UNITED STATES NEWS

‘Unsolved Histories’: Sorting through the scuttlebutt following the plane crash

Oct 15, 2024, 8:00 PM

Unsolved Histories...

Captain Albert Olsen was a veteran employee of Northwest Airlines who devoted years of his career developing important safety innovations, and whose son and daughter still live in the long shadow of his loss. (KSL Photo)

(KSL Photo)

The pilot at the controls of Flight 293 had thousands of hours of experience stretching back to the 1930s. Captain Albert Olsen was a veteran employee of Northwest Airlines, who had served as chief pilot, and who had devoted years of his career developing important safety innovations which benefited the entire industry.

Retired flight attendant Darlene Jevne flew with Captain Olsen on several occasions.

“He was strong on safety,” Jevne said. “We respected him. People liked flying with him. Crews [would] always say, ‘We’ve got him on board. Great.’”

End of The Prop Age

Aviation was changing in 1963. Prop planes – and the prop-plane work schedules with generous stretches of time off that Captain Olsen loved – were being replaced with jetliners and more rigorous Jet Age work schedules. Olsen’s son Fred says his father was ready to retire, so he could spend more time playing golf and pursuing new business opportunities in Southern California.

“Flying the old piston planes you could get all your hours in a week and a half, like flying to Tokyo, then to Taipei, then to Taiwan, and then to Korea, and then back to Tokyo, and maybe someplace else and back and then back to Seattle,” Fred Olsen said. “You could have a month to six [or] seven weeks off between the next time you have to go to work. That was the time he could play golf in Palm Desert and go to his house on a golf course.”

Olsen’s children were each profoundly affected by the loss of their father, and each copes in their own personal way. Daughter Carolyn Olsen Bishop stayed close to home and helped her mother, while launching her own career as a school teacher and raising a family.

Fred Olsen chose another path, rarely looking back, and rarely returning to the Pacific Northwest as he lived in Tokyo and became a world renowned ceramics artist.

But Fred shared a bond with his late father through aviation, forged when Fred was a child, accompanying Albert Olsen to the scene of Northwest Airlines crashes.

“I can still see the plane all twisted and everything and how it hit houses in the trees and the street,” Fred Olsen said, recalling one particular crash from the 1950s in Minnesota. “I can remember that. I must have been, what, 13 years old?”

Fred never trained as a pilot, but he worked briefly at a small airport in Southern California as a teenager, often taxiing aircraft around the tarmac using knowledge gleaned from his father.

Flying home from Japan after he got word that Flight 293 had gone down, Fred queried the crew of the Northwest Airlines jet that carried him to Seattle about what had happened.

“I wanted to know what happened to the flight,” Fred said. “Most of the pilots know, because it gets around, scuttlebutt gets around.”

Friendly Fire?

The theory shared in the cockpit that day, Fred says, was that a missile, accidentally fired by an American fighter pilot, had brought down the DC-7C.

Irene Johnson’s husband was Don Schaap was a member of the cabin crew of Flight 293. She says the man who in 1968 bought the house she had shared with her late husband told her he worked for the FAA in Seattle, and that he had seen a report attributing the loss to a missile. Research confirms that the man did, in fact, work for the FAA, but he has since passed away.

Retired flight attendant Darlene Jevne said she heard similar stories about Flight 293.

“The scuttlebutt has always been . . . ‘You know, it just doesn’t vanish,’” Jevne said. “They called and wanted to change altitude . . . and they dived straight in. That doesn’t really happen.”

Fred Olsen and his sister Carolyn Bishop Olsen have wondered for 60 years about what happened to their father and why the DC-7C went down. Each worried that somehow the crash was his fault.
“I still like my missile theory,” Fred said. “It takes the blame away from my dad.”

On Episode 4 of Unsolved Histories: What Happened to Flight 293?, we meet Fred Olsen and Carolyn Bishop Olsen, and try to sort fact from fiction in the scuttlebutt that spread after the plane went down.

United States News

Workers with Southern California Edison remove a utility pole damaged by the Eaton Fire in Altadena...

Associated Press

Utility says its equipment likely started a small blaze that erupted during January’s LA firestorm

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A California utility said Thursday that its equipment likely sparked a wildfire in Los Angeles that broke out the same day as two massive blazes in the area killed at least 29 people and destroyed thousands of homes. The admission by Southern California Edison over its likely role in the Hurst […]

7 minutes ago

FILE — Irv Gotti introduces a performance by OGI at the BET Awards, June 26, 2022, at the Microso...

Associated Press

Irv Gotti, music executive who create Murder Inc. Records, dies at 54

NEW YORK (AP) — Irv Gotti, a music mogul who founded Murder Inc. Records and was behind major hip-hop and R&B artists such as Ashanti and Ja Rule, has died. He was 54. Def Jam Recordings, which was the parent company of Murder Inc., announced Gotti’s death in a statement late Wednesday night. It did […]

13 minutes ago

FILE - Elon Musk reacts as President-elect Donald Trump speaks at a rally ahead of the 60th Preside...

Associated Press

Musk uses his X ownership and White House position to push Trump priorities, intimidate detractors

WASHINGTON (AP) — The emergence of X owner Elon Musk as the most influential figure around President Donald Trump has created an extraordinary dynamic — a White House adviser who’s using one of the world’s most powerful information platforms to sell the government’s talking points while intimidating its detractors. In recent days, Musk has used […]

23 minutes ago

President Donald Trump speaks during the National Prayer Breakfast at Washington Hilton, Thursday, ...

Associated Press

Trump blames ‘obsolete’ US air traffic control system for deadly plane and chopper crash near DC

President Donald Trump on Thursday blamed last week’s deadly collision of a passenger jet and Army helicopter on what he called an “obsolete” computer system used by U.S. air traffic controllers, and he vowed to replace it. Trump said during an event that “a lot of mistakes happened” on Jan. 29 when an American Airlines […]

36 minutes ago

FILE - Jamieson Greer, President-elect Donald Trump's pick to be the U.S. Trade Representative, pos...

Associated Press

Trump’s US trade negotiator pick vows hardline policies

WASHINGTON (AP) — Jamieson Greer, President Donald Trump’s choice to be the top U.S. trade negotiator, promised to pursue the president’s hardline trade policies. Trump’s protectionist approach to trade — involving the heavy use of taxes on foreign goods — will give Americans “the opportunity to work in good-paying jobs producing goods and services they […]

2 hours ago

Associated Press

The Latest: Budget director confirmation to ramp up Project 2025 vision

The Republican-led Senate is expected to confirm a chief architect of Project 2025 as director of the Office of Management and Budget on Thursday, despite round-the-clock speeches by Democrats who lack the votes to stop it. Russ Vought is working closely with Elon Musk to vastly reduce the size and capacity of the federal government, […]

2 hours ago

Sponsored Articles

...

Bright Wealth Management

How IRAs are a helpful tool in retirement planning

When it comes to retirement planning, individual retirement accounts (IRAs) can be a great tool for income growth.

...

The UPS Store

How The UPS Store is giving back to the community

PHOENIX -- As 2024 nears a close, The UPS Store is looking to give back to the Arizona community with the holiday season approaching.

...

Day & Night Air Conditioning, Heating and Plumbing

Why a Heating Tune-Up is Essential Before Winter

PHOENIX, AZ — With cooler weather on the horizon, making sure your heating system is prepped and ready can make all the difference in staying comfortable this winter.

‘Unsolved Histories’: Sorting through the scuttlebutt following the plane crash