Farewell Flight

The 707 jets into history

An era in U.S. aviation ended at 3:25 p.m. on Oct. 30, when TWA Flight 4, the last Boeing 707 to fly for a scheduled airline in the continental U.S., touched down at New York City’s Kennedy International Airport. During its 2-hr. 40-min. flight from Miami, the jet’s 79 passengers ceremoniously sipped champagne. Before disembarking, the travelers stripped the aircraft of most detachable memorabilia, including seat-number plaques and safety instruction cards. Flight attendants used their lipsticks to write “Goodbye, we love you” on walls and seats. On the plane’s silver fuselage a Miami gate agent had scribbled, “I was the last agent to close the door on a 707.” But at J.F.K. another agent crossed out that message and wrote, “Sorry, you lose.” Said Pilot Shaun Shattuck, 44: “I will miss the 707 terribly. I grew up with it. It’s been a reliable and troubleless friend.”

The sleek, roomy 707 inaugurated the jet age for U.S. commercial aviation on Oct. 26, 1958, when No. N711PA carried 111 Pan American passengers from New York to Paris. The plane’s maneuverability, speed and seating capacity (125) quickly made it the industry standard. Boeing has built 957 of the 707s, which have transported 684 million passengers 19 billion miles on 100 airlines.

Old age, new technology and noise-abatement rules are bringing down the aircraft in the U.S. Built in an age when jet fuel cost 90 per gal. and environmental restrictions were minimal, the bird is out of date in a period of expensive fuel ($1 per gal.) and tough noise rules.

Outside the U.S., some 600 of the 707s will go on plying foreign air lanes, hauling cargo and carrying jet-about sheiks from the oil capitals of the world. But big U.S. airlines like TWA are flying more fuel-efficient and quieter planes like the Boeing 747 and the new Boeing 757. Meanwhile, the prototype for the 707 waits patiently outside Tucson, Ariz., for the day when it will be moved into the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.