# List of previously missing aircraft

This is a list of previously missing aircraft that disappeared in flight for reasons that were initially never definitely determined. The status of "previously missing" is a grey area, as there is a lack of sourcing on both the amount of debris that needs to be recovered, as well as the amount of time it takes after the crash for the aircraft to be recovered while searching, to fit this definition. According to Annex 13 of the International Civil Aviation Organization, an aircraft is considered to be missing "when the official search has been terminated and the wreckage has not been located", but this does not go into defining found aircraft. The following entries are aircraft that gained widespread acclaim for once being missing.

## Legend

* Civilian flight (private, commercial and cargo)
* Military flight (patrol, training, transport, etc.)

## List of aircraft

| Date | Aircraft | People missing | Type of incident | Location | Remarks |
| March 23, 1921 | Hydrogen balloon (A-5597) | 5 | Unknown | Gulf of Mexico off St. Andrews Bay (Florida) | Balloon found (without crew) on April 8, 1921. |
| December 21, 1923 | Dixmude (Ex: Zeppelin LZ114) | 49 | Mid-air explosion following lightning strike (suspected) | Vicinity of Pantelleria, Italy en route from Gulf of Gabes | A total of 42 crew members and 7 passengers were initially reported missing by the French government, who issued its own series of reports of rumoured sightings of the airship. It wasn't until December 26, 1923, when debris & the body of Jean du Plessis de Grenédan (commander) were found in the sea near Sciacca, Sicily that the French government admitted to the loss. Information which included eyewitness accounts had been intentionally withheld for political reasons. |
| November 15, 1924 | Fokker T.III (Fokker 4146) | 2 (Artur de Sacadura Cabral & José Correia) | Crashed in fog (probable) | English Channel en route from Amsterdam to Lisbon | Aircraft debris (mechanical wreckage) from the seaplane was discovered on November 18, 1924. |
| September 7, 1927 | Old Glory (Fokker F.VIIA) | 3 | Overloading (probable) | North Atlantic 960km E of Cape Race, Newfoundland | Wreckage was discovered by SS Kyle on September 12, 1927. |
| March 21, 1931 | Avro 618 Ten (VH-UMF) | 8 | Severe weather | Snowy Mountains,Australia | 1931 Avro Ten Southern Cloud disappearance. Flight disappeared en route from Sydney to Melbourne, with 6 passengers and 2 crew on board, despite wide search, including Charles Kingsford Smith who himself would disappear in 1935, no trace was found, until October 26, 1958, when it was located in deep bushland in the Snowy Mountains. Severe weather conditions were blamed for the accident. |
| July 31, 1936 | Saro Cloud (G-ABXW) | 10 | Broke up at sea after landing following double engine failure | English Channel off Jersey | 1936 Jersey Air Disaster Wreckage found two weeks after the crash. |
| February 24, 1938 | Vickers Wellesley (Type 292) (K7734) | 3 | Unknown | North Sea (last reported 80km (50m) east of Wick, Scotland en route to Shetland) | The flight crew consisted of Flt. Lt. F.S. Gardner (pilot), F/O G.J.D. Thomson & Sgt. G. Higgs, Long Range Development Unit. Debris was later found near Stavanger (Norway), the Air Ministry concluded that they were parts of the aircraft that went down. |
| August 16, 1942 | L-8 | 2 | Crew fell from blimp (probable) | Pacific Ocean in vicinity of San Francisco | Two navy officers, Lieutenant Ernest D. Cody and Ensign Charles D. Adams were on a routine anti-submarine patrol. Their airship was later spotted drifting back inland where it crashed with nobody aboard. |
| August 29, 1943 | PV-1 Ventura | 6 | Engine failure, training flight in low-visibility conditions | Mount Baker, Washington State, USA | Wreckage found by a hiker in 1994 |
| July 31, 1944 | P-38 Lightning | 1 (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry) | Unknown | Mediterranean Sea Collecting data on German troop movements in southern France | Famous for writing The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince). His bracelet was found by a fisherman in September 1998. Aircraft wreckage found in October 2003 and confirmed on July 4, 2004. |
| December 17, 1946 | Douglas C-47 (NC88876) | 7 | Unknown | near Tilaran, Costa Rica | Non-scheduled flight from Kingston to San Jose. Wreckage found November 29, 1947. |
| August 2, 1947 | Avro Lancastrian | 11 | CFIT due to severe weather conditions | Mount Tupungato, in the Argentine Andes | 1947 BSAA Avro Lancastrian Star Dust accident Some wreckage found in 1998, additional wreckage found in 2000. |
| April 21, 1951 | Antonov An-2 | 4 | CFIT due to severe weather conditions and crew error | Aradan Ridge, Russia | Wreckage located in August 2009 and positively identified on June 9, 2019. |
| September 28, 1952 | Lisunov Li-2 | 7 | Severe weather, turbulence | Kuznetsk Alatau, Russia | Wreckage located by accident in 1967. |
| March 27, 1963 | Piper Tri-Pacer | 2 | Unknown | Dixie National Forest, Utah | On 27 March 1963, Wallace C. Halsey, founder of Christ Brotherhood (a UFO religious group) and his business associate Harry Cleveland Ross Jr. (a former mayor of Seal Beach, California) were flying a small Piper Tri-Pacer aircraft from Utah to Nevada. Ross, the pilot, was the operator of the Meadowlark Airport in Huntington Beach, California, and a veteran aviator with an airline transport rating. The plane was lost and remained so for 13 years despite an extensive air search and attempts by Halsey's UFO coreligionists to locate him using the aid of extraterrestrial beings who indicated the key to the mystery involved the Egyptian pyramids and the number 14. At the time, Halsey was facing federal charges and it was speculated by some that he had fled the country. The wreckage was discovered by a lost deer hunter in rugged mountainous country on 30 October 1976 approximately 30 air miles north of St. George, Utah, some 10–15 miles off the filed flight course. The bodies and wallets of both men were found inside the fuselage, which was crumpled but unburned. |
| April 23, 1966 | Ilyushin Il-14 (CCCP-61772) | 33 | Double engine failure | South of Baku | Aeroflot Flight 2723 Wreckage found by accident a few months later; cause of engine failures never determined. |
| February 7, 1968 | Antonov An-12 | 98 | Unknown | Dhaka Glacier | 1968 Indian Air Force An-12 crash Six bodies recovered from 2003 to 2018; wreckage found in 2018 and additional wreckage found in 2019. |
| May 23, 1969 | Lockheed C-130 Hercules | 1 (Sgt. Paul Meyer) | Theft | English Channel | 1969 theft of C-130 Some small parts found a few days after the crash; wreck rediscovered in 2018. |
| January 25, 1971 | Rockwell 1121 Jet Commander (N400CP) | 5 | Unknown | Over Lake Champlain, VT (presumed) en route from Burlington International Airport, VT to T. F. Green Airport, Providence, RI | Plane operated by Cousins Properties. Plane was found in May 2024. |
| October 13, 1972 | Fairchild FH-227 | 45 | CFIT due to pilot error | Remote Argentine Andes, near the border with Chile | Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, the "Miracle of the Andes". Military aircraft chartered for civilian passenger transportation. 16 survivors. |
| August 10, 1984 | Cessna O-1 Bird Dog (N4584A) | 2 | Low-altitude stall due to pilot error | Arapaho National Forest, Colorado (7 miles northeast of Tabernash) | Tabernash, Colorado § 1984 airplane crash. Wreckage was located by backpackers in August 1987, three years after the crash. Recovered videotape from the crash site showed that the pilot flew too close to the mountainous terrain, and stalled the plane while attempting to turn around. |
| September 3, 2007 | American Champion Super Decathlon | 1 | Flight into terrain probably after encountering downdrafts | Sierra Nevada (USA) | Extensive search found no trace of the aircraft (although eight unrelated but previously unidentified crash sites were spotted during the search). More than a year after the disappearance, a hiker found ID cards of the pilot. Two days later, the crash site was spotted near the card-find location. A month later, remains were found that DNA tests identified as the pilot. See Steve Fossett. |
| July 22, 2016 | Antonov An-32 (K2743) | 29 | Crashed at sea | Bay of Bengal | 2016 Indian Air Force An-32 crash Debris found January 12, 2024 140 nautical miles off the Chennai coast confirmed to be from the aircraft. |