Pan Am Flight 7 memorial planned for Millbrae

Now Millbrae could get a memorial to both honor those who died and remember an event that helped shape safety standards for modern air travel.

“Many of those folks, the bodies were never found, including that of my father,” said Ken Fortenberry, who was 6 years old and attending school in San Mateo when the crash occurred. His father, William Fortenberry, was a copilot.

“They don’t have a place, they don’t have a burial site,” he said. “We really want to memorialize these folks.”

The Millbrae City Council this week voted to approve allowing a memorial to be constructed within the city, likely in Marina Vista Park, which is across Highway 101 from the airport. The memorial is to be paid for by the Pan Am Flight 7 Memorial Committee, which Fortenberry heads.

The design is to be determined, but could include a plaque or monument, according to the city. The memorial committee is currently fundraising, with $2,500 raised of an $11,000 goal, according to a GoFundMe page.

“It’s a very sad thing, but it’s a very lovely thing,” Councilmember Ann Schneider said in offering her support of the effort.

Pan Am Flight 7 left Nov. 8, 1957, as a round-the-world flight with first stop in Hawaii. The plane, a Boeing 377 Stratocruiser was, at the time, the largest and most luxurious aircraft available, Fortenberry said.

The last contact with the flight was made approximately five hours into the trip for a routine position report. The first search planes were sent out shortly after the captain failed to make a second position report an hour later.

The weeklong search that ensued included dozens of planes, ships and submarines, and was the largest search in the Pacific Ocean to that date. A Navy search plane would eventually spot bits of wreckage and the bodies nearly 1,000 miles from Honolulu, roughly 100 miles off the flight track.

Primary theories are that the plane suffered from poor maintenance, causing a major failure, or that it was a victim of sabotage or an in-flight fire. But a Civil Aeronautics Board investigation was inconclusive, citing lack of evidence. Most major components of the plane were never recovered.

“The crash was not solved,” Fortenberry said. “But the federal government realized there needed to be changes in aviation safety.”

He said the Federal Aviation Administration was formed the following year in large part due insufficient standards for aviation, highlighted by the crash.

As an investigative journalist, he has dedicated part of his life to uncovering more information about the incident. He’s authored multiple articles on the subject and a book that was published in 2020.

To donate to the memorial effort go to https://gofund.me/49454f95.

corey@smdailyjournal.com

(650) 344-5200, ext. 105