Yes - the landing gear collapsed, and when the copter fell to one side (but not off the building) a rotor snapped and went flying into a nearby office building and killed someone. This was covered on the Discovery Wings channel - apparently landing on the Pan Am building roof was always a dangerous proposition because of winds.

The winds had something to do with it, but the cause was metal fatigue in the landing gear.

Sale of routes to UA was announced in early 1985, with actual transfer completed in Feb/March 1996. Hold up was the Japanese gov't, which wanted to extract some concessions in order to allow UA to be switched in for PA. Also, UA was required to give up its SEA-NRT route (it was flying this at the time). CO picked it up, then sold it to AA, which abandoned it 1+ years ago (the result of UA re-entering the market). The usual int'l craziness.

I found my Flag Traveller Program card (I think that was merged into Worldpass?) and it is embossed with number, name and address.
I also found a May 1986 Worldpass bulletin announcing a partnership with AAdvantage and giving me two stickers with an AAdvantage number beginning with HL. I have never used this number. They asked for $25 to "renew" my Worldpass for 1986.

You betcha, that's how I got my lifetime Crown Room membership. To the best of my knowledge, Delta has never offered a lifetime Crown Room membership, so this was the ONLY way to get one (other than being granted one by some high exec, I suppose).

Western Airlines pax also got lifetime comped by Delta if they had lifetime before. In the old days Flying Colonels had lifetime as well, but that was then abandoned.

There was however a cut-off at some point. I had a lifetime on Pan Am and it wasn't carried over. I didn't expect it to be. Many years later I learned on FT that this perk did exist and contacted Delta, they basically told me that the books on this were "closed" after five years and they no longer maintained the old records.

FT had something to do with the Ambassador club thing as AA monitored all the "chatter" about buying it and getting AA lifetime.

I had flown to SYD with my wife on Pan Am for a month-long vacation (those were the days) on Worldpass miles -- the condition of which was taking the IAD-LAX-HNL-AKL-SYD route, no non-stop LAX-SYD allowed. A day or two before our return - UA took over the routes. I called to reconfirm and asked if we could be changed to the SYD-LAX 747-SP flight previously not allowed. No problem. The aircraft sported a rapid paint job that covered the Pan Am meatball with a layer of white. (I have a pic somewhere). The interior was un-changed and serving items were from both PA and UA. The SP - an interesting aircraft, but that's another story.

Yeah, what ever happened to all those SP's? They must all be in the desert or in some very remote 3rd world market. My first flight back SYD-LAX was in first class on an SP in UAL livery. Incredibly bumpy the whole way back. Weird since that plane supposedly flew higher than the regular 747. That was one long 15 hour flight, especially with a bad case of sun poisoning that itched like heck the whole time.

That's 19,000 non expiring miles!

[This message has been edited by Kidz (edited 07-17-2003).]

Nostalgia Click Here and Enjoy

[This message has been edited by akhullar (edited 07-18-2003).]