Category: Airlines

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Squeezed to Death
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19-Sep-1825-Feb-26Airlines, Aviation Safety, History, Hubris, New York, New York City, New York Times, News Media, Quotable, Rants, Society, The Nation, Travel, Up in the Air

Squeezed to Death

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"On every airline flight, a crew member talks to passengers in the exit rows to see whether they can, as Federal Aviation Administration regulations specify, “pass expeditiously through the emergency exit” if needed. Given how passengers have grown in inverse proportion to the spaciousness of airliner seats, anything like “expeditious” evacuation of an entire airliner seems doubtful."

Remembering the Past
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06-Aug-1825-Feb-26Airlines, Bill Schock, Braniff Flight 250, Braniff International Airlines, Deadly Turbulence, Falls City, Grief, History, Hope for the Future, Loss, Memories, Nebraska, Touchy Feely, Up in the Air, Work

Remembering the Past

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Remembering Bill Schock on his 100th birthday … and the 52nd anniversary of Braniff 250 in Falls City. Also … feeling old from … time flying and stuff. Since the AM2431 crash in Durango a few days ago appears to be from weather-related causes, never forgetting the lessons of BN250, as well as CO426, OZ809,...

Photo of Bill Schock
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25-Jun-1825-Feb-26Braniff Flight 250, Deadly Turbulence, Falls City, Grief, History, Loss, Meaningful Labor, Memories, Mound City, Nebraska, News Media, Pioneers, Professionalism, Quotable, Reciprocal Affection, Rulo, Touchy Feely, United States, Up in the Air

A Final “Hangin’ Out the Warsh”

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«This is Bill’s final column» out of countless ones he wrote over 71 years for the Falls City Journal. With this column, he said farewell; the Journal has been sold and moved to a much smaller space in downtown Falls City which it had occupied until 1950. It’s all extremely symbolic of the state of...

B-17 bomber in blue sky background
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25-Jun-1825-Feb-26Braniff Flight 250, Deadly Turbulence, Falls City, Grief, History, Loss, Mound City, Nebraska, Pioneers, Professionalism, Reciprocal Affection, Rulo, Society, United States, Up in the Air

More Grief

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This is kind of like how I feel about my (possibly four) upcoming surgeries: I don’t want to do this, but I have to, and I hate it. Received a kind e-mail yesterday telling me of the death of Bill Schock of Falls City, NE, on Thursday evening, six weeks short of his 100th birthday....

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14-May-1825-Feb-26British Airways, Video

BA223 Arrives

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Welcome to KBNA, 787-8 BA223, arriving on 20R after an 8 hour, 56 minute flight from LHR. British Airways began five-times-a-week, nonstop service between London Heathrow and Nashville International last week and I’ve been trying to get the beautiful Dreamliner on film all week and the stars aligned today. Not great lighting, but I got...

Image of a plane crashing
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03-Jan-1825-Feb-26Airlines, Aviation Safety, Boston Globe, Braniff Flight 250, Braniff International Airlines, History, Hubris, Meaningful Labor, Memories, New York, New York City, Pan American World Airways, Politics, Professionalism, Random Shots, Society, The Nation, Travel, Trump Shuttle, United States, Washington Post

Shuttling Between Failures

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The story is sordid and long, but the details were made clear by Matt Viser's excellent Globe piece. To wit: Lorenzo sold the Donald the Eastern Shuttle for an overvalued $365 million (if DT had created a brand-new shuttle from the ground up with brand-new planes, not old worn-out 727s, estimates were that he could have done it for $300 million.) Of course, the money was all borrowed. It was 1989; Eastern (and Continental) were already almost dead from Lorenzo's sledgehammer and the economy was tanking. Pan Am 103 was bombed, the first Gulf War was about to begin. It was incredibly bad judgement to overpay a bunch of other peoples' money for something that was guaranteed to tank.

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30-Mar-1625-Feb-26Goose, North Central Airlines

In Flight

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We figured out how #TheGoose got his name: On the left is the white marking on his back near his tail. And on the right,… Posted by Steve Pollock on Tuesday, March 29, 2016