A beautiful plane, curved like a girl
Her triple tail unique in the air
Her four Wright radials roared like the storm
I would take my first flight in her
But this was a year earlier
Cold December in the afternoon
My sister and I were walking home
We heard her first, a roaring monotone
She flew low over the trees
No more than a thousand feet
She was howling and straining
Trying to gain air and to cheat
The fatal wound she’d taken
Half her triple tail gone
I thought I was mistaken
But we both saw it, not I alone
She struggled over the wooded hills
Heading for her doom
We kept walking, wondering
And then we heard the boom
Her Captain had pancaked her
In the only field he could find
One town over, on the side of a hill
Just over the New York State line
He was so skillful in his aim
The plane landed flat and split
All but one soul walked out
The captain never left it
The plane she’d hit in mid air
A TWA 707
Managed to make it to LGA
This all happened when I was 11
A year later I flew home from school
An unaccompanied minor on TWA
The plane was a Super Connie
All I could think of was that cold December day
TWA is gone now, along with Pan Am
And most of the other great airlines
The Superconstellation hasn’t flown in 40 years
These are very different times
TWA is gone now, along with Pan Am
And most of the other great airlines
The Superconstellation hasn’t flown in 40 years
These are very different times
A beautiful plane, curved like a girl
Her triple tail unique in the air
Her four Wright radials roared like the storm
I would take my first flight in her