Plane with 107 passengers vanished on 'secret mission' and hasn't been found for 64 years

A huge search operation is taking place after a Boeing 727 plane mysteriously vanished mid-flight. The aircraft took off from the coast of Pakistan but contact with air traffic control was suddenly lost on Tuesday.

The pilot’s chilling audio has since been revealed and his final transmission shows him warning that the plane was “rolling or floating” — the latter meaning a landing error.

And as we work to bring you updates on the troubling situation, below we look back at one of the greatest mysteries in aviation history that not many people have even heard of.

Flying Tiger Line Flight 739

It was March 16, 1962, when 93 US Army Rangers, 11 civilians and three Vietnamese citizens boarded Flying Tiger Line Flight 739.

They were on a secret mission ordered by President John F.Kennedy in what was the early days of the Vietnam War.

However, tragically, the 107 people on board never made it home, and there is still no sign that the aircraft even existed, after it vanished without a trace.

The US Military aircraft was destined for Saigon but along the 7,736-mile journey it disappeared over the Pacific. It had been heading for the Philippines from Guam as refuelling points had been planned out.

The Flying Tiger Line Flight was a Lockheed L-1048 Super Constellation plane and crew on a tanker reported seeing a vapour trail before an “immensely luminous” explosion.

This happened at the time when the Lockheed was due to be passing overhead.

Despite seeing the flash and two objects falling into the sea in the early hours, no wreckage was found, and it prompted one of the largest ever searches at that time.

Despite more than 200,000 square miles being covered, no bodies, oil slacks or debris from the craft has ever been found in the last 64 years.

As you can imagine, this has been heartbreaking for the families with missing loved ones, particularly because the details about the mission were never disclosed.

All we know is that it happened as America was increasing its involvement in South Vietnam and it was three years before they joined the ground war.

Unsurprisingly, there have been many theories since, from suggestions that the flight landed safely before everyone was captured, or that it was left in an area at Anderson Air Force Base in Guam.

Wreaths Across America reported that the men on board were to do a reconnaissance mission to survey Vietnam.

Some family members of specialist Donald A. Sargent have since spoken out — reporting that their loved one acted oddly before the flight.

He was 19 at the time and before embarking the aircraft he kept asking his sister for one final hug.

His niece, Jennifer Kirk, told the New York Post that it was “almost as if he knew he was never coming back”.

US Air Force member Anthony L. Wahl was destined to be on the doomed flight but he was asked to do another job just before it was due to take off.

He later described his colleagues as a “sombre group” who “were aware that they were flying into harm’s way, but that was their duty, and they were ready to go”.

Speaking about the heartbreaking impact the mystery had on those left behind, Amber Caron, of Wreaths Across America, told the Metro that the lack of answers was devastating.

She added: “Nothing was ever recovered, there was never a trace of the plane found. For the families, it was life-altering.

“Most of them assumed that their loved ones had been taken prisoner of war and that they would return.

“It was devastating, and they still have not had any closure after all these years. It has impacted all the families and the generations that have followed.”

She added that the wife of one of the men on board, now in her 80s, has refused to ever leave home, just in case her husband one day comes back to her.

Controversially, the names of the soldiers who died were never added to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. This was because the flight was regarded as a pre-combat transport mission.