Aware of the Pan Am Flight 845/26 accident the year before , in which a Boeing 377 's tail section had broken off during a water landing , the captain told the flight 's purser to clear passengers from the back of the plane . The crew removed loose objects from the cabin , and prepared the passengers for the landing . As on other flights in the era , small children were allowed on their parents ' laps , without separate seats or seat belts . At 5:40 Captain Ogg notified '' Pontchartrain '' that he was preparing to ditch . The cutter laid out a foam path for a best ditch heading of 315 degrees , to aid the captain to judge his height above the water . After a dry run the plane touched down at 6:15 , at with full flaps and landing gear retracted , in sight of the '' Pontchartrain '' at 30 ° 01.5 ' N , 140 ° 09 ' W. On touching the water , the plane moved along the surface for a few hundred yards . One wing hit a swell , causing the plane to rotate nearly 180 degrees to port , damaging the nose section and breaking off the tail . All 31 on board survived the ditching . Three life rafts were deployed by the crew and passengers who had previously been assigned to help . One raft failed to inflate properly , but rescue boats from the cutter were able promptly to transfer the passengers from that raft . All were rescued by the Coast Guard before the last pieces of wreckage sank at 6:35 a.m. Crew on the cutter filmed the landing and the rescue . A ten-minute film was later produced , including the recording of the radio conversation between the pilot and the Coast Guard
Pan Am Flight 845/26
Pan Am Flight 845/26
Pan Am Flight 6