Jetrader - May/June 2008 - 29

told us we could use the chief pilot’s Texaco card, which was agreeable to the fuel manager. The problem was that the pilot was in his apartment downtown. I told Connie Cultrano, whom I had sent out directly from JFK, to get the pilot’s card, so he grabbed a bicycle leaning against a wall, and went pedaling off to ground transport for a car and chauffer. He was back in under an hour. The fuel for London was pumped in, and the Pan Am inspection crew climbed on board. The two FAA inspectors standing there asked Fred if they could ride along; he said no, it was a freighter, and the 13 passenger seats were needed for the Pan Am staff. As the aircraft taxied out, Fred got the satisfaction of seeing them standing forlornly on the empty ramp. It was some years later when he bumped into them again in Singapore. Leaving Town The Pan Am Damascus manager got me a ticket on a ﬂight the next morning to Rome and the Pan Am connection back home. I remember seeing columns of smoke rising from the direction of Baalbeck as we climbed out from Beirut—artillery practicing on a village. Shortly after, I went over to Will Brown’s ofﬁce to see how the ﬂight had gone. He told me the aircraft ﬂew beautifully hands off with no trim required. The Boeing repair team had to be credited with a Connie Cultrano (R) and Bill Bath, standing in front of the Jolly Green Giant shortly before departing Beirut under less than hospitable conditions. Photo courtesy of Bill Bath mba mba | morten beyer & agnew washington frankfurt tokyo new york Corporate & Commercial Airline Audits Asset Management Valuations aircraft remarketing mba offers the most complete coverage of consulting services for Asset Investors. Our staff is global and certified by ISTAT and IATA, ensuring the highest standards of capability for each of our clients. For further details about any of our programs, please contact us at mba@mba.aero Audit Organization www.mba.aero/VALUATIONS.html tel: +1.703.276.3200 fax:+1.703.276.3201 © 2008 mba all rights reserved 382439_morten.indd 1 5/8/08 6:55:29 PM Jetrader 29 Photo by Bill Bath great job. TMA had overshot the runway at Athens some years earlier, and the aircraft ended up in that notorious sunken roadway just past the end with a broken back near the empennage. Boeing hauled out the aircraft, removed the last fuselage section, and replaced it with a new one and empennage from the factory. Will chuckled how they ﬂew at maximum cruise power to beat the curfew by a few minutes. On the approach, he had called the tower “Pan Am heavy [ﬂight number] on ﬁnals.” As the large green jet came into view, the controller radioed, “What the hell is that?” aviation history

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Jetrader - May/June 2008

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