The Pan Am Podcast

Send us Fan Mail We dedicate this episode to all the 583 victims of this tragedy.  They are remembered. To the family and friends of the victims...our sincerest condolences. Special Guest: Dorothy Kelly, a Pan Am Flight Attendant who survived the accident, tells her harrowing and heroic story of survival and helping those in need.  On March 27, 1977 at 5:06 PM local time on the island of Tenerife...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we explore the founding of Pan Am and the early years of the airline. Juan T. Trippe is widely known as the principle founder of Pan Am and rightly so. However, the early history of Pan Am is very complex and at times quite confusing with multiple people and mergers involved.  Then we are joined by George Hambleton, whose father John Hambleton was a co-founder of P...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we  explore the only division of Pan Am American World Airways that survived bankruptcy liquidation and emerged as an independent company called the Pan Am International Flight Academy headquartered in Miami, Florida.  Then we welcome back Pan Am Captains Paul LaCheppelle and John Marshall.  Captain Lachapelle is featured in Episode 6:  Hijackings and the Dawn of G...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we will be exploring another innovation of the early 1960s, Pan Am’s worldwide reservation and communications system called Panamac.  Then we are joined by Julia Cooke, the author of the best-selling book Come Fly the World which was recently nominated for the Goodreads Best Books 2021 Choice Awards. To purchase this book and support the museum, click here . ------...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to a special TWA Edition of The Pan Am Podcast! In this episode we are joined by Pam Blaschum, the director of the TWA Museum in Kansas City, Missouri. Then we are joined by Tyler Morse  of MCR Hotels who developed the former TWA Flight Center at JFK Airport in New York City into today’s TWA Hotel .  It is important to point out that Pan Am history is not complete without...

Send us Fan Mail We dedicate this episode to all the 270 victims of this tragedy.  They are remembered. To the family and friends of the victims...our sincerest condolences. Special Guests: John Reina, brother of victim Jocelyn Reina , with Pan Am veterans Linda Freire and Myron “Rosie” Rosenstein. Pan Am Flight 103 Memorial (Lockerbie Memorial Carin) Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virgin...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we commemorate the sad 30th Anniversary of Pan American World Airways ceasing operations on December 4, 1991.  To mark this special milestone, we are joined by Ed Trippe, the youngest son of Pan Am’s legendary founder Juan Trippe and his wife Betty Stettinius Trippe.  Ed is the founder and chairman of our sister organization, the Pan Am Historical Foundation .  In...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we explore the history of the Pan Am Building in New York City.  This 59-story skyscraper is located at 200 Park Avenue and shares a lot with the beaux-arts icon, and National Landmark, New York’s Grand Central Terminal. Later in the program we are joined by Richard Roth, Jr., the grandson of Emery Roth, a prolific New York City architect who designed many notable...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we will be exploring the history of the Pan Am WorldPort, and Unit Terminal Building (UTB), which was located at Terminal 3 within John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City.  Later we are joined by author Wendy Sue Knecht to discuss her book, Life, Love, and a Hijacking: My Pan Am Memoir . Wendy joined Pan Am in 1979, and was with the company until 19...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we are joined by a very special guest: Pan Am Captain Dave Bridges, Centenarian. He celebrated his 100th birthday earlier this year and he just might be one of the oldest people to ever be on a podcast! A 37-year Pan Am veteran, Captain Bridges joined the company in 1943 and retired in 1981. He began as a relief co-pilot on the Boeing 314 flying boat during World W...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we will be exploring the 1960s race for the first supersonic passenger aircraft between the United States, the Soviet Union, and a British-French partnership.  Then we are joined by Becky Sprecher, a Pan Am flight attendant and co-author with Paula Helfrich of “Flying: A Novel,”  a historical fiction book about Pan Am crews flying over the Pacific in the 1970s. To...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we explore the coordinated terrorist hijackings of four passenger airliners all bound for New York on the same day on September 6, 1970.  The events were a watershed moment and aviation would never be the same again.  The four planes involved were: a TWA Boeing 707,  a SwissAir DC-8, a El Al Boeing 707, and a Pan Am Boeing 747 named Clipper Fortune.  A fifth plane,...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we explore two of the subsidiaries of Pan Am:  the InterContinental Hotels Corporation and the Pan Am Guided Missiles Range Division.  Yep, you read that right, the airline company had its own hotel chain for about 30 years, and Pan Am did aerospace work for the U.S. government including the space program for almost 40 years. Why? Because the American government as...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we are joined by Allan Topping, a Pan Am employee who evacuated almost 500 people out of Saigon days before the city fell.  On April 24, 1975, at the conclusion of the Vietnam War, with time running out as Saigon was surrounded by North Vietnamese troops, a Pan Am 747 jumbo jet carried 463 American and South Vietnamese civilians to safety and freedom.  At the cente...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we explore Pan Am’s Boeing 314 Flying Boats. Then we are joined by Margaret O’Shaughnessy of our sister museum, the Foynes Flying Boat and Maritime Museum in Ireland. Check out their website: https://www.flyingboatmuseum.com/ Margaret will tell us all about her museum which has the only full scale replica in the world, of a Pan American Boeing 314 called the Yankee...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we explore the first presidential flight. Then we are joined by Pan Am Captain John Marshall to share memories of the very last flight of Pan Am.  The mission of the Pan Am Museum Foundation is “to educate, celebrate,and inspire present and future generations by preserving historical and diverse personal stories of Pan American World Airways.” Pan Am was a pioneer...

Send us Fan Mail Opened to the public in 2016 in Garden City, Long Island, New York (outside of NYC), the Pan Am Museum presents the Pan Am Podcast!  The Museum’s mission is “to educate, celebrate, and inspire present and future generations by preserving historical and diverse personal stories of Pan American World Airways.” In this inaugural episode, Museum Director and Board Chair Linda Freire i...