‘Unsolved Histories’ Episode 6: Meeting the lost crew and examining sinister crash theories

Editors’ note: “Unsolved Histories: What Happened to Flight 293” is a podcast that is about three intersecting stories that Seattle-based historian Feliks Banel has been investigating. It’s a mystery about what happened to an airliner that disappeared. It’s an exposé of a government loophole that let’s the military turn its back on grieving families. It’s also a deep dive into the resilience of human beings. The following is a narrative summary of Episode 6 of “Unsolved Histories: What Happened to Flight 293” titled “The Crew.”

In Episode 6, Feliks introduces the crew and listeners will learn how those they left behind have tried to cope with their loss and to move on with their lives. The episode also examines the origins of the more sinister theories for why the DC-7C went down, and tries to get closer to the truth about what could have possibly gone wrong.

The DC-7C that crashed into the Gulf of Alaska in June 1963 was the workplace for a crew of six professionals from Northwest Airlines, and we met pilot Albert Olsen – with help from his son and daughter –earlier in the series. The early 1960s was a different time, when female flight attendants were called “stewardesses” and weren’t allowed to be married, and the cockpit was the domain of only male aviators.

One of the two stewardesses aboard Flight 293 was a woman in her late 20s named Patricia Moran.

“I’d go up front, and she’d be sitting there, everybody’s sleeping,” said Darlene Jevne. She also was a Northwest Airlines flight attendant 60 years and ago and who considered “Patti” Moran a friend.

Episode 1 of ‘Unsolved Histories’ is called ‘Brothers:’ Flight 293 never arrived at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska

Episode 2 is called ‘The Wreckage:’ Finding a haunting memento after the 1963 plane crash

“And she’d be scribbling and writing down wonderful things,” Darlene said, because Patti was a poet who published a collection of poems in 1962. “You know, when you look outside of the aircraft when you’re flying,” Darlene continued, “and all the stars in beautiful scenery and the clouds?”

“She put that all to poetry,” Darlene said.

Along with being a poet, Darlene says her friend Patti was already married and pregnant by the time she died aboard Flight 203, and was keeping both a secret from the airline so she could continue working.

Irene Johnson was also a Northwest Airlines flight attendant 60 years ago. She was in the same training class as Patti Moran, but Irene left airline work behind in 1961. She got married earlier that year and then became pregnant, but she worked as long as she could physically still do the job before calling it quits.

Since the “no marriage” rules didn’t apply to Irene’s husband Don Schaap, he kept his job as a steward, what they called male flight attendants in those days, for Northwest Airlines. Don was assigned to work Flight 293.

“There was a knock at the door and it was a colleague of my husband’s and a personal friend, our cabin services supervisor, and he said ‘Irene, can we come in?,’” Irene Johnson said, describing the moment at home with her infant daughter when she first learned that something had gone wrong on Don Schaap’s flight to Anchorage.

“And they said that they’ve ‘lost radio contact with the plane, we want you to know about that,'” Irene continued.

At first, Irene wasn’t overly concerned. She believed in Northwest Airlines’ management, and swore by the company’s safety record. And Irene believed in the DC-7C.

“I was so convinced that everything was going to be okay,” Irene said, “because I had such faith in the airline running a good, tight ship.”

Episode 3 is called ‘Best Friends:’ ‘Jody has always stayed with me’ after 1963 crash

Episode 4 is called ‘Scuttlebutt:’ One theory is friendly fire brought down Flight 293

Episode 5 is called ‘The Ditching:’ Another Flight 293 nearly suffered a similar disaster

Northwest Airlines flight attendant Patti Moran, center, in a childhood photo, was secretly married just a few months before she died on Flight 293. Her siblings are on each side of her. (Photo courtesy of Rosie Geer)

And though the search for survivors was called off, Irene clung to this faith for more than a year. It was the summer of 1964 when she ran into a Northwest Airlines executive during a trip to Minnesota to visit her husband’s family.

“‘Irene, give up that hope. I was at the crash scene,'” Irene said the airline executive told her. “’There was nothing but small debris floating,'” the man continued, Irene said. “‘That thing had to have come apart in the air,'” he said.

More from Feliks Banel: The historian’s most recent stories for KIRO Newsradio and MyNorthwest

Those particular words contributed to a conspiracy theory that Irene and many other family members left behind by the tragedy of Flight 293 would continue to believe for decades: that Flight 293 had been shot down by an air-to-air missile.

You can hear Feliks Banel every Wednesday and Friday morning on Seattle’s Morning News with Dave Ross and Colleen O’Brien. Read more from Feliks here and subscribe to The Resident Historian Podcast here. If you have a story idea or a question about Northwest history, please email Feliks. You can also follow Feliks on X.

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