Douglas DC-8-31

The following history is from Captain A. W. Dubois a Panagra pilot. It is included in the book "Memories of Panagra" a compilation of Panagra Pilot memories.

The Germans with the help of an Austrian, named Von Bauer, formed the airline Sociedad Colombo-Alemana De Transportes Aereos, SCADTA. This was the spearhead, of the German airline penetration into South America. SCADTA began flying from Barranquilla up the Magdalena to Barranco.

By 1926 the Germans had started to fly into almost every South American Country. There was a real concern that they would operate through the Canal Zone and pose even a greater threat to U.S. National Security. The U.S. Government let it be known that they were ready to award mail routes to anyone that could fly Central American and South American routes. NYRBA —New York, Rio, and Buenos Aires— purchased four flying boats and had them in Rio, ready to initiate a service on the East Coast of South America. Richard Hoyt, Juan Trippe and their attorney, "Wild Bill” Donovan were scrambling around trying to get together a consortium to fly these routes ,with a bunch of Yale men that were world war one pilots.

The route bids went out. Trippe had no aircraft, no crews and bid $2.35/mile. NYRBA had aircraft and crews, but when they went to negotiate landing rights, they ran into trouble with the local governments. Yes, the Secretary of State was a Yale man, as was the Post Master General who awarded the routes to Pan Am.

The first flight deadline, Key West to Havana, was met with a chartered airplane and pilot. Many felt that the urgency of the German threat justified the means. Shortly after the first Pan Am flight was completed, Harold Harris, Army Test Pilot on leave, went to Richard Hoyt with the idea of starting an airline. He and Huff Daland, who developed a small aircraft for dusting, along with C. E. Woolman, an entomologist who developed a chemical to eradicate the boll weevil, had dusted vegetable crops in Mexico and then moved onto Peru.

Harris showed Hoyt a map of an air route he had drawn from Texas through Central America and down the west coast of South America. Except for the sector between Ecuador and Panama., there were numerous landing fields on the Pacific side. The only formidable mountain barrier was from Santiago to Mendoza. The bonus was that it was almost on a straight line from New York to Buenos Aires. The legs were within the useful payload range of the current aircraft , 600 miles. Woolman and Harris went to Peru and formed Aerovias Peruanas (Peruvian Airways) with Harris as Chief Pilot, General Manager and Vice President. Woolman had done most of the negotiating and returned to the U.S. to start Delta Airlines.

W. R. Grace Co. controlled the west coast of South America, through their steamship routes and was not about to let some outsider into their lucrative territory. They especially were not happy with the prospect of airlines competing with Grace Lines’ steamships. Everyone knew, that unless they got Grace on board, there would be no landing rights on the west coast. Trippe finally started negotiations with Grace. The negotiations culminated in the formation of Pan American-Grace Airways, Panagra, 50% owned by Grace, 50% owned by Pan American. The board of directors was made up of three members from each company. They were pledged not to exert influence when conflicts arose. When a conflict did arise they would meet to form a quorum but not vote. Grace was to attend to the business on the West Coast and Pan Am would run the Operations, no President.

To head up operations they brought Douglas Campbell, Thomas Kirkland and John T. Shannon to Peru. Campbell was a WWI pilot and the first aviator in any American Squadron to shoot down a German plane. Thomas Kirkland was a United States Naval Academy graduate and John Shannon had been in the Army Air Corps. They were very fortunate selections. All three knew how to pick the right people for the right jobs.

Thomas F. Jardine, Air Corps, signed on in 1930 and was number one on the seniority list until he retired in 1966. He served for several years as Chief Pilot. (Pop) Colliver signed on the same year. Walter F. Kimball, Marine Aviator was signed on in 1930 and left for TWA, two years later. There is a 900 foot hill off the end of the runway at Tontuta, New Caledonia, named Kimball Hill. During WWII Kimball lost an engine in a grossly overloaded Marine Corps R4D and crashed into a hill off the end of the runway.

Dinty Moore, the second enlisted man to receive Navy Wings as an NAP signed on in 1931. He was also in the crew of one of the planes that accompanied Admiral Reed on the 1919 NC-4 Flight across the Atlantic. He was not one of those who made the entire crossing. Dinty started flying for Isthmus Airways in Panama in 1922. John Henry Miller and Warren B. Smith signed on in 1931. Warren Smith was to become a legend in Santiago where he was based for 15 years and was known as “The King of the Andes”. C.R. Disher came in 1932 and later served a long stint as Operations Manager. He was a good administrator, and understood pilots.

Fritz Sterling, U.S. Air Corps, Lawyer, Pilot, Chief Pilot during WWII, became Chairman of the Airline Pilots Association - Panagra Local, and was a key in keeping the operation safe and the relationship between the company and the pilots on an even keel. He later became Vice President of IFALPA and worked with both ICAO and IATA. J.R.McCleskey, Frank J.Havelick, and Floyd E.Nelson came in 1932. They were all Air Corps products who had signed up with Pan American's Chinese subsidiary China National Airways (CNAC), later CAT, and then Air America in 1931.

This was really a talented group that established a tradition of excellence. From December of 1943 (when a Panagra DC-3 crashed near Conception Hill in Peru, enroute from Arequipa to Lima, killing all but one passenger) until May 12,1982, when Braniff International Airways (that had merged with Panagra in 1967) went bankrupt, not one Panagra pilot was involved in a fatal accident. Forty years of flying some of the most challenging terrain in the world without a fatality is truly a remarkable record.

The United States put so much pressure on the local governments through its development of Pan American-Grace Airways, that by 1941, twenty percent (20%) of Lloyd Aereo Boliviano was purchased by Panagra. Deutshe Lufthansa (Peruvian branch) was shut down. In 1938, Aerovias del Peru was sold to Faucett airlines, Panagra holding a 20% share. Finally, the Ecuadorian government gave in when the U.S. threatened to cut off their fuel supplies and Panagra took over SEDTAS Ecuadorian routes. In Colombia,SCATA became Avianca, a Pan American subsidiary. In Brazil, Syndicato Condor became Panair do Brasil, a Pan American subsidiary.

Panagra had done its job. It had created the infrastructure and routes that had displaced the German influence in South America and built a passenger airline that was affectionately called the "World's Friendliest Airline".