The Douglas Dakota or DC-3
"A vice-free aeroplane".
The DC-3 was the aircraft my Father was flying from Bihar in India before the war's end, and then Kai Tak, Hong Kong immediately after the Japanese surrender.
To my great delight, my father took part in the Kai Tak Mutiny, when RAF pilots were informed that they're service had been extended for one year in order to ferry people around the Far East. More or less the whole of the RAF side of Kai Tak mutinied. He and his fellow pilots weren't putting up with that, and I remember him telling me that an Army Brigadier came along to dress them down and get them back to work - they ignored him - then an RAF Group Captain came along and gave them "An RAF Bollocking", which worked a lot better.
He told me that when his flight landed at Kai Tak after the Japanese surrender, they were ordered to take off again almost immediately for Hainan, due to an imminent typhoon. a Warrant Officer Black, who was piloting another of the DC3's, took off and flew straight into the side of the Peak on Hong Kong Island. No-one ever worked out what had gone wrong. He also said that two Sunderland flying boats had been wrecked.
However, I have since learnt, (thanks to Carl Modder), that time must have played tricks with his memory, because the typhoon and the crash were unrelated. The aircraft in question was flown by W/O Christie, with W/O Blackmore as co-pilot.
The 5 crew members were W/O A.Christie, Commander; W/O R.N. Blackmore, co-pilot (not Black); F/Sgt. J.W. Holden, navigator; F/Sgt R.S. Bond, Wireless Operator; and F/Sgt. J.K. Hazeldean, the stand-by pilot. Of the 14 passengers five were for Saigon with the rest going to Singapore. There were a few high-ranking officers proceeding to Singapore for the War Crimes Trials of Japanese POWs.
The Colony's paper had a field day: "Nineteen die in Hong Kong's worst air disaster". This was the headline of the China Mail of Thursday Sept 26.