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echo: aviation
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from: JIM SANDERS
date: 1998-03-18 21:47:00
subject: News-096

                 First 'Air Force One' To Be Retired
                        By Jamie McIntyre/CNN
      ANDREW AIR FORCE BASE, Md. March 18 -- The first jet to be des-
 ignated "Air Force One" is being retired later this year, heading
 for a museum at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.
     The Air Force Boeing 707 with tail number 26000 has a storied
 past. It was state-of-the-art when it became President John F.
 Kennedy's plane in 1962.
     Over the span of three and a half decades it served seven pres-
 idents, but it is most remembered for the somber last flight it gave
 its first chief, in November 1963.
     "This is the airplane that flew President Kennedy to Texas and
 flew his body back to Washington ... after the body being placed
 aboard, President Johnson was sworn in as president of the United
 States," remembers Joe Chappell, retired Chief Master Sergeant.
     Explaining that the plane's bulkhead was easily removed,
 Chappell said, "The crew didn't want President Kennedy's casket to
 travel in the cargo hold, so they made room for it in the passenger
 compartment. We removed the seats, two rows of seats ..."
     The historic aircraft, only called Air Force One when the pres-
 ident is on board, took Kennedy to Berlin in 1963, Secretary of State
 Henry Kissinger to Paris in 1970 for secret talks with the North
 Vietnamese and President Richard Nixon to China in 1972.
     This year, in what could have been its last duty as Air Force
 One, it rescued President Bill Clinton when his jumbo jet got stuck
 in the mud in Illinois.
*   And it even took celebrated ex-White House intern Monica Lewinsky
 to Europe on her last trip with Defense Secretary William Cohen.   *
     The venerable aircraft has logged more han 13,000 flying hours,
 and million of miles carrying not just presidents, but cabinet sec-
 retaries, congressional delegations and heads of state.
    In 1981 it carried former Presidents Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy
 Carter to the funeral for Egypt's Anwar Sadat. But the prime state-
 room was commandeered by Secretary of State Al Haig, because he was
 the official representive of President Ronald Reagan.
     Retired Chief Master Sergeant Stan Goodwin was radio operator on
 that memorable flight. "It was one and only time that I'd seen three
 president and two secretaries of state standing in line to go to the
 men's room," Goodwin recalled.
     What do folks like to do when they are on Air Force One?  Why,
 use the phone to call friends and brag, like the time unsuccessful
 presidential candidate Humbert Humphrey was given a lift by President
 Nixon.
     "He came on board. The president allowed him to sit in the pres-
 ident's seat, and he made 150 telephone calls between Minnesota and
 Washington, D.C., to tell people he finally made it on Air Force
 One, and he finally made it to the president's chair," Goodwin said.
     Next May this workhorse of the presidential fleet will make it
 last flight, to the Air Force museum in Ohio, where it take its
 well-earned place in aviation history.
     Goodwin said, "We made a lot of progress and have done a lot of
 good ... but there are sad memories bestowed on this airplane; hope-
 fully we will not have that happen in the future."
 -------------------------------------------------------------------
    American Airlines offers a new option for weekly NetSAAver inter-
 net discount fares. Purchase roundtrip travel to select destinations
 for $39 plus 6,000 to 13,000 AAdvantage miles. Call (800) 882-8880.
     (It may make more sense to just pay the fare: calculate the real
 cost of these fares by multiplying the miles required times two cents
 and adding the $39.)
 Source: Best Fares Magazine (www.bestfares.com) MARCH 18, 19:50 EST
 --------------------------------------------------------------------
                   Airport Concourse Evacuated
     CLEVELAND -- A passenger terminal at Cleveland's largest airport
 was evacutated Wednesday after a man rushed through a security
 checkpoint and disappeared.
     About 1,500 people were escorted from a concourse at Cleveland
 Hopkins International Airport while police and dogs trained to sniff
 out bombs conducted a search. Passengers from about 20 planes wait-
 ing to take off were also evacuated as a precaution.
     Passengers were permitted to return two hours later and about a
 dozen planes were delayed for up to 1 1/2 hours as a result of the
 scare.
    The man went through the exit instead of the screening checkpoint
 at Concourse C, said Latisha James, program coordinator for the
 Department of Port Control, which oversees the city's airports.
     After security personnel were unable to locate him, authorities
 cleared the concourse as a precaution.
     "They didn't find anything," James said. "They think maybe it
 was just someone in a hurry to catch a plane."
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