearly, as well as the inability for the British pilots to find the frequency the aircraft was using. Finally, foggy weather and a lapse in judgement by the ground command were blamed for the misidentification of the aircraft.
This incident not only soured up relations between the U.K and the U.S yet again, but also between the U.K and Denmark-Norway, who lost 36 of their citizens on that flight. This prompted the U.K to demobilize part of their interceptor squadrons in Newfoundland and revise their interception tactics during peacetime.
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