Free Republic

December 17, 1973: Five terrorists pulled weapons from their luggage in the terminal lounge at the Rome airport, killing two persons. They then attacked a Pan American 707 bound for Beirut and Tehran, destroying it with incendiary grenades and killing 29 persons, including 4 senior Moroccan officials and 14 American employees of ARAMCO. They then herded 5 Italian hostages into a Lufthansa airliner and killed an Italian customs agent as he tried to escape, after which they forced the pilot to fly to Beirut. After Lebanese authorities refused to let the plane land, it landed in Athens, where the terrorists...

The Lockerbie bombing suspect was taken into custody on Sunday. "The United States has taken custody of alleged Pan Am flight 103 bombmaker Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi," a Department of Justice spokesperson confirmed to Fox News. "He is expected to make his initial appearance in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Additional details, including information regarding public access to the initial appearance, will be forthcoming."

A Libyan man accused of being involved in making the bomb that destroyed Pan Am flight 103 over the town of Lockerbie in December 1988 is now in US custody, authorities in the United States and Scotland said Sunday. The US charged Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi for his alleged involvement in the bombing two years ago, a spokesman for the UK Crown Office and Prosecutor Fiscal Service told CNN. The attack killed 270 people as the bomb detonated over the Scottish town as it flew from London to New York.

An aviation era has come to an end as Boeing's last 747 has taxied out of the Everett, Washington factory, punctuating the jumbo jet's 54-year production run. The final craft, a 747-8 freighter, will be delivered to airplane-cargo biz Atlas Air after final tests in early 2023, Boeing revealed. While the 1,574th 747 will be the last one assembled, the familiar bulbous silhouette is hardly going to disappear from the skies overnight, according to Boeing VP and GM for the 747 and 767 programs, Kim Smith. "We are proud that this plane will continue to fly across the globe for...

“What’s up Gene?!” Asked Rod Brown the plane’s Second Officer, who’d been close enough to witness the radioman’s reaction and now moved to his side. “The Japs have attacked Pearl Harbour!” “You’ve got to be kidding.” “No! No!” Leach insisted, “Just now… they bombed Pearl Harbour! No joke man!” Seeing the expression of horror on Leach’s face soon dispelled any doubt in Brown’s mind. And then the reality of what this meant hit him: if the Pacific was no longer a friendly sea then they were cut off. They had no route home. Brown headed towards the cockpit to warn...

ON THIS DAY IN 1986, FLIGHT ATTENDANT NEERJA BHANOT DIED SAVING THE LIVES OF PASSENGERS ON PAN AM FLIGHT # 73: She was just two days short of her 22nd birthday. Flight #73 originated in Mumbai and was ultimately bound for New York. It was initially carrying 394 passengers, 9 infants, 19 Indian flight attendants and an American pilot and co-pilot. During a stopover in Karachi, four heavily-armed hijackers—part of the Abu Nidal Organization–stormed the plane. Alerted to the hijacking, the pilot and co-pilot escaped from the cockpit via the Inertial Reel Escape Device, thus leaving the aircraft immobilized on...

Just as the flying boat seemed about to hit the gorges he gave one final, desperate, heave on the yoke and she finally broke a few inches free from the water. The California Clipper flew forward over the rim of the gorge. Without the benefit of the ground effect that had allowed her to break free of the surface, she immediately plunged down into the rocky defile below, curving out just above the water once again. The plane was now racing along just a few feet above the water through the narrow rock walls of the Congo valley. With her...

A documentary on the history of the great flying boats in the early years of passenger air travel including the famed Pan Am Clippers.

In 1964, Austrian journalist Gerhard Pistor walked into a Vienna travel agency with a simple proposition. He’d like to fly to the moon, and if possible, he’d like to fly there on Pan Am. The travel agency, presumably dumbfounded by this request, decided to simply to its job and make the ask: It forwarded the impossible request to the airline, the legend goes, where it attracted the attention of Juan Trippe, the notoriously brash and publicity-thirsty CEO of Pan American World Airways, the world’s most popular airline. Trippe saw a golden opportunity, and the bizarre request gave birth to a...

<p>BUFFALO, N.Y. >> A Jordanian-born Palestinian who was imprisoned in the United States for putting a bomb on a Hawaii-bound flight in 1982 has been relocated to the West African country of Mauritania.</p> <p>Mohammed Rashed’s attorney said Monday that Rashed, who had been held in federal detention outside Buffalo, was removed from the United States earlier this month.</p>

On September 5, 1986, Neerja was just two days away from her 23rd birthday. She was working her first flight as head purser on Pan Am Flight 73 when it was hijacked on the ground in Pakistan by four armed men. It was thanks to Neerja's lightning-quick thinking that the cockpit was warned and the pilots were able to escape — as is protocol — leaving the hijackers with no way to fly the plane. She also hid the passports of 41 American passengers so that the hijackers could not target them as intended; hiding some under seats and throwing...

During Tuesday night’s Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton ... obscures a largely forgotten moment in U.S. diplomacy: a period less than two years earlier when she and the Obama administration were actively cozying up to the “murderous” Gadhafi. “I am very pleased to welcome Minister Gadhafi here to the State Department,” she said, warmly greeting Mutassim Gadhafi, the Libyan dictator’s son and national security adviser, at the State Department in April, 2009. “We deeply value the relationship between the United States and Libya.” To be sure, the rapprochement with Gadhafi began under President George W. Bush in 2003 when the Libyan...

National security officials have been notified that an underground tunnel was discovered near a venue for this summer's Pan Am Games in Toronto, CBC News has learned. The tunnel was dug in the woods near Toronto's Rexall Centre and York University's Keele campus. It was large enough for a person to stand in, at around 2½ metres in height, and was about seven metres long. The tunnel had lights inside, powered by a generator, and the walls and ceiling were reinforced. Sources told CBC News that the tunnel was filled in by authorities.

Late 1960s: Economy Class Seating on a Pan-Am 747 The 1960's were barely done when Pan Am again set a standard the rest of the world was forced to follow. Pan American's Boeing B-747 Jumbo Jets brought down the cost of long distance air travel once again. Source: Pan Am Historical Foundation

The Lockerbie bombing was ordered by Iran and carried out by a Syrian-based terrorist group, a former Iranian intelligence officer has admitted. Abolghassem Mesbahi, a defector to Germany, said Pan Am flight 103 was downed in 1988 in retaliation for a US Navy strike on an Iranian commercial jet six months earlier, in which 290 people died. He claims the Ayatollah Khomeini, who was Iran’s Supreme Leader, ordered the bombing “to copy exactly what happened to the Iranian Airbus”. …

In the early 1970s, the most trusted man in America did a very untrustworthy thing. Unbeknownst to the millions who tuned in religiously to the CBS Evening News, Walter Cronkite cut a deal with Pan Am to fly his family to vacation spots around the world. Together with a handful of friends, they roamed from the South Pacific to Haiti, with Cronkite snorkeling, swimming, and drinking, thanks to a friend at the airline. According to Douglas Brinkley’s sweeping and masterful biography Cronkite, the news division president, Dick Salant, was upset at what he deemed a blatant conflict of interest, but...

TRIPOLI, Libya – The former Libyan intelligence officer Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, who was convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, has died in Libya, his brother told AFP on Sunday. "He died an hour ago," Abdelhakim al-Megrahi said, putting the time of death at shortly after 1:00pm local time. The UK Foreign Office could not confirm the report Sunday, however it said it was "seeking further information." Megrahi, 60, was convicted in a Scottish court in 2001 for his role in the December 1998 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. Most of those killed in the bombing of the Boeing 747...

Downing Street has admitted that it is powerless to force the return of the Lockerbie bomber to Britain almost two years after the Libyan was released from a Scottish prison on compassionate grounds. David Cameron's official spokesman said that there was "no mechanism" to return Abdelbaset al-Megrahi to Britain even if he was captured by Libyan rebels or American special forces. The admission came amid some speculation that the bomber may be seized and passed to Nato forces during the ongoing conflict in Libya. This weekend marks the second anniversary of the release of Megrahi who was freed from prison...

The Obama administration may seek the prosecution of Muammar Qaddafi for the 1988 Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, following claims of some ex-Libyan officials that the embattled dictator personally ordered the airline attack that killed 270 people. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Congress this week that she has asked the FBI and Justice Department to look into the matter in response to lawmakers' requests. "I think justice must be served," she told a Senate legislative committee Wednesday.