Originally Posted by
EyeKantEven
Oh, comon! Yes, everyone knows about this crash, but who can immediately make the connection from the Captain's name alone?
Kids these days be like "Yeah -- in the 1970's two 747's crashed somewhere and killed a lot of people". The last pilot I asked if he heard of "Jacob van Zanten" said "Oh, that clothing designer?"
I appreciate the smackdown, because my comment unintentionally conveyed a bit of cockiness. But I'm a bit sensitive -- now I'm gonna take it out on my FO for the rest of the month.
...like we really need YOUR sarcasm!
Now 'scuse me whilst I don my double-breasted Van Zanten jacket and duty-in for my 4-day...
No clue what the Captain's name was. But my dad flew with the Pan Am FO afterwards and got to hear the story first hand. He, or the FE, realized the KLM flight was on the runway coming towards them. PAA Captain pushed the throttles up to try and turn off the runway. Collision. FO reached up to pull the fire handles and they were gone....the roof was missing. My recollection of the story is that's when the FO realized what had happened. He turned around and could see all the way back to the tail. That had to be a weird moment.