domestic service, had to be specially configured in the hangar for the Atlantic crossing with an inertial system and a life raft and was conveniently parked outside on the hangar ramp.Īt the Hangar 14 operations center, an oceanic route folder had been prepared to supplement our domestic charts. franchise in 1950, serving the city initially with DC-4s then DC-6s and later, 727s and other jet airliners.Īt JFK, flights normally departed from Pan Am’s Worldport terminal about a mile from Hangar 14 but our plane, used mainly in U.S. Russians limited air access to West Berlin via three 20-mile wide by 10,000-ft high air corridors slicing through East Germany. The IGS was spawned in the Cold War after World War II in 1945 when Germany was split down the middle by occupying powers.Įast Germany was a ward of the Soviet Union except for Berlin in the heart of East Germany, which was itself split between Russian control in the East sector and free West Berlin under the tripartite control of the U.S., Britain and France. In Frankfurt, the plane would be configured for Pan Am’s Berlin-based Inter-German Service or IGS as it was commonly known. The year was 1989, and I was picking up dispatch papers for a 4pm 727 ferry flight to Frankfurt with a fuel stop in Keflavik. I was headed to Pan Am’s flight dispatch center in Hangar 14, grateful for the quick ride in from Jersey because we had a long day – and night – ahead. Traffic was light at two in the afternoon on the Van Wyck Expressway approaching John F.
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