Monday, December 5, 2016

FLY THIS POST TO CUBA! NOW!

With the death of Fidel Castro, I thought it would a perfect moment to bring out this tape, which dates to the height of the "Take This Plane to Cuba!" string of hijackings.

It's a recording of an NBC news special, from 8/3/61. On that date, such a hijacking was foiled, as you'll hear in the report. They then cover other recent episodes in this trend. The show is anchored by the legendary Edwin Newman.

Just a neat little piece of history, captured by a dedicated audio collector, and now offered up by another such collector, shared with anyone who'd like to hear it.

Download: NBC News Special On Hijackings, 1961
Play:

4 comments:

  1. Thank you for making this available. I'd read about the Continental hi-jacking, rather ironically when the pilot was working for Pan-Am in the 1930s he and his plane were confiscated by a would-be president of Bolivia and ended up flying the guy around the country until the revolt failed.

    The Electra hijacking mentioned is an interesting one, from memory the hijacker signed his boarding pass 'El Pirata Cofrisi' and ended up gatecrashing Yuri Gagarin's arrival in Cuba.

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  2. What wonderful timing for posting this recording. Thanks for this timetravelling newscast, Bob!

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  3. Hi Bob, I love your blogs!

    Thank you for sharing all of these treasures!

    This particular post seems to be having an issue, as OpenDrive is reporting that the download is unavailable.

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