Hughes Airwest Flight 706

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Hughes Airwest Flight 706 was a Hughes Airwest commercial flight that flew from Los Angeles, California, to Salt Lake City, Utah. Following a mid-air collision with a fighter jet, the flight crashed into the San Gabriel Mountains near Duarte, California, killing all 49 people aboard. On June 6, 1971, Flight 706, a McDonnell-Douglas DC-9-31, took off from Los Angeles International Airport at 6:02 PM PST. Its first stop was Salt Lake City, part of an itinerary that would take it to its ultimate destination of Seattle, Washington. Meanwhile, at 5:16 PM PST, another McDonnell-Douglas aircraft, an F-4B Phantom II jet fighter of squadron VMFA-323 of the United States Marine Corps, took off from Naval Air Station Fallon near Reno, Nevada. Its intended destination was its home base at Marine Corps Air Station El Toro near Irvine, California. At 6:11 PM PST, Flight 706 was climbing to its assigned altitude of 33,000 feet over the San Gabriel Mountains when the Phantom II collided with the DC-9 at 15,150 feet.