An Air France Lockheed Constellation crashes in the Azores, killing all 48 people on board.

Air France, stylised as AIRFRANCE, is the flag carrier of France, and is headquartered in Tremblay-en-France. The airline is a subsidiary of the Air France-KLM Group and is one of the founding members of the SkyTeam airline alliance. As of 2013, Air France served 29 destinations in France and operates worldwide scheduled passenger and cargo services to 201 destinations in 78 countries and also carried 46,803,000 passengers in 2019. The airline's global hub is at Charles de Gaulle Airport, with Orly Airport as the primary domestic hub. Air France's corporate headquarters, previously in Montparnasse, Paris, are located at the Roissypôle complex on the grounds of Charles de Gaulle Airport, north of Paris.

The Lockheed Constellation ("Connie") is a propeller-driven, four-engined airliner built by Lockheed Corporation starting in 1943. The Constellation series was the first civil airliner family to enter widespread use equipped with a pressurized cabin, enabling it to fly well above most bad weather, thus significantly improving the general safety and ease of commercial passenger air travel.

Air France Flight 009 was a scheduled international flight that crashed into a mountain while attempting to land at Santa Maria Airport, Azores, on 28 October 1949, on a stopover during a scheduled international passenger flight from Paris-Orly Airport to New York City. All 48 people on board were killed.