Originally Posted by
Seat 2A
It would have been nice if that DC-9 (N85AS) had worn Horizon's attractive red and orange livery but it was a leased airplane that still bore the livery of its owner, All Star Airlines. It remains the oldest DC-9 I have ever flown upon, originally delivered to Air Canada as number 4 off the production line. After serving All Star, it was sold to Midwest Express as N500ME. It was later sold to East African Safari Air Express where - so far as I can tell - it still flies as 5Y-XXB to this day.
Ahhh.... good old (and I do mean the OLD) Midwest Express. An old friend of mine and myself used to use our NRSA passes to fly from DFW to MKE and back just to experience the service. Believe it or not.... one of the best steaks and the absolute BEST mashed potatos I ever had! That was one class-act airline! I miss them!
I used to have (and I do regret ever getting rid of it) a copy of a late-80s report of some sort from Midwest Express. It included the results of a customer feedback survey. Being the 80s, it still made reference of: "Less than XXX% of customers still have the crash in mind when they think of us."
Hard to believe the survey even mentioned the references to "the crash." But it was there. "X% of customers associate us with our inflight meals." "X% of our customers associate us with our seating configuration." "X% of customers associate our name with being based in Milwaukee." "X% of our customers associate our name with 'the crash.'"
That was, truly, one of the forgotten aircraft accidents..... 31 people killed in the crash of a YX DC-9 in September 1985. It was so overshadowed by the crash of a Delta L1011 in August of that year at DFW that killed 137 people, the crash of a Japan Air Lines 747 in August of that year that killed 520 people, the inflight bombing of an Air India 747 that killed 329 people and the epic hijacking of TWA flight 847 over several weeks that summer....In one of the deadliest years of commecial aviaion, many people forget Midwest Express flight 105.