China Clipper (NC14716) was the first of three Martin M-130 four-engine flying boats built for Pan American Airways and was used to inaugurate the first commercial transpacific airmail service from San Francisco to Manila on November 22, 1935.

[4] The inauguration of ocean airmail service and commercial air flight across the Pacific was a significant event for both California and the world.

[7] The clippers were, for all practical purposes, luxury flying hotels, with sleeping accommodation, dining rooms and leisure facilities in addition to the usual aircraft seating.

In San Francisco the celebrations for the inaugural trans-Pacific airmail flight included fireworks, while a band played a Sousa march.

Eleven days prior, Musick had flown the China Clipper from the Glenn L. Martin factory in Middle River, Maryland to California for the inaugural event.

Musick's sailing orders were publicly delivered by his boss, Juan Trippe, while the entire event was broadcast by CBS and NBC radio and also transmitted on seven foreign networks.

[10] The relatively short range of the aircraft meant that hotel, catering, docking, repair, road and radio facilities had to be put in place at the intermediate stops along the route, particularly on the virtually uninhabited islands of Wake and Midway.

[11] The China Clipper was the first commercial aircraft to establish a regular airmail route from the United States across the Pacific Ocean.

Prior to the clipper’s departure, the post office, which anticipated only a third of the final total volume, continued to bring in more plane loads of mail from across the country.

Flight 161 had started at Miami bound for Leopoldville in the Belgian Congo, making its first stop to refuel at Puerto Rico before flying on to Port-of-Spain.

[18] On April 24, 1946, the Civil Aeronautics Board released its accident investigation report with the following findings "upon the basis of all available evidence": Both the United States and Philippine Islands issued stamps for air mail carried on the first flights in each direction of PAA's Transpacific China Clipper service between San Francisco and Manila (November 22 – December 6, 1935) First National Pictures released the movie China Clipper in 1936.

[citation needed] The China Clipper is also a significant setting in the contemporaneous radio serial Speed Gibson of the International Secret Police (1937–1939).

The flying boats and Treasure Island, San Francisco were featured by Huell Howser in California's Gold Episode 906.