Free Republic

Delta is set to fly the last scheduled U.S. commercial McDonnell Douglas DC-9 flight on Monday, January 6. Appropriately tagged as Delta flight 2014, the final flight will depart Minneapolis/St. Paul for Atlanta just before sunset, marking the end to a 48 year career of flying scheduled commercial flights in the United States.

MILWAUKEE - An aircraft reportedly heading to Russia was forced to land in Milwaukee after being reported stolen. The aircraft remains grounded at Mitchell International Airport after a federal injunction. The DC-9 aircraft left Fort Worth,Texas, Saturday morning. It was heading to Russia with a stopover in Newfoundland, Canada when military aircraft had to escort it to the ground Saturday around 1 p.m. The plane was reported stolen by Peter Delisa of New Jersey, reportedly in the process of selling the plane to a company out of Russia called Siviera. Delisa claims the plane was taken before the sale was...

The collision of two NWA planes last year at Minneapolis/St. Paul International is still under investigation so NWA and the NTSB wouldn't comment for this story. In fact, investigators didn't want us to get our hands on the tape until now. Experts who have viewed the tape wonder why the planes didn't explode on impact. May 10, 2005, an airport security camera is rolling as Northwest flight 1849 pushes back from the gate. Onboard 38 passengers, five crew members and thousands of gallons of fuel for the flight to San Antonio. At the same time, another Northwest plane is just...

The final Boeing 717 was rolled out of the former Douglas Aircraft production site at Long Beach, California just before dawn today in preparation for the start of flight tests and delivery to AirTran Airways in May (pictured below). The last aircraft officially marks the end of commercial aircraft manufacturing on the site and emerged from the now empty Building 80 assembly line that over the past 48 years has produced 976 DC-9s, 1,191 MD-80s and 115 MD-90s. A further 556 DC-8s, 446 DC-10/KC-10s and 200 MD-11s were also produced in the adjacent Building 84. The final 717 is the...