Alitalia Flight 771 was a multi-leg Douglas DC-8-43 international scheduled flight from Sydney via Darwin, Bangkok, Bombay, Karachi, and Tehran to Rome with 94 on board. On 7 July 1962 18:40 UTC (8 July 1962, 00:10 local) it crashed into a hill about north-east of Bombay while on approach. Aircraft The aircraft involved in the accident was a Douglas DC-8-43 constructed in 1962 and registered as I-DIWD to Alitalia. At the time of the accident, the aircraft had recorded 964 flight hours. The registration and airworthiness certificates were valid. The captain of the flight had signed the Certificate of Maintenance on 6 July 1962. The aircraft was equipped with a VHF navigation receiver, glide slope receiver, marker beacon receiver, ADF receiver, Loran receiver, doppler radar, and a transponder; but the aircraft did not have any flight recorders. No mechanical issues were reported, and the centre of gravity and weight of the DC-8 were within permitted parameters. Crew Nine crew members were aboard the flight. The cockpit crew consisted of: Captain Luigi Quattrin, who was 50 years old and had been a pilot since 1939. He had accumulated 13,700 flight hours, of which 1,396 were on the Douglas DC-8. He had previously flown the Rome-Bombay route on DC-6 and DC-7 aircraft but did not go all the way to Bangkok. On the familiarization flight for the Bangkok-Bombay route, which was required by Alitalia in order for him to be permitted to fly the route as pilot-in-command, he flew the route to Bangkok via the Tehran-Karachi-Bombay route. The co-pilot, Ugo Arcangeli, was 33 years old and had been a pilot since 1956. He had accumulated a total of 3,480 flight hours, of which 1,672 had been from flying as co-pilot on the DC-8. The flight engineer, Luciano Fontana, was 31 years old and had 4,070 flight hours, of which 386 were from flying on the DC-8. The remaining six members of the crew were flight attendants. Both the captain and co-pilot were trained navigators, but there was no individual navigator in the flight crew. Synopsis After starting initially with 45 passengers in Sydney and taking on more passengers on the stops to Darwin and Singapore, Flight 771 departed from Bangkok at 15:16 UTC with 94 people aboard as stated by the load sheet, although the official flight plan stated there was to be 98 people aboard. The flight plan was not signed