A Canadair CL-44 chartered by the United States military crashes into a small village in South Vietnam, killing 111.

The Canadair CL-44 was a Canadian turboprop airliner and cargo aircraft based on the Bristol Britannia that was developed and produced by Canadair in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Although innovative, only a small number of the aircraft were produced for the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), and for commercial operators worldwide.

The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. U.S. federal law names six armed forces: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and the Coast Guard. Since 1949, all of the armed forces, except the Coast Guard, have been permanently part of the United States Department of Defense. They form six of the eight uniformed services of the United States.

On December 24, 1966, a Flying Tiger Line Canadair CL-44 flying from Tachikawa Air Force Base in Japan to Da Nang Airport struck an obstacle, stalled, and crashed into Binh Thai village, killing all four crew members and 107 people on the ground. The flight was on a subcontract for the United States Air Force. This was the first fatal accident for the CL-44 and the deadliest as well.

South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam, was a country in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975. It first garnered international recognition in 1949 as the associated State of Vietnam within the French Union, with its capital at Saigon. Since 1950, it was a member of the Western Bloc during the Cold War. Following the 1954 partition of Vietnam, it became known as South Vietnam and was established as a republic in 1955. South Vietnam was bordered by North Vietnam to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and Thailand across the Gulf of Thailand to the southwest. Its sovereignty was recognized by the United States and 87 other nations, though it failed to gain admission into the United Nations as a result of a Soviet veto in 1957. It was succeeded by the Republic of South Vietnam in 1975. In 1976, the Republic of South Vietnam and North Vietnam merged to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.