Pan American's Flight 843 waited at the end of the main runway at San Francisco's International Airport for takeoff to Honolulu. Aboard the Boeing 707 jet was a full complement of 143 passengers, a crew of ten, two tons of cargo and 13,384 gal. of fuel. At the controls, First Officer Fred Miller, 47, went through the pre-takeoff checklist with Captain Charles Kimes, 44, a freckled, sandy-haired veteran of 16,000 flying hours who had elected to let Miller handle the takeoff. Finally, the airport tower radioed: "Clipper 843 cleared for takeoff." Thirty-five seconds later, the 266,631-lb. plane was airborne, rocketing over busy Bayshore Freeway, which borders the north end of the airport, and climbing toward a break in the hunchbacked hills of the San Francisco peninsula—and the open Pacific beyond. At that instant, Flight 843 became a nightmare.
In the cockpit, Captain Kimes felt "a severe shudder," accompanied by the muffled roar of an explosion. His eyes swept the instrument panel in front of him, stopped at the altimeter, which showed 700 ft. and climbing. At the same moment, Flight Engineer Fitch Robertson called out: "We have lost power on No. 4," meaning the right outboard engine of the plane's four fan jets. As Kimes reached for his controls, the huge jet yawed wildly to the right. A fire-alarm bell sounded, and a red warning light flashed on the instrument panel, indicating that No. 4 engine was on fire.
"Mayday! Mayday!" "I've got it," Kimes called as he took over the contols. Miller, reacting automatically as a result of hundreds of simulated emergency sessions, punched a button under the flashing red light, releasing fire-extinguishing chemicals into No. 4 engine. Meanwhile, Kimes was desperately trying to keep the plane level.
Then for the first time since the emergency began seconds before, Miller was able to look out at the right wing. The end of the wing was engulfed in white fire that curled upward in a ghastly comber, spitting fragments of molten metal into the air. What Miller could not see, because his view was blocked by the inboard engine, was even more chilling. No. 4 engine had dropped off, ripping a hole in the wing skin and puncturing the wing tip tank, igniting its 70 gal. of kerosene. One-third of its 83-ft. right wing was gone. Aerodynamically, Flight 843 should already have crashed.
Hearing Miller's report that "the outer-wing tank has blown," Kimes called the San Francisco tower. "Clipper 843. Mayday! Mayday! We got problems with power here." No answer. Kimes called again, more insistently. The tower heard this time, told him that other planes in the area were holding, and that he was "cleared to land on any runway."