The Pacific Clipper (civil registration NC18602) was an American Boeing 314 Clipper flying boat, famous for having completed an unplanned nearly around-the-world flight in December 1941 and January 1942 as the California Clipper. Aviation experts called the flight the first commercial circumnavigation of the globe because the aircraft made it back to its country of origin.

History

The Boeing 314 with civil registration NC18602 was delivered to Pan American; it made its shakedown flight from San Francisco, United States to Hong Kong from February 23 to March 3, 1939.

Flight

On December 2, 1941, the Clipper departed from the Pan American base on Treasure Island, San Francisco for its scheduled passenger service to Auckland, New Zealand. It landed at Pan American's LaGuardia Field seaplane base in New York City five weeks later, at 7:12 on the morning of January 6, 1942.

Crew

Scheduled points

Extended points

Ford and his crew successfully flew over 20000 mi from Auckland to New York.

Post-mission debriefings

Ford was debriefed by the Chief of Naval Operations. He reported spotting the Japanese submarine near Sri Lanka and his encounter with the crews of the Navy PBYs.

Aftermath

After the aircraft had completed its harrowing flight to safety, Pan American renamed the aircraft the Pacific Clipper. The name change was mainly for publicity purposes, arising from the first newspaper articles having wrongly identified the aircraft. On 30/31 January 1942, the Pacific Clipper transported Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles from the Pan-American emergency defense conference at Rio de Janeiro to Miami, covering the 4,350 miles in a record 33 hours. The black and grey camouflaged ship carried 39 passengers. After the war, in 1946, it was sold to Universal Airlines but was damaged in a storm and ultimately salvaged for parts in 1951.

Aircraft identification

It has been suggested that two aircraft might have been involved in the extended flight: NC18606 from California to Hawaii and NC18602 from Hawaii to New York. However, records indicate the only two B314s were in the Pacific when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. NC18602 was enroute to Auckland from Pearl. NC18611 was inbound to Pearl Harbor with about an hour of flight time remaining; it diverted to Hilo, Hawaii and returned to California after dark. An article in the Chicago Tribune placed two other clippers in the Pacific in December 1941, identifying them as the Hong Kong Clipper and the Philippine Clipper. The Hong Kong Clipper may have been a Sikorsky S-42 registered as NC16735; the Philippine Clipper may have been a Martin M-130 registered as NC14715.