1954 Cathay Pacific Douglas DC-4 shootdown

1954 airliner shootdown over the South China Sea July 2016 September 2019 1954 Cathay Pacific Douglas DC-4 shootdown Accident Cathay Pacific Douglas C-54 Skymaster Groves-1.jpg 1.15 A Cathay Pacific Douglas DC-4 similar to the aircraft shot down yes 1954 07 23 A civilian C-54 airliner attacked by two PLAAF La-11 fighters and ditched into the sea. South China Sea, off the coast of Hainan Island, People's Republic of China. 19.2 110.7 type:event inline,title Douglas C-54A-10-DC Skymaster "Silver Wings" Cathay Pacific Airways VR-HEU, (ex-USAAF 42-72205)http://www.joebaugher.com/usaf_serials/1942_4.html 1942 USAAF Serial Numbers (42-70686 to 42-91373 www.joebaugher.com 3 March 2011 13 July 2011 https://web.archive.org/web/20110713112317/http://www.joebaugher.com/usaf_serials/1942_4.html dead Bangkok International Airport, Bangkok, Thailand Kai Tak Airport, Hong Kong 18 13 5 10Hong Kong – Plane Survivors https://web.archive.org/web/20110727012937/http://www.movietone.com/assets/BMN0938/wmv/CSAI128371CSAIEND_CSEXT61543CSEXTEND_H.wmv 27 July 2011 – Movietone News 8 The 1954 Cathay Pacific Douglas DC-4 shootdown was an incident on 23 July 1954, when a Cathay Pacific Airways DC-4/C-54 airliner was shot down by a PLA Air Force fighter aircraft. The event occurred off the coast of Hainan Island, where the plane was en route from Bangkok to Hong Kong, killing 10 of 18 passengers and crew on board. The crew of five was headed by British captain Phil Blown. In all, one flight crew member, one cabin crew member and eight of the thirteen passengers were killed in the attack and subsequent crash of the airliner.The passengers and crew of Silver Wings – 23 July 1954 – and the crew of the rescuing US aircraft https://web.archive.org/web/20080820003117/http://www.helianthus-productions.com/VRHEUlist.html 20 August 2008 – The Life & Times of James HarperSome sources indicate the total as 18 but according to this site http://www.helianthus-productions.com/VRHEUlist.html The Passengers & Crew of Cathay Pacific Airways VR-HEU 'Silver Wings' & The Crew of the SA-16 Albatross - 31st Air Rescue Squadron 23rd July, 1954 Passenger List 17 October 2008 dead https://web.archive.org/web/20080820003117/http://www.helianthus-productions.com/VRHEUlist.html 20 August 2008 , it appears to be 19; the discrepancy requires further reconciliation. Although the aircraft was originally manufactured for the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) as a Douglas C-54 Skymaster, it was subsequently converted to civilian airliner standard, and sold firstly to KLM, and later to Cathay Pacific. Hence the incident is known as "the DC-4 shootdown", to acknowledge that the aircraft was no longer a C-54, and that it was not being used for military purposes.Accident details – VR-HEU – Plane Crash InfoVR-HEU Account by passenger: Valerie Parish https://web.archive.org/web/20090127031330/http://dnausers.d-n-a.net/dnetGOjg/230754.htm 27 January 2009 – Major Commercial Airline DisastersVR-HEU https://web.archive.org/web/20080820003641/http://www.helianthus-productions.com/VRHEU.html 20 August 2008 – The Life & Times of James Harper Aircraft The aircraft, registered VR-HEU, was a four-engine, propeller-driven Douglas C-54A Skymaster airliner.ASN Aircraft accident Douglas C-54A-10-DC VR-HEU Hainan Island – Aviation Safety Network The aircraft had been manufactured by Douglas Aircraft and delivered to the USAAF on 16 May 1944, where it served for less than two years.42-72205 – Douglas C-54A-10-DC- – USAAF – Taxiway AlphaEastwood and Roach 1991, page 122 It was bought on 19 February 1946 by KLM and first operated by KLM West Indies before returning to KLM main line in February 1948. It was sold to Cathay Pacific in August 1949. Flight and attack The flight originated in Singapore.Young Gavin Gavin Young Chapter 14 Beyond Lion Rock: The Story of Cathay Pacific Airways Penguin Group London 1990 https://archive.org/details/beyondlionrockst0000youn 9780571287260 133-142 Internet Archive - The shootdown is also mentioned on p. 132, the final page of Chapter 13.133 On 22 July 1954, VR-HEU took off from Bangkok at 20:19 GMT after being delayed in Bangkok for an hour due to mechanical problems on its No. 2 engine. The flight was bound for Hong Kong. At 23:40 GMT, when the DC-4 was cruising at 9,000 ft m and roughly 10 mi km east of the international air corridor line off Hainan Island and only 31 minutes from Hong Kong, two Lavochkin La-11 fighters of the 85th Fighter Regiment, 29th Fighter Division, People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF), appeared behind VR-HEU, one above it on the DC-4's starboard rear side and the other on its port side. At approximately 23:44 GMT, the fighters opened fire, hitting the two outboard engines (numbers 1 and 4) which caught fire.van Hare Thomas Last Act in the Hainan Incident http://fly.historicwings.com/2012/07/last-act-in-the-hainan-incident/ historicwings.com 23 February 2019Woodyard Jack Murder in the air. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/71688673/6555782 23 February 2019 The Argus 8 January 1955 The number 4 engine's auxiliary and main fuel tanks were also ablaze. While captain Phil Blown took evasive actions to avoid further damage, co-pilot Cedric Carlton issued blankets to passengers instructing them to place them on the back of their seats for protection against the bullets. Radio operator Stephen Wong made an initial distress call at 23:45 GMT: "Kai Tak Tower, Cathay XXX, Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! No. 1 port engine on fire, losing altitude, requesting all possible assistance."C.P.A. Airliner Outrage, https://web.archive.org/web/20110711161829/http://www.helianthus-productions.com/BLOWNINT.JPG 11 July 2011 – South China Morning Post, 26 July 1954 Wong made 10 mayday calls before VR-HEU ditched. Cathay Pacific engineer G. H. Cattanach, travelling as a passenger, tried to make the passengers comfortable when it became known that the plane was going to ditch. VR-HEU began losing altitude and at 5000 ft m on, its rudder control was shot off. Travelling at 350 mph km/h kn, Blown tried his utmost to evade incendiary bullets fired by the fighters by taking evasive action, weaving the Skymaster left and right. At 2000 ft m on, the right aileron was shot off and the plane began uncontrollably turning right. The captain then countered the increasing turn by shutting down engines 1 and 2 and applying full power on engine 3. Approximately two minutes after the initial attack, unable to maintain controlled levelled flight, Blown decided to ditch the Skymaster in rough open seas that included 15 ft m on 0 waves and a 25 kn m/s on in wind. The starboard wingtip was the first to hit the water, severing the right wing between the number 3 and 4 engines.http://www.helianthus-productions.com/VRHEU.html VR-HEU 17 October 2008 dead https://web.archive.org/web/20080820003641/http://www.helianthus-productions.com/VRHEU.html 20 August 2008 Blown's official report to the British Foreign Office, 1954 The impact caused the tail to break off and float off 50 yd m from the main wreckage. The main fuselage now floated at an angle of 45 degrees with the rear open fuselage pointing towards the sky. After the plane ditched into the ocean, the attacking fighters, flying at around 1000 ft m on, ceased firing at the Skymaster, made a turn around the wreckage, and headed towards Sanya. While nine passengers and crew were killed by bullets and the subsequent ditching, nine others survived and escaped from the sinking plane. Blown and his co-pilot escaped through a broken starboard sliding window, which had water coming in fast. With all survivors floating on the water with no life vests, co-pilot Carlton suddenly noticed that a Mrs Thorburn was hanging on to a raft still in its case. Fearing the bright yellow rubber raft might attract the attention of PLAAF fighters, it took Carlton twenty minutes to finally inflate the rubber dinghy and lift all nine passengers in. Once all were on the dinghy, concern remained that the attacking planes might return; some of the dazed, injured passengers, with their clothes in shreds, hid under a plastic sunshade covering the edges of the dinghy. Although Blown and passenger Peter Thacher kept watch, the attacking planes never returned.Airliner Disaster https://web.archive.org/web/20110711161754/http://www.helianthus-productions.com/schinapost.jpg 11 July 2011 , South China Morning Post, 24 July 1954 Rescue efforts thumb|250px|US Air Force SA-16 rescuing survivors An Air Vietnam plane en route to Hong Kong from Hanoi, which had altered its course as a results of the calls, spotted the sinking plane and a dinghy 1+1/2 mi km in from the Hainan coast. It circled for forty minutes before heading for Hong Kong. Thanks to those calls, the RAF in Hong Kong immediately redirected a Saigon-bound Vickers Valetta military transport and further despatched a Short Sunderland flying boat and an Avro York military transport, as well as two de Havilland Hornet fighters of 80 Squadron,No 76 – 80 Squadron Histories https://web.archive.org/web/20100328153203/http://www.rafweb.org/Sqn076-80.htm 28 March 2010 Air of Authority – A History of RAF Organisation from RAF Kai Tak to the reported position of the C-54. A fully armed French PB4Y-2 Privateer also took off from Tourane (Da Nang), French Indochina (now Vietnam) after intercepting the emergency radio call. Meanwhile, the civilian-operated Manila rescue control centre in the Philippines, on picking up the SOS call from Wong, alerted the 31st Air Rescue Squadron of the USAF at Clark Air Force Base. Captain Jack T. Woodyard, on first alert duty that day and about to depart on a routine training mission in his Grumman SA-16 Albatross, 51-009,http://www.edcoatescollection.com/ac5/ROW%20Asia/VR-HEU.html VR-HEU 6 August 2023 immediately took off. A second Albatross followed Woodyard 35 minutes later. The Hornets were the first to arrive on the scene, followed by the Valetta, Sunderland, York and the Privateer. While the Hornets carried out a thorough search of the area for survivors, the French Privateer informed the Albatross, which was 50 mi km away, "We have spotted the dinghy with survivors; looks like two of them from here."Woodyard Jack Murder in the Air http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article71688673 The Argus 8 January 1955 The British and American planes were not able to communicate with each other as they were on different radio frequencies. thumb|Captain Woodyard carries six-year-old Valerie off the plane Captain Blown, on seeing the Sunderland arrive, tossed a packet of green sea dye overboard to make the dinghy easier to spot. The Sunderland acknowledged this by setting off a smoke flare but, unable to land in the atrocious conditions, had to circle helplessly for two hours until Woodyard's Albatross finally arrived; this too circled for an hour before landing on the calmer side of Dazhou Island, where it taxied towards the dinghy in rough water before pulling all survivors on board and taking off for Hong Kong, escorted by the Sunderland. AAP and Reuters reported at the time that three survivors were picked up by the Sunderland.Plane Down In Ocean: Eight Saved – The Sydney Morning Herald, 24 July 1954 c/o Trove, National Library of Australia. The last passenger to be hoisted on board was the badly injured Rita Cheung, who had broken her left leg in two places and had suffered a deep gash on her forehead. She died aboard the rescue aircraft, ten minutes before the plane reached Kai Tak. Radio operator Stephen Wong was also killed. It is believed his head was impaled on a drift meter during the ditching of the airliner.Incident on the China Coast by Peter Thacher, The Reader's Digest, 19 November 1954We Rescued the Victims of Red China's Murder Planes https://web.archive.org/web/20090105170720/http://www.helianthus-productions.com/USreport.html 5 January 2009 By Capt. Jack T. Woodyard, USAF, The Saturday Evening Post, 23 October 1954 Theories for the attack There were several hypotheses for the attack, which included: VR-HEU was carrying a Chinese Nationalist ambassador; The United States Ambassador to Thailand, "Wild Bill" Donovan, former head of the OSS (the forerunner of CIA) was to have traveled on a Civil Air Transport plane that same week. The official explanation from Beijing was that the Cathay Pacific airliner was mistaken as a Republic of China plane on a mission to raid a military base at Port Yulin on Hainan Island. https://www.newspapers.com/image/386063180 Red China Admits Shooting Down Airliner, Apologizes United Press Newspapers.com 26 July 1954 1 The Los Angeles Times Aftermath On 26 July 1954, during the survivor search operation, two Douglas A-1 Skyraiders of VA-54 from the aircraft carrier Philippine Sea CV-47 6 shot down two PLAAF La-7s off the coast of Hainan Island.http://fly.historicwings.com/2012/07/last-act-in-the-hainan-incident-part-3-of-3/ Last Act in the Hainan Incident — Part 3 of 3 - HistoricWings.com :: A Magazine for Aviators, Pilots and Adventurers 28 July 2012 6 August 2023 It is not known whether they were the same La-11s that had shot down VR-HEU." Air Clash off Hainan." https://web.archive.org/web/20081219093825/http://www.helianthus-productions.com/aircombat.html 19 December 2008 South China Morning Post, 27 July 1954. The shooting down of VR-HEU raised tension between the People's Republic of China, Britain and the US. The British Foreign Office, through its chargé d'affaires in Peking, Humphrey Trevelyan, delivered Britain's protest to Communist China two days later. The US Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, issued a sharp statement condemning the attack, saying the United States took "the gravest view of the act of further barbarity and that the Chinese Communist regime must be held responsible." The shootdown probably harmed the PRC's chances of admission into the United Nations. Republican Senator H. Alexander Smith of New Jersey interrupted a marathon debate in the US Senate over atomic legislation to read Mr. Dulles's statement before calling the situation "critical". Minnesota Republican Representative Walter Judd, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, expressed the view that the incident was another reason why Communist China must not be admitted to the United Nations. The PRC admitted responsibility three days later by apologising and making compensation to Cathay Pacific and the victims. Phil Blown, who had been in command of VR-HEU at the time it was shot down, was hailed as a hero. He continued flying for Cathay Pacific for three to four years after the incident, and then retired to New South Wales, Australia, where he died in a nursing home in September 2009, aged 96. See also Hong Kong China Aviation 1950s List of airliner shootdown incidents Kashmir Princess References Further reading VR-HEU, Planecrashinfo.com VR-HEU Account by passenger: Valerie Parish ASN Aircraft accident Douglas C-54A-10-DC VR-HEU Hainan Island VR-HEU – Life & Times of James Harper Douglas C-54A-10-DC- – USAAF :: Taxiway Alpha Fleet Listings Eastwood Tony John Roach Piston Engine Airliner Production List The Aviation Hobby Shop 1991 0-907178-37-5 Category:Airliner shootdown incidents involving combat aircraft Category:Cathay Pacific accidents and incidents Category:Aviation accidents and incidents in China Category:China–United Kingdom relations Category:Aviation accidents and incidents involving the Douglas DC-4 Category:1954 mass murders Category:Aviation accidents and incidents in 1954 Category:20th-century aircraft shootdown incidents Category:July 1954 in Asia Category:1954 murders in China Category:Airliner accidents and incidents involving ditching Category:20th-century mass murders in China