EXCLUSIVE: Pan Am Flight 812 Begged for 'Visibility' in Heartbreaking Message That Was Never Received Before Plane Crashed Into Mountain Killing All 107 Onboard
Pan Am Flight 812 crashed and killed all onboard 51 years ago.
April 22 2025, Published 5:45 p.m. ET
On April 22, 1974, Pan Am Flight 812 took off from Hong Kong headed for Los Angeles – but the plane never made it to its destination as it crashed into a mountain, killing all onboard.
Moments before the crash, the pilot in command, Captain Donald Zinke, sent a heartbreaking question to the Air Traffic Control which was never received, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
The doomed flight took off from Hong Kong just after 7:00pm, and was scheduled to make numerous stops before landing in Los Angeles – with the first stop being Bali, reaching it in about four hours.
The tower in Bali asked Zinke and his co-pilot John Schroeder to notified them when the runway was in sight so they could safety land.
Just three minutes later, Zinke asked: "Hey – Tower, what is your visibility out there now?" however, the message was never received by the air traffic control, according to the transcript, and it was the last message sent by the plane.
Pan Am flight 812 took off from Hong Kong but never made it to its Los Angeles destination.
After failing to receive any responses, the Bali Tower kept trying to contact the aircraft by calling, "Clipper eight one two, Bali Tower," and "Clipper eight one two, Bali Tower, how do you read," numerous times.
Pan Am flight 812 eventually crashed into Mesehe Mountain, as the wreckage was discovered by two local villagers.
During an investigation, authorities learned a malfunctioning radio direction finder prompted the crew to prematurely make a turn, causing it to hit the mountain amid low visibility.
All 107 people onboard, including 96 passengers and 11 crew members, died.
William Pierce, who served as the General Services Officer (GSO) in Surabaya, Indonesia from 1973 to 1975, recalled the aftermath of the devastating crash.
He said in 2001: "The plane hit some of the mountain, broke probably into the portion that dropped over the mountain. As I found out, it was only then that the aircraft fuel engulfed the plane and combustion occurred and anybody who would’ve been alive at that time would’ve been annihilated."
According to Pierce, "confirmation of the crash began when the Balinese began bringing down body parts. There were no full bodies, but some torsos. They were brought down and put in bags."
The crashed killed all 107 onboard.
He added: "The FBI team was there to try to help with identification although to me it didn’t seem possible that this could happen. They set up a workshop in the hangar down in Denpasar and were convinced that they would be in a position to identify some of the remains."
Flight 812 was the third aircraft the airline had seen crash in less than a year.
On January 30, 1974, Pan Am Flight 806 crashed in Pago Pago, killing 97 of 101 passengers onboard.
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Months earlier, on July 22, 1973, Pan Am Flight 816 – flying from New Zealand to California – crashed into the ocean only 30 seconds after taking off. Of the 79 passengers on the flight, only one survived, James Campbell.
