What Happened to Flight 739?

Let's take a look at the conspiracy theories surrounding Flight 739 and determine if any of them are in fact true!
---
Simon's Social Media:
Twitter: / simonwhistler
Instagram: / simonwhistler
Love content? Check out Simon's other KZbin Channels:
SideProjects: / @sideprojects
Biographics: / @biographics
Geographics: / @geographicstravel
Casual Criminalist: / @thecasualcriminalist
Today I Found Out: / todayifoundout
TopTenz: / toptenznet
Highlight History: / @highlighthistory
XPLRD: / @xplrd
Business Blaze: / @brainblaze6526

[@edwardsfamilychannel5807]

This guy's the spitting image of the bloke on casual criminalist

[@stever285]

I know I'm a little late but I have ask because I can't tell, were you kidding here? And if you were serious, have you since discovered the terrible truth?

[@donaldsinclair7762]

Yeah also double of the megaprojects presenter aswell. 🤣

[@deansayers7435]

Its uncanny 😳

[@charlesf.5414]

I watched this one guy on Biographics…but this dude has a better beard 😂😂😂❤

[@levijack1947]

He's a clone...

[@herluka]

Simon Whistler's channels: when you want to hear an interesting conversation but you only want one person to do the talking 😜

[@powwowken2760]

My favorite tidbit I've heard about the "Moon landing being fake" conspiracy is: With the technology available in that era it would've been more expensive and difficult to fake the landing than it would be to actually send people to the moon.

[@bjornodin]

Somewhere along the line, something must've got switched with this theory.... Of course faking it would have been expensive as well as a massive project. But the Apollo program was way past a billion dollars spent by the time they landed. Not adjusted for inflation btw those are 60s dollars 💲💲💲

[@DanSolow]

What if they faked it on the moon then? 🧐😂

[@Redneck.Rembrandt]

@@DanSolow holy shit I never thought of that🧠💥

[@jessc5112]

@@DanSolow this 🙌🏻

[@jwenting]

@@DanSolow why do you think those moon suits were so bulky with reflective visors? It's to hide that that's not humans, it's the aliens that got contracted to make those films and photos for NASA!

[@kepanoid]

Simon, the Lockheed Super Constellation was powered by four Wright R-3350 turbocharged radial piston engines. High power aircraft piston engines tended to need lots of maintenance, and it was very common for them to need servicing at each stop. One might say, it was quite a feat to complete a trip without one of them having some kind of minor issue. Oh, those engines had 18 cylinders each, and aircraft engines have two spark plugs per cylinder. You suspect one of the plugs is faulty? You change all 36. What did you say, mr. mechanic, your shift is ending? Sorry about that...

[@tomhardyofmaths2594]

I *think* though I'm not entirely positive, that the amount of ocean floor being mapped at relatively high resolution is increasing every year recently but... the Pacific is the deepest ocean and so not much of the Pacific is included in that mapping activity!

[@Greasiola]

More like your shift is ending Mr. mechanic? Yah, I guess we can ground the plane till tomorrow…

[@jamesstewart3771]

@@Greasiola yea , it’s like he doesn’t even understand how unions work .

[@alext3811]

The legacy of those piston engines is ETOPS (sometimes called Engines Turn or Passengers Swim) regulations for jets where they can only be so far away from an airport, because of existing (from what I've heard jet engines are MUCH more reliable than radial piston engines) regulations from piston days. And yes, I know that is not the real definition of ETOPS, it's a backronym made as a joke.

[@douglaswickstrom6736]

These weren't turbocharged, they were turbocompound engines. Exhaust pressure was routed to three turbines that returned energy to the crankshaft. The turbos were a bit of a maintenance headache, but they did provide significant horsepower gains without boosting manifold pressures. R-3350 engines had a bad reputation on B-29s, where they *were* turbocharged for high-altitude performance. They would overheat, catch fire, and the crankcases being made from magnesium, could burn hot enough to burn through the wing in short order. I don't know if the engine fire issue was ever corrected, but cooling was improved signicantly, and over time the overheating issue was mostly solved, so the incidence, if not the severity, of engine fires was less of a problem.

[@JM-wu8bh]

Travis AFB has a Falconer and it's cool to watch the falcons fly. That's how they reduce the chance of bird-strikes. Random comment that I thought others might find interesting

[@cynthiasimpson931]

This program, "The Raptor Project", was just getting started when I was working at Travis AFB at the new hospital. This was some time between 1997-1999 or so, as I remember reading about it in the base paper when I worked in Inpatient Records.

[@JM-wu8bh]

@@cynthiasimpson931 those birds are gorgeous! In the airport, did they have the huge jackrabbit sculpture when you were there? I love that thing

[@takeohtyme]

At Miami International I've seen those bird people wandering around with murder burds. It was pretty cool seeing the puffball of feathers over the cargo strip.

[@crystl20]

They also got the idea of cones in plane engines from the nostrils of peregrine falcons. Another fun falcon/plane fact

[@LoneWolf-gm5qm]

They release a bird to decrease birds? That's just completely incorrect

[@xVolta]

"this doesn't seem like a conspiracy theory, it seems like logical thought", said every conspiracy theorist ever.

[@decodingtheunknown2373]

FAIR

[@JoshSweetvale]

@@Trollogrefey To understand a conspiracy theorist is to understand schitzophrenia. The brain makes connections. Schitzophrenics make a few too many.

[@GabrielBadwolf]

The CIA invented the term conspiracy theorist to discredit people that questioned the official story of JFK’s assassination

[@JoshSweetvale]

@@GabrielBadwolf And the KGB disseminated disinformation with regards to Kennedy's assassination. Information which Oliver Stone found to be good TV because that's exactly what it started as: FICTION.

[@GabrielBadwolf]

@@JoshSweetvale KGB and CIA just gotta do what the KGB and CIA do best

[@rickbarnes766]

Simon, look into the crash of TWA flight 2. It was also a Lockheed Constellation that collided mid-air with a DC-4 over the Grand Canyon in the mid-50s. Those things did happen, in that era, there was a lot less radar controlled airspace, so no collision avoidance systems. They operated VFR.

[@hannahp1108]

Oh god that crash is so sad

[@mlee6050]

There is a modern one with NCAS but issue was air traffic control told one to go up when NCAS was telling that pilot to go down 1000ft to avoid other

[@MaximillianAirlines]

Sorry for the correction but It was a DC-7

[@arandolph826tube]

Fascinating Horror covers that story.

[@ssokolow]

@@mlee6050 Yeah. IIRC, that one led to the introduction of a "no exceptions" rule that, if the controller and the TCAS disagree, the pilot must obey the TCAS, not the controller.

[@ahniiso5642]

A grenade has a large blast radius, pretty much a detonation anywhere on the plane would depressurize the hull. If it is anywhere near the wings it could rupture the fuel tanks quite easily. Grenades should be shipped in a crate, not in the troops kit, but it was waaaayy before my time, so who knows what their SOP was.

[@tantivy221]

All ammo grenades claymores were shipped in steel ammo cans. Grende pins were tied down for shipment. If a grenade detonated it would of had to been intentional.

[@jwdataspot]

I think, more importantly, a grenade wouldn't have been the first explosion noticed by the tanker. A grenade does not cause a fiery explosion and certainly wouldn't have been seen or heard from the distance of the tanker. The explosions reported by the tanker could have been secondary effects of a grenade going off, but as discussed in other posts, it's an unlikely scenario.

[@ahniiso5642]

@@jwdataspot agree 100%, I doubt it was the troops equipment as a cause. I also agree on grenade attributes as explosives are meant to kill not “look cool.” I was surprised at how wrong Hollywood got it when witnessing firsthand. Even big with huge kill radius blasts will barely flash, and minimal flame.

[@rubiconnn]

I dunno, knowing it was the 1960s it wouldn't surprise me if the troops were carrying their equipment on board themselves and if they were rangers it would be even more likely they would keep their equipment with them. One unlikely but still possible theory I have is that one of the guys was being rowdy or playing around with a grenade and accidentally detonated it. The thousands of fragmentations would pierce the hull, fuel lines, hydraulic lines and could cause a fire. In fact most anti aircraft missiles use fragmentation to destroy aircraft, although their warheads are slightly larger than a frag grenade.

[@jwdataspot]

@@rubiconnn Having known a number of Marines, SeALs, and Rangers, this would surprise me greatly. Those guys love to have fun, but they know when and where it is appropriate. Equipment is always checked in a safe area (not in the air) and they never play around with live weapons of any kind. The most I could see is a gun accidentally going off (which is still unlikely), but more possible than an accidental grenade explosion. You are correct that a grenade is a possible explanation for the explosion, but the mindset given to those guys about weapons and safety makes the possibility of an accidental grenade explosion *extremely* unlikely. Not impossible, mind you, just not the most plausible explanation.

[@ignitionfrn2223]

1:20 - Chapter 1 - The history 14:00 - Chapter 2 - Theories 16:50 - Chapter 3 - Sabotage 22:30 - Chapter 4 - Kidnap 24:45 - Chapter 5 - Collision with an object 32:30 - Chapter 6 - Conspiracy 34:55 - Chapter 7 - Aftermath

[@CaesarSaladin7]

Bless you. Please Pin this Simon.

[@adenkyramud5005]

Legend

[@pinecone4610]

King

[@Lee-in-oz]

Once again Simon's rants and tangents totally make this series.

[@pastelclouds1922]

25:25 For those interested, the almost collision between two planes in midair that Simon talked about were Japan Airlines flights 907 and 958.

[@migga86]

Thanks for the info. Also to add some collisions i remember without research apart from the Tenerife disaster: 1. DHL and some russians in swiss controlled german airspace where the controller gave conflicting resolutions to the TCAS - 2000s 2. A super constellation and another one (one had red markings, the other one blue) over the grand canyon in the - 1950s 3. Near LA where one F4 cut the cockpit off a passenger plane (Hughes Southwest maybe) - 1970s 4. The collision of a Cessna 152 on instrument training and a commercial airliner somewhere near LA as well - 1980s 5. The brazilian Embraer winglet on its maiden flight cutting open a 737 belly because the transponder was deactivated by accident - 1990s 6. Some german small plane in Milans Airport on a takeoff roll - 1990s 7. A smaller plane on LAX which got forgotten on the runway in the night and then landed on by a 737 8. I think it was Columbo or something where student and teacher were taking off ignoring the incoming commuter plane where the emergency exits couldn't be opened due to the fire. Just for those about to panic: They are rare - so we have almost complete lists of all accidents happening. I've binged Mayday two years ago, so some of it stuck. Also only 1-5 are midair collisions. The altitude change from 10,000 to 18,000 probably was for fuel efficiency and speed. These happen once enough fuel (=weight) has been burned through. The midflight breakups are more common than collisions. I've not watched the entire video yet, so I'll do this before going into TWA 800 or China Airlines 611 stuff.

[@rogerpenske2411]

You’ve inadvertently solved the mystery, Simon! It was the piano playing duck! At 10,000 feet, the duck could still breathe; but at 18,000 feet, the duck would have lost pursuit at that altitude. The dock had to strike fast before the plane could get away

[@ComedorDelrico]

The night before the flight, the duck lost a bet with one of the Army Rangers about who could play "Chopsticks" the fastest. The army Ranger then took all of the duck's hard earned piano playing cash as his winnings. The duck, sure that the Army Ranger had cheated by using a secret military performance enhancing drug, was furious. He swore the Ranger wouldn't live to see his next birthday.

[@chrisleneil]

Birdstrike… on purpose!

[@s0men00bb]

Simon , back in their day , they used "observe and avoid" rule , no anticollision warnings (radars). That rule continued even to 1980's , when it became a must to have system that will alert pilots in case they are going to collide with another plane and they can't observe (see) the other plane. For example , "Shershen" patrol boats (torpedo boats) where my grandpa served in 1960's had radars that could cover 900 kilometers , basically intruding nearby countries sea and air space. And this being "civil" aircraft , I highly doubt they had some advanced military tech inside.

[@adenkyramud5005]

Quick question for Simon: with all the channels you have, how many times do you get confused during the intro and say the wrong channel name and have to start again?

[@sandybarnes887]

All the time on business, er I mean Brain Blaze

[@camoakes976]

@@sandybarnes887 I don't know if that counts, since that was a change in the channel name...

[@decodingtheunknown2373]

Pretty often ;D

[@Adjuni]

Took him about two months to stop calling Brain Blaze Business Blaze. XD

[@CrisMind]

Maybe that is part of why Simon has different positions for each channel? (Well for the most part he does)

[@imdoctorsan]

Simon, I would put money on it being one of the outboard engines that was worked on at one of the stops. A fuel leak could have caused a fire that could have caused the engine to come off, possibly with the outer section of the wing. This would account for the sighting of two fireballs and be able to bring the craft down. Until wreckage is found, we may never know for sure.

[@MurphysEveryWhim]

Conspiracy theories are fun, but I’d love to see videos on confirmed conspiracies.

[@paulgraddon2655]

Simon's done that video too 😁 kzbin.info/www/bejne/oKWaXqWQZbmErNU

[@tabbykitty1673]

Yes that would be so cool!

[@roguewolf7053]

I’ve seen a few well done ones over the years concerning US & a few WWI & II conspiracies proven true but would love to see one done in this format rather than being told by a perpetually bored sounding history video presenter. And before u ask me the names of those I’ve seen it’s been quite a while & I honestly don’t remember at the moment. Especially as I’m recovering from being sick & some of the meds I’m taking have me fuzzy headed.

[@MurphysEveryWhim]

@@roguewolf7053 Whistle Boy is never bored.

[@jeffdroog]

In all fairness,every single conspiracy theory has been proved to be true...By those who believe them to be true.

[@Kaharameiaren]

A word of advice: you can still redact a pdf that was just saved in the free Adobe Reader. You have to print it to another pdf for the editing marks to "lock" and become uneditable. If you just Save the or Save As, anyone who opens that pdf can remove your reactions.

[@Keex11]

As long as the PDF printer isn't "clever" and recreates the redaction rectangles 1:1 in the result pdf. Print to png images and those to pdf again to be sure.

[@ssokolow]

There are various ways. Anything that "flattens" a PDF should do the trick. The downside is that tools generally accomplish that by rendering each page to PNG or JPEG and then creating a new PDF, rather than intelligently throwing out obscured objects while keeping visible text as text. If you install Ghostscript and img2pdf (both free), this should do the trick for the dumb way: gs -dSAFER -r600 -sDEVICE=pngalpha -o doc-%02d.png doc.pdf img2pdf doc-*.png -o flattened_doc.pdf

[@A13X_H_22]

Simon you did a Worlds Greatest Terrorist attacks. One was a guy who blew himself up and out of a plane being the only one who died.

[@itsapittie]

To answer your question about military aircraft, yes you do have to go through a security screening to board military aircraft. Obviously there are exceptions for personnel who are enroute to a mission but those personnel are nevertheless screened, manifested, and under the control of a commanding officer. Since the Rangers on the flight weren't (supposedly) enroute to an actual assault, their weapons and ammunition would most likely have been separately palletized and loaded but we can't rule out the possibility that they were actually about to engage in an active mission and were fully armed. It's not 100% impossible that a grenade could have gotten loose and lost its pin but it's pretty damned unlikely with a group of elite professionals like the Rangers. It's also not impossible that there could have been explosives -- maybe even a lot of explosives -- unrelated to the Rangers' mission onboard and an errant electrical short or the like could have set it off. Loadmasters take precautions to prevent this but it's not entirely impossible. Humorously, it was standard during my time in the Air Force for even troops on a tactical mission to receive the usual briefing on prohibited items even though we were exempted for that trip. We'd collapse into howls of laughter at the list -- daggers, switchblade knives, knives having a blade longer than 3", handguns, rifles, machine guns, explosives, etc. I do recall one occasion upon which my team was on the way to a training exercise and we carried our rifles without live ammunition. Our commander carried a handgun with live ammunition to protect the rifles if anyone tried to steal one. The aircraft commander demanded that our commander turn over his handgun for the duration of the flight. Our commander said, "We are literally the people whose job it is to rescue you if you get hijacked. Do you really want to get into a pissing match over this?" The AC wisely backed down. 😂

[@TheOriginalCFA1979]

Yeah, I heard all about this from your CO. My Poodle, Sargent B. S. Lyre, loves sharing his stories of failing to embarrass the people who held his life in their hands over childish pissing matches.

[@joshuapowell2675]

It's the most pointless thing when you're transitioning through a civilian airport and you still have to walk through the metal detector while holding a case with your rifle in it

[@jeffdroog]

And then they made out lol Sounds like typical gay army shit to me.

[@jeffdroog]

I've been told that in the military,you're never cold,because the warm embrace of another naked man was only an awkward glance away lol I was told the airmen were the biggest offenders,and that's why they called military planes,floating beds.The more you know! Telling stories is fun.

[@ryanm9566]

The service ceiling for the Lockheed Super Constellation is 24,000ft, so the altitude change seems unexceptionable. I lightly browsed it's specs and operational history and it doesn't appear to have a design flaw that would cause an explosion like the Avro Tudor VI which had heaters that could cause fires and likely led to the crashes of the Star Tiger and Star Ariel in the late 40's. However, they did have skylights used for sexton navigation that shattered and caused explosive decompression in at least one case in 1948 that sucked out a navigator, but those probably were removed by the 60's. A Super Constellation was involved in a midair collision with a DC-7 (TWA Flight 2 & United Airlines Flight 718) in 1956, which led to changes for better collision avoidance systems. Given that Flight 739 was one of two Flying Tiger Line flights with military connections that were destroyed under similar circumstances on the same day, it seems unlikely that it was just coincidence or accident. However, they were the same plane design and both crashed on the same day over the Pacific (similar conditions?), so it's possible it could be a fault with the planes themselves, as measures like fire detection and suppression in the cabin/cargo areas weren't standard until the 80's and inerting fuel tanks/eliminating sources of sparks from wiring wasn't standardized until the 90's (after the disasters of Air Canada Flight 797, ValuJet Flight 592, and TWA Flight 800, respectively).

[@ihatemegatron216]

there is one angle that wasn't explored in the video, Explosive decompression. the super constellation was a pressurized aircraft. the particular aircraft was delivered to flying tiger lines in 1957. this would have been more than enough time for fatigue cracks to form. a key fact for this accident is that the explosion happened shortly after a considerable ascent. this would have put considerable pressure on an already fatigued airframe, all it would take for the aircraft to explode is for one of those cracks to fail and the aircraft would pop like a balloon.

[@RainbowTheSnail]

I'm always extra excited when I see you upload on this channel or casual Criminalist. 🌸💗🌸 I am working through all of your videos on all of your channels. 🌸💗🌸

[@mwolkove]

I was doing the same thing, then my KZbin history reset, so I don't know which ones I've already watched. Guess I have to watch it all again.

[@marywenrich8050]

I am as well, but I have discovered he has 14 channels that I know of. I call it the Simon Whistler KZbin challenge. Currently, Whistler is still winning...

[@rocketamadeus3730]

That's the thing though, they produce them faster than you can watch them, so you'll never stop watching them.

[@Nipplator99999999999]

There's a lot fewer crashes because they started to put the technicians that do the repairs on it's next flight. It's a great motivator to not make an ID-10-T error.

[@The415Joe]

Most likely explanation imo is something similar to TWA800. It took a very thorough investigation 96-00 to determine that fuel vapor was ignited in a tank by a short circuit in wiring. Just as experts said a super connie couldn’t just blow up, many said the same about a 747.

[@scottwatts3879]

Actually, they never were able to replicate a vapor explosion in the center tanks of the747. Multiple attempts were made and all but one failed...And the one test that did explode the tank was given a bit of help by detonating an initiation charge inside the tank...coulda proving it was not likely to be a mere spark...which got the blame. The main reason it's so hard to get jet fuel to blow in a tank is 1) it's kerosene based in commercial airliners and 2) lack of oxygen. The fuel vaporizes in the tank, forces out the oxygen, so there's no oxidizer to support combustion. In early WW2, none of the cutting edge fighters had self-sealing tanks because designers believed loaded fuel tanks were hypoxic. Then they found out that shooting bullets into the tank while flying at 200mph ventilated said tank very quickly and turned it into a thermobaric bomb

[@jrmckim]

I love videos on mysterious plane crashes and events. I love everything aviation. I dreamed of becoming a pilot since I was 4. At 9 I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. It killed my dream but not my passion.

[@jeffashley5512]

That is exactly how it happened to me and at age 9.

[@felbarashla]

Have you ever looked up the podcast Black Box Down? You might enjoy it.

[@jeffashley5512]

@@felbarashla I'll take a listen. Thanks.

[@mxkoifish6984]

The Japan Air Near Miss you mentioned could have killed nearly 700 people. There's been some other notable mid air collisions such as Überlingen, Cerritos, and Charkhi Dadri. The Überlingen collision specifically was basically the same scenario as Japan Air, with one crew listening to the collision avoidance system and the other plane listening to air traffic control.

[@Onora619]

Security in the 60s was atrocious. My mom once pretended to be blind so she could take her dog on board. Just to see if it would work. It did. Her super-secret disguise? Dark sunglasses. Just. Sunglasses.

[@viridiscoyote7038]

My favorite part of the Lockheed Constellation is the complete disregard for manufacturability. The bulkheads are all unique; a normal pressurized airliner is cylindrical, the Constellation is more like a misshapen cigar.

[@adamMmcnally]

We should also consider the possibility that the members of the flight exited the plane prior to it exploding. Seems feasible given the nature of the trip and that all of their personal identifications were left behind.

[@simeonlinke3437]

Love the regular drive to survive shoutouts. Such a great series and getting new fans on board for the sport is always a good thing.

[@the_reto5195]

Simon: "If two giant planes crashed into each other in mid-air, that would be something I would know about." Me: Well obviously you didn't hear about the Überlingen Mid-Air collision in 2002 then, did you? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_%C3%9Cberlingen_mid-air_collision

[@torchthewitch590]

There were loads of them: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-air_collision#List_of_notable_military_mid-air_collisions

[@Elena-tq9vs]

Doesn't even have to be a giant plane to bring them both down. Several large planes have been brought down by collision with a tiny plane, military or something tiny like a Cessna.

[@route2070]

Note at 10:55, sadly in the past for auto racing, watching people die on TV, whether or not you realize it, watching people die in TV was more likely. I saw that with Dale Earnhardt Sr.

[@samanthar1214]

I still remember that.

[@SgtDexterGrif]

Something I’ll never forget

[@rallyfeind]

I feel worse when I see the person. The fans that get clipped by the tire or wreckage and the rally fans that get full on car slapped.

[@Amccordford]

I saw this on TV. A friend of mine's mom was inside the track and one of the ladies I work with was in the stands for her birthday that day.

[@nzdobbs]

I remember watching formula 1 on tv in the 80s or 90s and seeing Ayrton Senna's fatal crash live. The first track marshal was on the scene within seconds, had one look in the wreck, and just backed off and called for help. At that moment I knew he was obviously dead from a bad head injury. They got him out and took him to hospital, but I knew he was already gone

[@tgordon4881]

listening to Simon take left and right turns is just a delight!

[@tacticooldude7509]

The Super Constellation carried 93 Ranger-trained Army communications specialists en route to South Vietnam. Their orders were to relieve soldiers in Saigon who had been training Vietnamese troops to fight Vietnam Cong guerrillas. Also on board were three members of the Vietnamese military. They were advisors not super secret soldiers.

[@caittails]

Allegedly

[@udowannun7780]

Hmm… they were relieving soldiers, and Vietnamese military, but they were just “advisors.” Mmmkay.

[@tacticooldude7509]

@@udowannun7780 Yeah stupid, Relieving them of their training mission.

[@udowannun7780]

@@tacticooldude7509 First of all, Simon didn’t say a fkn thing about “secret,” or even “Special Forces,” he said “Elite.” One does not have to be in the 75th to have a Ranger tab & be considered a superior soldier, so you can sit right tf down & stfu.

[@robsgirl7778]

I live in Arlington tx and our veterans park has a monument honoring Vietnam veterans and our allies from around the world. The wording is in English and Vietnamese.

[@stevesloan7132]

We had about 10,000 military "advisers" in Vietnam before the first four combat battalions were sent there following the Gulf Of Tonkin incident.

[@kambasiartre6187]

You mean the Gulf of Tonkin false flag not an "incident". The documents were leaked verifying it was a government orchestrated false flag operation in The Pentagon Papers.

[@ladyrazorsharp]

Dad was on a military plane in the late 60's on the way to Korea to build airfields for planes going to Vietnam. He said that halfway over the Pacific the "ditch" alarm came on and he thought "oh, great, I'm not even 21 and I'm gonna be fish food. Just great." The crew came through the cabin yelling "false alarm! false alarm!" He said everyone was, needless to say, really pissed.

[@TDFMonster40K]

I'd love to see Simon do a bio on the WASPS

[@James-ho5te]

Well, on the note about a grenade going off on a plane, I'd recommend reading up on Aloha Flight 243. It's a fascinating story and just goes to show how much damage an aircraft can take before it goes down

[@makennondoran1608]

Hey Simon and his team! Just a bit of information about the troops in the plane. I’m a U.S. Army Infantry veteran and know quite a bit about my Ranger brethren. The Rangers mentioned here are likely just Ranger School graduates as the school had been created about 10 years prior. While holding a Ranger Tab is something to be proud of, it is just a leadership school that is excellent at turning out great leaders in small unit tactics. The Rangers you’re thinking of are the current Special Operation Rangers of the 75th Ranger Regiment. They weren’t around until the 70s, but had history dating back to WWII or earlier depending on who you ask in regard the Roger’s Rangers in the French and Indian War. Seven Years War for you folks across the pond. The point I’m trying to make here is not a huge deal but just for clarity. These soldiers likely had a few Ranger Tabbed soldiers with them but were in general technical specialists from the sounds of it. This is still common even today when operating with or training partner forces. The unit that does this on a mass scale now is the Security Force Assistance Brigade. So in short, while these troops would’ve certainly been damn near impossible to take hostage, they were not elite combat troops like the Rangers of today. Also, you were correct, we had military advisors there as early as ‘59 from stories and reports I’ve heard and read, if memory serves me right.

[@HyBr1dRaNg3r]

There was also the rudder hard over on earlier Boeings…I think it’s flight 427 that crashed outside of Pittsburgh, plus another crash and then an almost crash. Flight 427 killed the father of a kid in our school(I believe they were 1st grade, I was 4th or 5th grade at the time) It was very shocking at the time, there’s also a memorial at the school. And yeah Simon, when you commented on the two fishermen(sea men) and “They just watched a lot of ppl die.” Like the morning of Sept 11 watching the 2nd plane hit(don’t need to say where and all, but I’ll ALWAYS remember that moment…Like my parents “Kennedy moment.”) Anyways, great channels! I really like the cold reads on here and CC

[@jodi_kreiner]

with as many channels as simon has, netflix should give him his own show - let alone sponsor him… lobbying for a #factboi tv series

[@kandreasworld4374]

Interesting fact: When training for your CDL (Commercial Driver's License), you are taught to do this huge checklist before pulling out to make sure that your engine, brakes, and lights are in working order. You also need to check your 5th wheel to make sure the trailer is secure. You need to check your hookups, restraints, signs and doors on your trailer. This is supposed to be done every time you stop. However, in reality, most truckers rarely do any of this in order to save time. From the vast amount of stories released after a plane crash, most pilots and crew also take shortcuts to speed up the process. So don't assume things are done properly just because they are supposed to be done properly.

[@Uldihaa]

Eh, I'm not convinced that the plane blew up. Eye witnesses can be notoriously unreliable and a plane with an engine on fire that breaks up due to a powered dive that exceeds its structural integrity would look like an explosion to those that don't know what a plane exploding even looks like.

[@geodkyt]

A half pound bomb would be more than enough to trigger explosions that could disintegrate that aircraft, if the bomb was placed in the proper spot in an engine nacelle or next to any part of the fuel system. Something the size of two packs of cigarettes (including a timer made from an alarm clock) would do the job, in the right spot. The Super Connie was still using a piston engine - which means AvGas (high octane gasoline, AKA petrol) rather than Jet A (which is basically super clean kerosene with some additives, like anti-icing compounds). So super-explodey fuel, compared to a modern airliner.

[@stevemillen_Realtor]

Is it me or is this channel becoming more business-blazey with every episode

[@alexsmith7801]

BRAIN BLAZE. And yes, the Blaze shall consume all of Whistler's channels and eventually, even Fact Boy himself.

[@donnaholland1625]

He won’t allow Brain Blaze to take over… he wont “stand” for it.

[@Halberdin]

"Exploded in the air" is a common misperception with plane accidents due to the speed of sound. The sequence would be 1) plane gets into trouble 2) plane crashes 3) a fireball forms (or several, because there are several fuel tanks) 4) seconds go by 5) observers hear the crash 6) observers look into the direction of the sound and only then see the fire and think that it exploded at that time.

[@Jennifer-sh9uh]

Fire suppression foam / fuel tank baffle foam wasn't added until the 70s. It could have been fuel slosh and spark. Baffles are super important when keeping av gas from exploding

[@Librarian356]

The jet trails got written off quickly but that could be an indicator that Constellation was intercepted and shot down. If the Soviet Union got wind of the operation they could have dispatched a MiG, which is much faster than a constellation. The MiG would have caught them off guard and fired two missiles explaining the double explosion.

[@temerityxd8602]

Pretty much impossible for a Russian fighter to have shot down the plane, they just didn't have the range to fly out into the pacific. Mig 21 had about 800km range max. It's also important to keep in mind that tensions between the USSR and USA were incredibly high at this point (Cuban missile crisis was only a year after this) so it seems unlikely that the USSR would risk causing a war just to take out a couple of platoons worth of soldiers. Though even if they did decide to destroy the plane it's far more likely that would have used a bomb or something that wouldn't be easily traced back to them than a military plane which would very clearly lead back to them.

[@ROMAQHICKS]

I have lawyer friend who said that he was working for a plaintiff and the defendants redacted some PDFs but they were simply just highlighting the text and turning the highlight colour black. So you could simply just highlight the text like you were going to copy-paste and you could see the entire document.

[@LINKINPARK262]

September 11th was way f*cked up. Watching each of the towers fall was undeniably brutal. You knew, and I mean KNEW, that hundreds, if not thousands, of people were dying right in front of you. True, most people saw it on TV but we all knew what we were actually witnessing. It felt like you'd been stabbed straight through your heart and directly into your soul.

[@ampenvire]

your cold reads are hands down the most comforting thing i ingest

[@1Sophiieexoxo]

To answer the question - the most likely answer they have to the 2014 Malaysian Airlines flight, based on the evidence they found, is that the pilot went a bit mad, planned the whole thing in advance, took the plane into the middle of nowhere and gently crash landed it into the ocean as a murder suicide

[@CanisAnubis]

Literally, the first thing I thought before Katie got to it was that one of those Vietnamese attaches was a spy and planted a bomb, or there was a leak to the NVA or USSR about what the US was planning on doing, and they sent an agent to plant a bomb. Perhaps as far back as Hawaii - but having been to Guam, it's not a stretch to think the agent couldn't infiltrate there either.

[@michaelimbesi2314]

It could have just exploded like that TWA flight. The plane could have been struck by lightning (first “explosion” sound) which ignited a fuel explosion (second explosion) that destroyed the plane

[@ghostlynose2091]

With regards to the bomb theory, it couldn’t have been C4, as it wasn’t a thing in ‘62. C4 would first see military use in, get this, the Vietnam War. So a bomb would have to be made out of TNT. But you’re right, it doesn’t take much kaboom to destroy an airplane, a stick or two of TNT in say, a gas tank would absolutely work.

[@VitoDRF]

Simon: You're like, did I just watch someone die? It's crazy Anyone that witnessed 9/11: ...uuummmmm...

[@kambasiartre6187]

Yeah I was 12 watching those people jump with my whole class. Then they killed Bin laden and Obama said they couldn't show his dead body because it would "inflame the Muslim population". I'm still disgusted by that cowardice.

[@user-dg9pu4pe9d]

The Malaysian airplane would be a good topic. Definitely not a happy ending.

[@lizc6393]

Isn't it pretty clear it was a suicide run by the pilot? Kinda like that German pilot prior to that

[@resileaf9501]

Plane crashes rarely have happy endings

[@glennwheeler984]

I figure they climbed to 18,000 to avoid thunderclouds and then ended up getting hit by a lightning bolt. Lightning could also account for the heavy static Guam IFSS reported that interfered with their communications with 739.

[@RevJerusalem]

Sometimes I‘m amazed how many of fact bois stories have a connection to me. A random german hick. My granpa woked for the Flying Tigers out of Frankfurt before they were bought by FedEx.

[@Religion0]

I love alien theories! They're hilarious and often surprisingly thought through. A very few are something resembling believable, assuming that the aliens are like antarctic explorers, and those are extra fun. Apropos your flight classes and checking everything, I know a guy who failed his driver's test because the side mirrors fell off the moment he started the car.

[@stever285]

The strange thing here is that no one has pointed out that the plane could have collided with an alien space craft...could be a cover up.

[@korpisusi3170]

It was either a malicious act or a coverup. Those men said they doubted they'd come back, right? Sure, you're going somewhere that's highly unstable and unsafe. But unless the wreckage is one day found and it's confirmed these men died there, there's a small chance this could be an orchestrated thing and the men were never in the plane when it blew up. I don't know what would be the reasoning behind it. I have no idea how the US military operates, especially when it comes to secret operations. But considering everything the CIA/military/whoever else have admitted to over the decades - not to mention everything they haven't but have possibly done anyway - it's not that much of a reach.

[@derekridgeway2529]

I have personally been through absolutely abysmal airport security in several 3rd world countries, in the last 30 years, so I can see how, in the sixties, a bomb could be smuggled onto a plane on a route such as this!

[@duanesamuelson2256]

Wouldn't have to smuggle them...when deployed to Saudi for gulf war version 1 we had our personal weapons and basic loads/equipment on board with us. Admittedly this was a military flight (c141). However in the 80's on commercial charter flights we carried the same things.

[@211212112]

The airport experience i remember from the 80’s and 90’s was wonderful. I didn’t like people smoking, but I loved the stewardesses. As far as security went our carry on went thru an x-Ray that was it.

[@PeterCombs]

"warm my little heart"...touching Simon...touching...

[@EmilyJelassi]

Very interesting video. Having no flying or military experience, I'm left to wonder, along with most other people, if we'll ever have an explanation.. I very much doubt it. It's awful that these Army Rangers aren't mentioned anywhere on any memorial!

[@J3diMindTrix]

Indeed they should be.

[@DeliveryMcGee]

The US Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) and Military Assistance Command, Vietnam - Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG) had been sending American "advisors" to Vietnam and nearby countries since 1950, ostensibly to help train our allies, but after the war my uncle who was an "advisor" in the '60s strongly hinted to my dad that they were doing some pretty shady stuff directly, especially in neutral Laos and Cambodia.

[@derekaldrich330]

As I listened to this video, I kept thinking more and more about the possibility that the aircraft actually landed at its truly intended destination rather than being destroyed somehow. It still seems like a reach, though.

[@rsobe]

Planes don't explode just like RMBK reactors don't explode, exept when they do, in specific rare ocasions, so in the case of 739 most likelly the plane had a mechanical failure and went down in the ocean, probably due to the maintenance in the engine, even more in these old times, like in TWA flight 800 wherr the probable cause according to NTSB was the fuel in the tank became vapor and combined with bad wiring exploded the plane.

[@bocorley4468]

I remember watching Dale Earnhardt crash on tv while sitting in a hotel on a family vacation.. I think I’ll always remember that

[@cassandraunheeded]

Me too.

[@vasilerogojan4520]

In my opinion this is still less mysterious than that actually happened at the Dyatlov pass.

[@211212112]

That seems to be a small avalanche. I don’t want to believe that could of been it but it makes a lot of sense the way they described it and demonstrated it. What is weirder is that flight that crashed in the Colombian mountains I think anyways some mountains in South America. It looks like one of their governments covered it up. Also the Japanese guy that went missing and they found an sos but it turned out not to be from that guy. It is a totally weird story. Look it up.

[@Nyan_Kitty]

Really wondering whether Simon watches Mentour Pilot

[@MinistryOfMagic_DoM]

I can tell you that when traveling civilian as military, we do carry weapons and ammunition as secured cargo. Actually, you can do that as a civilian too. You just secure the weapon in a double locked case and you can even store the ammunition in the case with it if it's in the original packaging, secure packaging, or a loaded magazine that is not in the weapon. Some airline counter people are dumb and will insist you put the ammo in a separate container which can just be a checked bag, but you can do it. For military flight, we honestly just carried that shit on the aircraft. Especially in an AOR. Just took the magazine/ammo out of your weapon depending on what type of weapon you carry, and put the magazine/ammo in your bag or magazine pouch. If you're going into a direct combat mission from the aircraft, you just keep the magazine in the weapon. We were often required to wear our plate carriers + helmet even in fixed wing transport since it wasn't uncommon for small arms fire to be shot up at us on take off and landing so we had plenty of places to just put the magazines/ammo.

[@oehrleinr]

I think you should look into the case of Tom Oogle. He died I believe in the 70s and supposedly had made a fuel efficient engine

[@RHCole]

'Air America' is a 1980's comedy film starring Mel Gibson and a young (and obviously coked up) Robert Downey Jr. I suggest everyone check it out, it's a good flick.

[@user-dg9pu4pe9d]

There were two planes that collided and crashed in the Grand Canyon. It was in like the 50s or 60s.

[@alexander-mauricemillamlae4567]

26:45 I mean individual people have in the past been hit by meteorites, even while sleeping in their home and a plane is a fair bit larger, and even a tiny meteroid is going to cause some massive damage. We do often miss pretty large ones that come in in earth's shadow even today, and back then there were barely any satellites in orbit. I wouldn't discount the idea out of hand. All it needs is a tiny chunk from a moderately-sized meteroid to break off in a way it doesn't completely burn up and hit the plane.

[@itsapittie]

It seems awfully unlikely but not entirely impossible. Boy, that would be the worst stroke of luck in aviation history!

[@alexander-mauricemillamlae4567]

@@itsapittie I mean, the people who were directly hit by or had their property destroyed by a direct meteorite impact didn't exactly have the best days of their lives either lmao

[@SEAZNDragon]

The Flying Tigers (or officially the American Volunteer Group) is worth its own video either as a Biographics or Warographics video. The unit was basically American military pilots recruited recruited to fight for the Chinese before the US entry in WWII although ironically by the time they got to flew their first combat mission Pearl Harbor had been bombed. In addition to the pilots there were a number of Chinese Americans who served as ground crew. As for the Rangers no added to the Vietnam War Memorials its more likely due to location than secrecy. The time frame for the names on the memorial starts in 1955 when the first military advisors landed in Vietnam and the presence of advisors, mostly members of the Special Forces, was already well known. A company of Rangers in 1962 wouldn't had raised eyebrows. As the plane had disappeared over the Pacific they wouldn't have counted as war deaths.

[@ethanwalshe766]

Anyone know why these haven’t been coming out as podcasts?

[@lizc6393]

This is a FASCINATING case! Good call miss Katie!

[@Suspect0077]

1960’s airport security: my uncle was stationed in Korea. He flew home on leave with a double barreled shotgun & 1000 rounds of ammo. He took them carry on. The shotgun was propped up next to him & the ammo was under his seat. The stewardess asked about it out of curiosity. When I asked him why he did that he said “they were really cheap over there”.

[@CosRacecar]

I feel like a memorial in the middle of nowhere is almost worse then no memorial at all. And as someone who lives in rural Maine, I can tell you that Columbia Falls is a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere.

[@dannahbanana11235]

It's almost as if they're trying to say "See? We memorialized them, quit asking about it"

[@deaniej2766]

There are several names that are currently considered female that started as male, names like Beverly, Leslie, Marion and Lyndall to name a few.

[@KaytaRaven]

My granddad’s name was Leslie, it’s still pretty common in Wales

[@sandybarnes887]

Sandy

[@charlesjmouse]

Surely if a plane goes down in the pacific it's probably an accident and the surprise would be if it was actually found? PS One of the many things I like about Simon's channels is they often tackle material other channels revel in as 'spooky conspiracies', while Simon's view is uniformly "Nah, what's the most likely non-stupid explanation?" It does my cynical old heart good to see not everyone is a gullible moron.

[@iainronald4217]

Exactly. I do admit I like Nexpo and Lazy Masquerade who are good at being like "Look....scary ghost...ooooo" and making super creepy, eery investigation videos. But, I also can't help but laugh when Simon covers the same topic and is like "The heck you talking about, lol? That's clearly not a ghost, it's a balloon with a Kleenex on top!" and spends the whole video taking the piss out of the whole situation.

[@alejandrovega8370]

The grossjean crash was fucking crazy Watching it live had me extremely scared In todays F1 crashes like that are just unheard of and statistically not as dangerous/deadly

[@budwilliams6590]

I was in the Marines in the early 80's. It was a pretty regular deal to transport troops from Oahu where we were stationed to the big Island (Hawaii) for training where the larger Army base was via commercial airline.

[@lauriepenner350]

I too get excited whenever I hear about a woman who did some cool ass sh!t only to find out it was just a man with a girly name. One assumes he had to overcome a childhood of being named Claire, so that's something anyway.

[@jonsnowight9510]

Why would it be more exciting if it was done by a woman?

[@Jedi.Toby.M]

And with that, something about a plane, and now I'm going to watch some Formula 1. I'm sure this flight thing worked itself out. 😉

[@KeithPrince-cp3me]

Airport security in the 1960s : in 1969 my brother, a school friend and myself walked into the maintenance area of London Heathrow airport where airliners including the new Boeing 747s were based and took photos of the planes, we were there a long while snapping away before eventually a tecnician came over and said we really shouldn't be there and we left. That was the level of security at Britain's major airport.

[@almitrahopkins1873]

I flew Military Airlift Command (MAC) in the early ‘80s. Security was lighter on civilian airlines.

[@michaelgallagher3640]

A duck walking on a piano is just called Jazz.

[@lizc6393]

You, Mr. Gallagher, are my hero.

[@scionofdorn9101]

Both myself and my father were USAF. There are rigorous security checks and oversight for any military flight. Also, depending on the explosives or other ordnance involved, they may not travel fused for safety purposes. It’s all but certain that the aircraft simply had a mechanical failure. Aircraft engines aren’t exactly the least temperamental machines ever built. Sometimes they catch fire and/or explode. The vapor trail spotted could have been them venting fuel (followed by an explosion), or just regular condensation.

[@SergirothGames]

I have just tried writing “flight 739…” and the first suggestion is “aliens”🤣

[@elena_eleen]

Would love a video on the lost Malaysia flight too, Simon!

[@caseyholland7860]

You should do that 747 that was shot down by the us navy(allegedly) TWA 800 I think

[@michaelpipkin9942]

Can you do the history of The Thunderbirds? Not the TV show, the AIRSHOW. The aircraft are always evolving, their history is decades long, tragic, and has entertained millions. Thank you from Nellis AFB, home of The Thunderbirds!

[@nameless5413]

plane safety is easily negatively impacted by poor maintenance, bad weather (i mean it was many years after this incident before planned routes started to take into account volcanic activity, it famously caused a crash), and even human element - flying for hours on end has to take a toll on the pilot.

[@whoiamiamnot2104]

Simon. My guy. How many channels and podcast are you a host of? I know of at least eight or nine. I just stumbled across this one. Take a vacation my dude. Excellent work as always through.

[@dougbotimer8005]

Ok, I have to comment. I flew in Flying Tiger in 1977. And my grandfather’s name was Clare. Keep up the good videos.

[@timshulepov]

I like how Hercules Poirot-esque music comes in at 37:09 when Simon starts to sum up the episode. So subtle!

[@pamelamays4186]

FYI: There was an American baseball player named Catfish Hunter. Best baseball player name ever! And yes, Catfish was his real first name.

[@billkeilitz2373]

John Augustus Hunter was his birth name, 'Catfish' was just a nickname.

[@steveschritz1823]

Conspiracy theory: the plane never exploded. It landed safely at [redacted]. Army just wanted those guys to “disappear” so the Soviets wouldn’t look for them.