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🗓️ 4 December 2023
⏱️ 20 minutes
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December 4, 1991. After 64 years dominating the skies, a series of poor financial decisions forces Pan American Airways to shut down.
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0:00.0 | There are more ways than ever to listen to History Daily ad free. |
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0:06.0 | Or you can get all of History Daily, plus other fantastic history podcasts at |
0:10.5 | Into History.com. It's May 12th, 1992 on the Tarmac at JFK International Airport, a group of people |
0:28.0 | gathered beside an aircraft that has become synonymous with luxury air travel, the Boeing 747. Stamped on the side of the fuselage |
0:36.3 | and huge blue letters is Pan Am, the name of the company that made this airplane |
0:40.8 | model famous and this plane in particular is noteworthy. |
0:44.8 | It's the company's first 747, the Clipper Juan T Trip, so named after the man who modernized |
0:51.2 | Pan Am back in the 1920s. Workers wander in and out of the cabin |
0:56.2 | making all the necessary checks before taking off for Southern California. On the ground, |
1:01.4 | a mix of reporters, photographers, and Panam employees, Mill about, talking to each other with a mix of reverence and sadness. |
1:09.0 | But as the jet's engines roar to life, nobody boards the plane. |
1:13.5 | Today's trip is a special one. |
1:15.5 | It's going to be the last ever Pan Am flight. |
1:19.0 | The journey the Clipper Juan T. |
1:20.7 | Trip is about to take is more of a symbolic gesture than anything else. |
1:25.0 | Pan Am officially grounded all its passenger flights a few months ago. |
1:29.1 | Decades of poor financial decisions had left the once great airlines struggling to get out of debt. |
1:34.8 | Eventually pulling the plug was the only option left. |
1:38.2 | But the decision to shut down Pan Am Airlines came as a huge disappointment to many Americans, including the countless employees of the airline. |
1:46.0 | For decades, Pan Am was the defining international airline in the United States, but today that air ends. |
1:54.0 | The Wann T trip ambles its way down the runway, flanked by fire trucks shooting water |
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