Show Notes
From the French word saboter, sabotage refers to the act of bungling, botching or wrecking something, particularly for political or military aims. It is derived from the French word for a wooden shoe, a sabot and likely refers to clumsy work carried out by those peasants who clattered about in such simple footwear. The world of aviation escaped known acts of sabotage until 1933 when a sleek and streamlined Boeing 247 of United Air Lines Flight 23 taxied to the departure gate at Newark Airport to allow it’s passengers to embark. At a time when most airlines were flying flimsy wood and cloth biplanes that looked like old World War One bombers, and indeed many were, Boeing were ahead of the game.
The Boeing 247
An early 247 with the forward sloping windshield flying for the Royal Air Force
Passengers embarking on a United 247 NC13345 which later crashed into a hill in dense fog and burned.
J Edgar Hoover’s letter closing down the sabotage investigation
Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Boeing, the SDASM, the RAF, United Airlines, the Library of Congress, the Chicago Tribune and the FBI.
More from Plane Tales
With the influx of new Airbus airframes, Virgin needed more pilots and not just to occupy the right hand seat… there were opportunities for promotion to Captain much earlier than had been the norm. When I joined the time to command was about 8 years. Looking back I did my first sector with Virgin in July 1994 and it was now November 96, 2 years 4 months later and I was already starting my pre-command training.
We last spoke to Basam when he was doing his Jet Upset Training but now that he has his dream job it was appropriate that we should chat again on one of his London layovers. In particular, he is flying around a war zone which presents additional challenges to a civil airline pilot.
A flock of seagulls had chosen that moment to break ground from the grass beside the runway and fly across our path. They disappeared under the nose as we climbed away and cleaned the aircraft up… no noise of an impact but then we noticed the No 2 engine’s N1 vibration number was pulsing and reading a bit high. So starts another Tale from my flying logbook.
The next tale from my RAF Logbook, albeit now being filled with civilian flights for Virgin Atlantic Airways…