Warbird Information Exchange

This Saturday Oct 7 DISCOVERY Channel is doing a program about what happens during an airliner crash using a 727-200. Question is, does anyone know the N#/msn/original operator of this bird? Since I worked on a bunch of them in the factory and afterwards @ BADWRENCH it would be interesting to know.

Pretty tough old girl isn't it? I guess the leadup was to over explain basic airliner to Mr. & Mrs. Average on the couch, but I'd have liked to see a bit more of the airframe post impact, I see all but slats #1 &2 got hammered and the gear tore the entire inboard flap assemblies off as I sort of expected given trunnion and sta. 870 walking beam design, I was surprised to see the forward fuselage fail and tear away so cleanly @ about sta 500 in the middle of the 43 section barrel and not @ the sta 360 join ring

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

well Bob Dole used it on the campaign trail a number of years ago. Im sure some research could pull the N number that way from a press photo.

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Andrew King
Air Museum Director with no Museum to Direct
Open to Suggestions

The aircraft in question was 727-212 c/n 21348, last registered as N293AS, ex-Champion Airlines, ex-Alaska Airlines.

Thanks much!! Apparently original operator was SINGAPORE AIRLINES as it's original registration # was 9V-SGB, I know I laid hands on it while @ BADWRENCH as we did steady trade with ALASKA. CHAMPION was a division of NORTHWEST and several of their 727's were converted on a seasonal basis into semi executive configuration and leased as 'team planes' to various NBA teams. We kept the interiors and did the swapouts in both directions @ KPAE.
It's going to be hard for me to watch this old acquaintance die, but at least she went with a bang and as a teaching moment and not bit by bit to the beer can factory.

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

As time has gone on (small scale here) I've started wishing I'd kept a log of all the airplanes I fueled for charter companies and such (not as interested in the mainliners because they're a dime-a-dozen) to look back at them and see what's happened to the more interesting ones I fueled. I have photos of a few of the planes (one of ATI's DC-8-62F's, several of the An-124s, an Algerian IL-76, some of DHL's wingleted 727-100's, a Zantop L188F, etc), but there are planes I fueled that I didn't get photos of that I wish I had the registrations on because they were interesting planes and it'd be neat to try and meet up with some of them again and see what they look like now.

So it deserves to get blown up?

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My racing will fund my warbirding. Hopefully...

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No, and no one said anything about or like that, but having back links helps track down the history of an airframe, like I'm curious about the N # on the Romney MD-80 to see who it's original operator might have been and how many other opertators it may have been with. N#'s and msn's let me and others check online links to track down a particular airframe.

A good example? In this mornings birdcage liner in 'Today in History' noted that on Oct 4, 1960 an EASTERN L-188A crashed fatally on takeoff from Boston Logan, in less than three minutes I knew it was N 5533, msn 1062 and it's EAL fleet # was 533 by checking my on line resources.

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

Here's what N293AS looked like on September 23, 2001:
(about to transport Cindy and me from MBJ to DFW)

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Dean Hemphill, K5DH
Port Charlotte, Florida