Valerie Lester

OUT-OF-PRINT Fasten Your Seat Belt! Is the first history of an airline to be told from the viewpoint of its cabin crew Through hundreds of interviews, Valerie Lester has encouraged Pan Am's flight attendants to recount their personal dramatic, tragic, comic, and heroic stories, many of which deserve to take an honored place in the annals of air transport history. She includes accounts of the heroic deeds of the cabin crews in such incidents as the 1947 crash in the Syrian desert; the terrorism in Cairo and Rome; the last flight from Saigon; the holocaust at Tenerife; and the siege at Karachi. There are tales of the first stewards and their experiences during World War II; Pan Am's brave and resourceful first stewardesses; the first round-the-world flights (both planned and unplanned); the White House Press charters; the advents of jets—and of bigger jets; Desert Storm; and Pan Am's final, heartrending flight. Until now, the important role that flight attendants have played in the history of civil aviation has been poorly served. Here, at last, is a book that redresses the balance. TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword by Jeffrey Kreindler Acknowledgements Author's Preface 1. The First Stewards 2. War Stories:       Hunter Gatherers at Botwood       The Cannonball Run       The Long Way Home After Pearl Harbor       Pan Am and the Naval Air Transport Service       High Drama at Funafuti       To Casablanca with F.D.R.       Disastrous Loop at Lisbon 3. Women on Board:       Pan Am's First Training Group       Pioneering in Alaska       Guinea Pigs in San Francisco       Atlantic Firsts 4. Round the World 5. Life Raft in the Desert 6. Berlin 7. The Pregnant Whale:       Some of the Rich and Famous       Ditching by the Book 8. Surprise Swim in Jamaica 9. L'Avventura Del Quadrimotore 10. Here Come the Jets 11. Dr. Johnson 12. Angel Teacher 13. Love Is in the Air 14. White House Press Charter to Dallas 15. Two African American Experiences 16. Bigger and Bigger Jets 17. Eight Minutes to Cairo 18. Terror at Rome 19. Last Flight from Saigon 20. An Independent Union 21. Holocaust at Tenerife 22. Fiftieth Anniversary 23. The Cross, The Cushion 24. Baby on Board 25. Siege at Karachi 26. Lockerbie 27. Desert Storm 28. Water Cannons at Dinner Key Epilogue:       Where Are They Now?