Flying Tiger Line Flight 45 was a regularly scheduled cargo flight by Flying Tiger Line from Los Angeles to Da Nang Air Base in South Vietnam, with intermediate stops at San Francisco, Seattle, Cold Bay, Tokyo, Naha, Hong Kong, and Cam Ranh.

It had logged 6047.2 airframe hours and was powered by four Pratt & Whitney JT3D-7 engines, each generating about 19000 pounds of thrust.

The aircraft and crew stayed over at Tokyo for the night before taking off on 9:29AM for Naha Air Base.

[1] Flying Tiger Line Flight 45 flew from Tokyo to Naha using IFR, and crashed on final approach just as it had passed a low level raincloud.

[1][6] The investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board concludes that the aircraft encountered a tropical storm while on approach with visibility not reaching 1 mile, only for visibility to increase by 10 to a 100 times once the clouds cleared, blinding the piloting crews and making the approach difficult.