JAMES W. ETCHISON, flight engineer, died August 27 2010 at age 97 in Mocksville, N. C., where he had been born. He started his career as a mechanic with Pennsylvania Central Airlines in 1935, and joined Pan American Airways in September of 1936. He was selected as one of the first flight engineers in the Atlantic Division, making survey flights to Bermuda and then the inaugural NY-Bermuda scheduled flight on June 18 1937 in a Sikorsky S-42 seaplane.. He met his wife-to-be, Dahlgren on one of those early trips.They were married in Nov 1938 Etch also participated in the survey and first flights, Baltimore to Marseille France, which was the start of the Pan American trans-Atlantic service.

Etch participated in the acceptance flight operation of the Boeing B-314, then the scheduled service,and later became Chief Flight Engineer for the Atlantic Division He was the flight engineer on the first B-707 jet flight service, New York-Paris on October 26.1958. For several years in the early 1960's he was assigned to managerial duties in the maintenance department at the New York base. Shortly after the Boeing 747 service started he returned to flight engineering status, and retired at age 60 on October 26, 1972.

Etch is survived by his two children, Dahlgren and James.

Return to "In Memory Of..."