Braniff International Airlines

06-Aug-18 Airlines, 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

Remembering Bill Schock on his 100th birthday … and the 52nd anniversary of Braniff 250 in Falls City. Also …

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25-Jun-18 Bill Schock, Braniff Flight 250, Braniff International Airlines, Deadly Turbulence, Falls City, Grief, History, Loss, Meaningful Labor, Nebraska, Pioneers, Professionalism, Quotable, Reciprocal Affection, Touchy Feely, Up in the Air, Weather

For Bill

Back in 2014, I included a chapter in my book detailing Bill Schock’s war experiences as they related to his reporting on the crash of Braniff International flight 250 in 1966.

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25-Jun-18 Braniff 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”

«This is Bill’s final column» out of countless ones he wrote over 71 years for the Falls City Journal. With

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25-Jun-18 Braniff 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

This is kind of like how I feel about my (possibly four) upcoming surgeries: I don’t want to do this,

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03-Jan-18 Airlines, 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

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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28-Aug-16 Braniff Flight 250, Deadly Turbulence