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F-Jet Expands Journal's Reach Airplane puts paper on the scene where news is happening
Albuquerque residents who walked outside on a pleasant spring day in 1998 and gazed at the Sandia Mountains couldn't see them. The mountains had disappeared. Smoke from Mexican wildfires had blown 1,400 miles north to obscure them.
Like other local residents, Journal editors and reporters were curious about the massive smokescreen.
The Journal Publishing Co.'s Falcon jet was pressed into duty.
Piloted by publisher T.H. Lang and co-pilot Glynn Rice, the jet carried a team of reporters and photographers to Chiapas, Mexico, where the plane made an instrument landing amid thick smoke.
The Journal team brought back stories and photos of how, in tinder-dry conditions, a centuries-old practice of peasant farmers clearing their fields by burning them had contributed to spreading the fires.
The Falcon jet gives the newsroom a chance to respond quickly and not rely solely on wire-service reporting of news events outside New Mexico.
Monday, July 12, 2004
Journal Jet Trips Not Unusual
It is not unusual for the F-Jet team of reporters and photographers to fly to natural disasters or major crime scenes for news gathering and/or humanitarian purposes. Here are some of those events:
Attack on The World Trade Center, New York City, New York- September 11, 2001; Oklahoma tornado- 1999; Mexico forest fires- 1998; Northern California floods- 1995; Federal building bombing, Oklahoma City- 1995; Northridge earthquake, Los Angeles- 1994; Branch Davidian standoff, Waco, Texas- 1993; Hurricane Andrew, Florida- 1992; Bowling alley massacre, Las Cruces- 1990; Loma Prieta earthquake, San Francisco- 1989; Hurricane Hugo, St. Croix- 1989; Air crash, Sioux City, Iowa- 1989; Baby Jessica in well, Midland, Texas- 1987;
It has been used for a variety of assignments such as coverage of New Mexico medical relief teams responding to hurricanes in Florida and St. Croix, an airliner crash in Iowa and floods and earthquakes in California.
The Journal jet also offers assistance to many individuals and organizations both in and outside New Mexico.
For example, when every minute counts, it has flown donor organs to patients in desperate need of a transplant.
Through the years it has transported several baby animals to the Rio Grande Zoo among them, two baby lowland gorillas and a polar bear cub.
It's been active in the Make a Wish program, flying children with serious diseases to destinations of their choice. It's also made travel much easier for youngsters in need of special medical treatment. It has flown some into Albuquerque for treatment, and others to special hospitals outside New Mexico.
It has also flown humanitarian missions including supply flights to St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, after hurricane Hugo in 1989.
The jet has also transported celebrities such as Olympic gold medal winner Trent Dimas and former Chief Justice Warren Burger, and ferried to New Mexico for speeches and events such high-profile people as syndicated columnist William F. Buckley Jr., former President Gerald Ford, violinist Itzhak Perlman and latenight funny man Jay Leno.
The Journal jet sometimes blends its function of providing winged assistance with helping provide our readers better news coverage. Such was the case when it gave the Dalai Lama a ride from Elizabethtown, Ky., to Bloomington, Ind., during his two-week visit to the United States in 1996. The 1989 Nobel Peace Prize winner would not be visiting New Mexico, so the jet flew a reporter out to meet him, which provided our readers with an in-depth interview.
The jet also brought home a crew of Bernalillo County firefighters from Oklahoma City following the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.
The jet proved to be invaluable in the Journal's coverage. Within hours of the bombing, Journal reporters and photographers were on the ground in the devastated downtown.
Reporter Leslie Linthicum recalls the scene:
"We started walking toward the federal building and literally ran into rescue workers and doctors in their scrubs who had just come out of the building. Their stories were as incredible as they were sad."
Even with an early arrival in Oklahoma City, the Journal team found no rental cars available at the airport. Only three limos were left, so the Journal snatched up two of them. TV reporter Connie Chung rented the third.
Once at the scene, Journal reporters heard that Bernalillo County firefighters were inside the bombed-out building helping with the rescue. Reporters passed their business cards to workers going in and asked if the local firefighters could come out. "When the firefighters took a break they came out and found us. They were right in the thick of things, close to it. We wouldn't have gotten any of those eyewitness accounts if we hadn't flown there right away on the F-jet," Linthicum said.
Stories and photos of the bombing were filed to the main newsroom from a nearby hotel room by 6 p.m., in time for the Journal's first edition, which goes to outlying areas of the state.
Coming home on the plane later, the firefighters talked with a Journal reporter as they wrestled with the emotions and memories of the horrific 38 hours they spent in Oklahoma City. And once again, Journal readers benefited. In the next day's Journal:
As Oklahoma slipped into Texas, then New Mexico, the firefighters said they weren't sure exactly how they'd process the overload of sights, smells and feelings. ... "You see all that pain and suffering ... and it makes you value life that much more."
Publisher Lang flew the news team to New York City after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to drop off relief crews and reporting teams. Full report.
