Latest news with #TransWorldAirlines
Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Times
Enjoyed the holiday? Now buy the swanky vintage poster
If Jeremy Sacher tires of looking at a verdant Queen's Park through the windows of his west London home, he needs only to step into his kitchen to find a view of New York's Times Square or an Imperial Airways flying boat heading for Cape Town. Sacher, you see, is an avid collector of travel posters created during the early decades of the 20th century to entice the adventurous into a world gradually being made smaller by trains, planes and automobiles. Back then such ephemera was used as a cheap, cheerful and entirely disposable way to promote the services of shipping companies, airlines and railways. But now surviving examples of the best vintage travel posters have become valuable and highly sought-after. Sacher began collecting more than 40 years ago when, as the head of a design company, he found himself making regular trips to studios in New York. 'There were many more poster dealers in the US than there were in the UK, so I became familiar with the world of collecting and with the names of the top graphic artists. 'Howard Hughes employed many of them when he owned Trans World Airlines during the 1940s and 1950s, so I started collecting posters advertising the airline's routes,' he explains. In recent years Sacher has bought through the art agents Nicolette Tomkinson and Sophie Churcher, who set up the specialist art agency Tomkinson Churcher in 2016 following the closure of Christie's South Kensington saleroom, which ran a vintage poster department. Travel posters first became seriously collectable after New York's Swann Galleries staged the first dedicated auction in 1979. Now the best examples by leading graphic artists such as the Frenchmen Roger Broders and Adolphe Mouron Cassandre, the Brits Norman Wilkinson and Frank H Mason, or the Irishman Paul Henry can fetch as much as £15,000 apiece. Tomkinson says the golden age of Britain's railways during the 1920s and 1930s resulted in some of the best images but, by the very nature of their role as short-lived advertisements, few have survived — and getting hold of good ones is becoming increasingly difficult. 'Sometimes travel posters are numbered but in most cases we never really know what the print runs were,' she explains. 'What is certain is that only a fraction of those produced actually survived, because they were either pasted over or torn down. And when collectors get hold of the best, they tend to hold on to them.' But some big collections saved by people who had connections with the printers, the artists or the firms that commissioned the designs do occasionally come on to the market. One spectacular cache emerged in Australia about 20 years ago, having been amassed by the owner's father, a teacher, who had written to the country's various train companies during the 1920s asking for travel posters to use in geography lessons. He received more than 200, which were dispersed at auction for in excess of £200,000. And while posters promoting trips to once-popular British holiday resorts such as Skegness and St Andrews continue to sell for as much as £5,000, it's those depicting more glamorous continental destinations that many collectors find most uplifting. Tomkinson says several such images have been consigned to a Lyon & Turnbull auction (happening on October 29) and include a 1957 lithograph of Cote d'Azur, 'after Pablo Picasso', which is estimated to fetch £1,500. And at his by appointment gallery in south London, the dealer James Manning is offering a striking 1930s image by the top artist AE Halliwell promoting 'cruises to Norway' for £4,000. However, travel posters are not categorised only by country but also by modes of transport and activities, meaning there are images that hold appeal to fans of cars, trains and aeroplanes, others that attract those drawn to the glamour of steam-driven liners and still others that are bought by regular visitors to top ski resorts such as St Moritz and Gstaad. Buying vintage originals is not, however, the only route to getting some uplifting travel posters on to your walls, as there are now several firms, such as Stick No Bills and the north London gallery Pullman Editions, that sell brand-new, top quality images that are either in a vintage style or licensed fine art prints of exceptional posters from the golden era of graphic advertising. Uniquely, Stick No Bills has been granted access to the historic archives of travel companies such as Pan American Airways, British Overseas Air Corporation (BOAC), Lufthansa, the Fomento del Turismo Mallorca and Braniff International Airways in order to recreate the best of their vintage posters. Sizes range from postcard-format works to unique Master editions featuring 24-carat gold lettering applied by the Spanish royal family's yacht gilder — and costing as much as £16,000. Which might be the price of a darned good holiday. But the poster will last a whole lot longer — and there's no need to endure the journey…
Indian Express
02-07-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
July 2, 1985, Forty Years Ago: India-Pakistan Talks
The Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Yaqub Khan, said his government expected positive results from the joint commission meeting, to be held in New Delhi from July 2 to 4. Talking to reporters , he said Pakistan would take a constructive approach to the deliberations in order to consolidate the gains and further expand cooperation in agreed areas. Air Chief Dead Air Chief Marshal Laxman Madhav Katre died in New Delhi following a massive heart attack. He was 58. The heart failure was induced by a pneumonic injection that penetrated the protective outer layer of the heart from the lungs, medical experts said. Airport Blasts A powerful explosion rocked the international terminal of Leonardo Da Vinci Airport in Rome, wounding at least six people, the police said. In Madrid, one person was killed and 12 hurt when a bomb exploded in the offices of British Airways and Trans World Airlines. The police, quoted by Italian news agencies, said the explosion in Rome appeared to have originated in a suitcase headed for an airliner set to take off for India. The blast triggered a panic among passengers, witnesses said. Violence In Gujarat One person was killed and six others injured when the police resorted to firing to quell rioting mobs in Prantij town in Gujarat's Sabarkantha district. According to the ENS response from Himmatnagar, at least three wooden cabins were set on fire by an irate mob following which large-scale violence broke out, forcing the police to fire several tear-gas shells. They later resorted to firing.
Yahoo
19-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Locals mark 70 years since TWA flight that killed 16 in Sandia Mountains
Feb. 18—Longtime resident Linda Higgins remembers growing up on Hyder Avenue in Southeast Albuquerque, where hearing planes take off nearby at the former Albuquerque Municipal Airport was commonplace. But Feb. 19, 1955, was different, she said. That morning, when Higgins was just 5 years old, the family heard a loud noise and went outside, where they saw a plane flying low. "I remember my mom saying how unusual it was ... and then we heard the crash," Higgins, 75, said. Trans World Airlines (TWA) Flight 260, carrying 13 passengers and three crew members bound for Santa Fe, crashed minutes after takeoff in the Sandia Mountains, killing everyone on board, including four Albuquerque residents and one from Socorro. The official cause of the crash remains unsolved. The anniversary comes amid new aviation disasters that have garnered national attention. On Monday, a Delta Air Lines flight from Minnesota crashed on a runway in Toronto and flipped upside down; happily, all 80 passengers survived. On Jan. 31, a medical jet crashed shortly after taking off from Northeast Philadelphia Airport, killing seven and injuring dozens on the ground. And on Jan. 29, an American Airlines flight from Kansas collided with a Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River near Washington, D.C., killing 67 people between the two aircraft. That was the first fatal commercial airline crash in 16 years in the U.S. Wednesday is the 70th anniversary of the TWA tragedy in Albuquerque, and some local residents, including Higgins, marked the occasion by listening to a presentation on Sunday at the Albuquerque Museum. The event was preceded by a hike up to Domingo Baca Canyon (also known as "TWA Canyon"), where the wreckage remains with a memorial plaque. Terry Owen, who has hiked to the TWA 260 crash site many times, told attendees during his presentation that there may be a life lesson that can be learned from the crash. "Maybe think about being kind to others because you don't know where you are going to be in 15 minutes," Owen said, referencing the approximate duration of the TWA flight. The flight, search and findings TWA Flight 260, a Martin 4-0-4 prop plane, took off just after 7 a.m. with Capt. Ivan Spong and First Officer Jesse James Creason Jr. piloting the flight amid heavy clouds around the Sandias. Spong and Creason headed east toward the mountain range, a deviation from their intended course, which would have flown the plane immediately west of the airport before heading northeast to Santa Fe, according to Owen. Around 7:12 a.m., the plane's terrain warning bell sounded, and Spong spotted the sheer cliffside off of the right wing through the clouds, according to Owen. Spong took evasive action and rolled the plane to the left and pulled the nose up, Owen said. But it was no use. At 7:13 a.m., TWA Flight 260's left wing struck the cliffside at 230 mph, Owen said. After a two-day search involving hundreds of people and numerous entities, the first bit of wreckage, the plane's tail section, was spotted by a private air deliveryman, according to Owen, citing archive reports from the Journal. The Civil Aeronautics Board rejected navigation equipment error or failure in its initial report and erroneously blamed Spong for the crash. Later, Spong was cleared of wrongdoing, and the CAB amended its report to say the crash was "unsolved" and the flight path deviation was "unknown" after another TWA pilot, J.L. Decelles, re-investigated the incident. Higgins, whose father participated in the search efforts, took her 10-year-old grandson to hear Owen's presentation at the museum. "To lose so many lives and to have it happen so quickly, it shows how quickly things can change," Higgins said. "When we think our lives are bad, but we see the tragedy that happens to other people, we appreciate our own lives." Memorial hike Members from several search and rescue entities, including the Mountain Rescue Council, carried an American flag representing one of the 16 victims in the crash. There was a short ceremony at the site where the flags were placed in the litter before members carried them down the mountain. Duke Pignott, vice president of the council, said the group thought about the morning of the crash when they got up to the site of the wreckage. "I think it became quite personal for all of us," Pignott said. "I think we all felt a closeness to those victims and their families, and it was an honor to recognize them 70 years later."
Yahoo
30-01-2025
- General
- Yahoo
A tragic plane crash over the Grand Canyon helped make flying safer in the US. Here's how
A tragic crash near the Ronald Reagan Airport in Washington left 67 dead after a commercial airliner and Army helicopter collided in midair on Wednesday night. Midair collisions are less common than they once were because of strict regulations controlling air traffic in the U.S., enacted partially as a result of a fatal Arizona plane crash nearly 70 years ago. The 1956 collision over the Grand Canyon killed more than 100 people. At the time, it was the deadliest civilian plane crash and it remains one of the worst in U.S. history. Here's everything you need to know about the deadliest plane crash in Arizona's history and the influence it left on the nation. The Grand Canyon mid-air collision was among the first commercial airline incidents to result in over 100 fatalities. On June 30, 1956, a United Airlines Douglas DC-7 crashed into a Trans World Airlines Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation over Grand Canyon National Park. Live updates: All 67 aboard plane, copter killed in tragic midair collision near DC Both planes took off from Los Angeles just after 9 a.m., but their respective flight plans were completely different, according to Nature, Culture and History at the Grand Canyon. The Douglas DC-7 (Flight 718) was headed to Chicago and would be traveling over Palm Springs. The L-1049 Super Constellation (Flight 2) was supposed to fly over the San Bernardino Mountains to reach its destination, Kansas City. So, what went wrong? Trans World Airlines Flight 2 to Kansas City hit turbulence, so Captain Jack S. Gandy requested an altitude increase of 2,000 feet. Gandy's request was denied by air traffic control, though, so his plane wouldn't cross into United Airlines Flight 718's route. Gandy then received clearance to fly 1,000 feet on top of any weather in his path. Los Angeles Air Route Traffic Control Center informed Gandy that Flight 718 would be trafficking near him. The last coherent radio communication from either plane occurred just before 10 a.m., then a missing aircraft alert was issued about an hour later. A small aircraft pilot operating for a Grand Canyon scenic flights company identified the wreckage later that day. Search-and-rescue efforts began the following morning, but it was extremely difficult. Flight 718 fell deep into the canyon near the confluence of the Colorado River and the Little Colorado River, its wreckage strewn over the southern cliff face of Chuar Butte. Flight 2 hit a rock face on the northeast terrace of Temple Butte. United Airlines utilized a special Swiss mountain rescue team. A paramedic joined rescue teams on the first few helicopter rides to the impact sites, but they soon discovered the heat of the crash had melted and fused the aluminum of the airplanes to the bedrock. All 128 people on board the planes perished. None of the remains were identified, and a mass funeral was later held in northern Arizona for the victims of Flight 2. It took two weeks to decipher a garbled transmission Aeronautical Radio Communications in Salt Lake City had picked up on the morning of the collision. The transmission came from United Airlines Flight 718. Crew members could be heard saying "We're going in" and "Pull up!" An investigation into the tragedy concluded that pilots did not see each other in time to avoid the collision. According to Nature, Culture and History at the Grand Canyon, the disaster demonstrated the consequences of an outmoded and overtaxed air transportation system. The Federal Aviation Administration was later established, partially as a result of the Grand Canyon collision. Wreckage from the catastrophe is still scattered around the canyon today. According to the Grand Canyon Visitor Center, the crash site was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2014, making it the first landmark for an event that happened in the air. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: 1956 Grand Canyon plane crash: How the disaster helped form FAA
