At 8:35 p.m. on May 22, 1962, Continental Airlines Flight 11 — a Boeing 707 registered N70775 — departed O'Hare International Airport in Chicago for Kansas City, Missouri, carrying 37 passengers and 8 crew.
At approximately 9:17 p.m., an explosion ripped through the right rear lavatory. The blast severed the aircraft's tail section, sending the rear fuselage and engines detaching from the main body. The aircraft pitched nose-down in uncontrolled gyrations and struck an alfalfa field near Unionville, Putnam County, Missouri, at approximately 9:22 p.m. All 45 people aboard were killed — 44 dead at the scene, one who survived briefly died of internal injuries at Saint Joseph Mercy Hospital in Centerville, Iowa, about ninety minutes later.
The perpetrator was Thomas G. Doty, a 34-year-old Kansas City man who had purchased more than $300,000 in life insurance — including policies bought at the airport just before boarding — to provide for his wife and five-year-old daughter. He brought six sticks of dynamite aboard in his briefcase, entered the lavatory, and ignited the device. The scheme was intended to appear as a genuine accident, with his family collecting the insurance payout.
