19381776 Club
The Hawaii Clipper reports rough air, then nothing; fifteen aboard are gone
Six days out of Alameda and one leg from Manila, Pan Am's flying boat leaves no wreckage and no signal.
By the summer of 1938, Pan American's China Clipper service ran a six-day island-hopping route from Alameda to Manila, with stops at Pearl Harbor, Midway, Wake, and Guam. On July 28, the Hawaii Clipper left Guam on the final leg carrying nine crew and six passengers. Three hours and twenty-seven minutes later, the crew radioed that they were flying through cloud layers and moderately rough air, 565 miles from the Philippine coast. No further transmission came, and no wreckage was ever found…
