My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia HardstarkOn today’s episode, Karen tells the story of the Kray twins and Georgia covers the Tenerife airport disaster.
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Hello and welcome my favorite murder.
That's Georgia Heart Start.
Thanks Karen kill Gareff.
Where are your sincere podcasting from?
Hey?
Hi, Happy Valentine's Day.
It's pretty much Valentine's Day, and in.
Your world it probably is probably is.
What he don for Valentine's Day?
Everyone, Hey, what do you like about Valentine's Day?
Not making reservations for restaurants that are packed.
That you don't want to go to anyway, If everyone's miserable, including especially the servers.
The servers, the couples, the singles, everybody loses on Valentine's.
Day, Stay home, stay home.
Nothing's ever good enough?
So cool.
When's the last great vale Time's Day that you've ever had?
Great? What do we mean by great?
Well, maybe like an early peak one you don't have to like adult relationships, but kind of like.
I honestly don't think I remember a single Valentine's Day. Yeah, there was a KFC on once, but it wasn't thence so that gives a shit.
Right you know?
That was more just like somebody that thought of a good bad gift.
Yeah, what about you?
Well yeah, no, no, no great ones. I'm sure there was people that made nice efforts along the way. I was really hoping you had a story about and then someone was like, come down to the ravine with me and whatever.
And they murdered me. Now ravine, it's like the least romantic.
Well, we just had a ravine behind our high school.
Oh okay, you know. Yeah, people wo.
Go down there and get high and have important discussions.
Oh yeah, we did that.
We had like a wash like the La River kind of a thing, right, which just still isn't romantic unfortunately.
Do you think that maybe all teens have that kind of heartbreak and disappointment because they think that's what's supposed to happen, and it kind of is never really happening for most of them.
Valentine's Day or ravines.
Like Valentine's Day victories. Oh yeah, ravines are definitely happening for teens.
I really, until you're twenty nine, you have high hopes every year for Valentine's Day, Yeah, you know, and then you just are like, it's not gonna do.
It's not gonna happen.
The idea that like you're you're going to get a bouquet of roses from your secret admirer at your doorstep is. I think the thing that is yeah has kept this country alive up until this year.
I met a dude on Valentine's Day, and I do think our relationship lasted longer than it needed to because of that. Like somehow it was like kismet and like somehow it was like meant to be because we met on Valentine's Day. However, you e that on like February sixteenth, I would have been like a year in, I would have been like that, h this isn't working.
It's fine, just a late winter relationship.
I said it was three years in that didn't need to have I have you know who you.
Are and you still need to apologize.
Well here we are.
Whoops.
Uh is this.
Celebrating or are we doing something to we have something to celebrate?
What?
Oh? Yeah, we do? Like what what do we do?
Oh?
Yeah? We have a little announcement to make.
Speaking of hearts, hey and relationships and relationships allead, we want to give you guys some exciting news. On February fifth, we announced our new partnership with iHeartRadio came out in the public.
Yay, Yes, we are so excited to begin this partnership with them. This podcast journey. That means yes we will be at the iHeartRadio Awards this year, and yes we will both be doing musical numbers individually.
Did I sign something I don't think?
Yeah, yeah, that's all in the contract.
Oh yeah, dude.
Full singing career starting for you right now. It's time.
I want to be on the Wicked part two?
You will, Okay, Well that's all I can also in the contract, right great?
Yeah, yeah, so new new beginning, exciting.
Positive relationship vibes. Yeah, we're all about as adults.
Yeah, this this little company that could exactly right media of ours. You know, we're just we're doing it and we're trying it and we're pushing it and we're following through.
As one should in relationships, as you should.
But you know, it's still the little engine that could as far as you know, podcast networks go. And we hope that in the next year or two we got to bring you guys some really fucking awesome new podcasts. That's always the name of the game. New exciting ones that we like freak out when we hear pitch to us.
And so that's the whole point of this.
There really are some exciting new podcasts that are coming out. So yeah, it's great now that we have our feet on solid ground and we have our ad distribution all sorted out and we can just do business as usual.
That's right.
Now, here's something else we need to talk about in terms of love. Okay, people who love us sent us because we demanded it, ceramic gifts for our night the anniversary, and we have gotten so many that twice we have featured these ceramics on this show. Now so many that we think we might have to split off and do a separate video featuring just ceramics. I think so that's how many we've gotten. But you guys like these ceramics too, So we just wanted to really quick read some comments from the internet with you guys looking at these ceramics that we've posted, because.
Those were lovely too.
They all gave me a dopamine hit looking at all the beautiful presents we got, and these.
Are so many like gave it the same thing.
So here's one from Deanna underscore m who says, while listening to Georgia and Karen unveiling and describing all the ceramic art I just imagine the respective artists listening beaming with pride and probably shedding a few tears at Kang's excitement. We lift each other up part emoji. Isn't that sweet?
So lovely? Yeah?
Well, Alex Whitney on Instagram said that I thought this was the craziest merch drop for a second. Said someone which music agg said need the microphone pipe? Oh my god, and like, how great would that be if that was our new merch is just a line of pipes.
We go into manufacturing ceramic, very large ceramic microphone shape pipes.
Why not?
Yeah, I mean we are not.
Busy next stage of our career.
Come on, everybody, A strain of murderino weed would be great.
That's right.
People were freaking, really freaking out over the precious moments. Figurine and the po log said I came all caps running over to IG to see the ceramics and they did not disappoint What talented listeners. And then Cordy Gal wrote, please I want the croc, the historical crock.
We're using these mugs now, they're like part of They're part of it now.
This is just like every mug that I saw every mom drink coffee out of in the seventies.
You can smell the cigarette smoke that comes with them. You can go to Instagram and check out all of the beautiful ceramics that have come, and then stay tuned in the future for more of us.
Because we have to, we have to.
There's so much we we simply must, simply must now because it's a holiday and we are celebrating. The one way we really like to celebrate is by eating a mic and so we decided that once again, we're going to try some of the weird Valentine snacks that the I don't know, the confectionery world decides to put out every year.
For Valentine exists on putting out weird because it can't just be good, No, it has to be weird. And I'm just reading the three that we have listed here and I'm terrified. Ye not the words that are going together, and I don't like the feeling of my mouth already.
But you're gonna have to eat five of each.
Let's try it. Sorry, gotta go, Okay, let's do it. Alejandra bring it in. Thank you, Oh my god, that's so cute.
Thank you.
Okay.
The one I's most scared of are these ones. The Krabby Patty gummies?
Does it best candy?
It's not, isn't the Krabby patty crab? No, okay, it's just gummies. Yeah, okay, that's fine. It's like a little Hamburger gummy thing, which I always thought was cute. I was sad that like Hamburger gummies and pizza gummies that just look like that, you know, those like didn't take off until I was older.
Yeah, like just a little too old to.
Like buy them for myself, and so I feel like I missed out a little bit.
But here they are.
Hey, nine year old Georgia, get in here.
It's a little bit like lipstick.
You can't eat it like a traditional hamburger. I thought it did with Tony because so many people from our stuff said that their dream item to eat, and myself included was a Krabby patty like wanting the real thing, that's right. So if that is what the real thing tastes like, that's kind of hilarious. Yeah it's candy. Yeah, it's just candy. It's just delicious gummies.
All right. This looks like a mac piece of mac and cheese. I gummy like gummy? Was that Mac and cheese flavored gummy. I think it is.
I'm trying to dig in there.
Tastes like a sandbox could use sandbox.
I mean if there was. There's nothing mac and cheese about it to me except for the look.
It's a little bit like macaroni, like just playing macaroni without the cheese maybe, you know.
But like I was thinking there was going to be a really offensive kind of like yeah, nacho vibe. Yeah, I think it's orange flavored.
I think you're right.
I think it's weird that I really want to save these cute little plastic tubs that they both came in for future us, just in case you need them for something in the future.
Yeah, because you could put maybe put little rubber bands for your hair in there. Organizational you can organize with old candy things. Okay, last one, worst for last. I'm actually saving this mac and cheese one because in general it's kind of delicious orange gummy.
Yeah it is orange a right, No no.
Complaints about that. Now, this is like, is this a trend?
A Tabasco flavored cupcake?
Apparently this is what all the kids are talking about these days.
I don't want to do this.
Let's just do it because I hate spicy stuff, so that's kind of good. Okay, Oh my ulcer.
That's a spicy cupcake.
Oh yeah, here it go in the back of my throat.
Oh my god, it's kind of good. Oh what's it doing? I don't know what's gotta kick.
It looks like a red velvet cupcake. It's got chocolate vibes and spicy. I don't fucking mind.
You like it? I kind of. I don't like it, but I don't mind.
You don't mind it. And if you were on your old TV show, how would you describe this?
You take a bite into the Tabasco cupcake and you get she.
Had to check her notes on that immediate sugar, and then the.
Back of your throat starts to burn, starts to burn a little.
I mean, that was weird. It was like the tasting in the front was full on red velvet, frosting velvet. Yeah, but the experience in the back was something terrible. Has happened in the back of your throat?
Right, I'm not not nauseous, you know.
I Mean that's the idea is like Tabasco desserts work against each other.
Sure, and that's another installment of eating on a podcast.
The thing people hate the most that we insist upon doing. I'm going to cleanse the Tabasco cupcake with a little bit of mac and cheese. Gummy.
Gross.
Mmmm. Well, some suggestions for your lover on this beautiful day, give them any of those things we just date.
I bet there's someone who would love Tabasco cupcakes.
Yeah, the guy that hosts hot Ones. Oh yeah, one of those kind of people.
Totally.
Well, anything else, any personal news before we move it along.
I have a podcast recommendation.
What is it?
It's a true crime podcast called Beers with Queers your advert No, it's an LGBTQIA plus related true crime podcast and they have two episodes where they do interview with the trans Dough Task Force.
Oh cool, which I think is so important.
I was at one, sixteen, o one to seventeen, so I just wanted to mention those and check that podcast out.
Beers with Queers.
Beers with Queers.
The host Jordie and Brad are so so funny and it's just a great true crime podcast, So make sure you check that out.
Nice.
Oh, I have a little something I'm going to talk to very one very specific, murdering her name is Gloria Evans. She goes to cal State Domingus Hills. Apparently for two years in a row, in mister Pope's class, she has at the beginning of the year told everybody that her favorite thing is this podcast. And the first year she did it, mister Pope, who is my very old friend, Chip Pope, said to her, just so you know, I know one of those hosts, and she was like, no, you don't, and then basically just didn't believe him. And then I just saw Chip at a party George and I were at together, and she was in his class again, and she again told everybody that this is her favorite pog this is her favorite thing, this podcast. And so then Chip just told me that kind of in passing, and then I was like, well, I'm going to set Gloria Evans straight. Sounds like she's one of the leading murderinos out there, certainly at cal State Domingus Hills. So, Gloria, I know Chip Pope, it's real.
Everyone else Chip Hope.
He's legendary in the comedy community, truly, And so are you for loving our podcast enough that you tell people in a brand new class that you would.
Take Well, we appreciate you not trusting authority though and being like mister Pope, no you don't like we get that, Yes, we get that, like immediate what's the word distrust?
Yeah, totally support.
That, like snap judgment of like bullshit. Good for you if.
You're going to immediately come and tell me the thing I think I want to hear most. I absolutely doubt you're what you're coming at me with.
And it wasn't just any party, by the way, it was Chris fairbanks fiftieth birthday party.
That's right. It was so fun, so good. Everyone who was anyone was there. It was great.
It was very fun. And Chris made a step and repeat so that people could go take pictures at the party and the background said fifty years of Fairbanks, but it kind of looked like the Academy Awards step and repeat. And then he made a plexiglass Geddy Images floating things so that when you took this picture, you had a Geddy Image's watermark.
On your picture. So fucking brilliant.
The man is an artist. Happy birthday, Chris.
Fair Appy birthday.
Okay, eram highlights real quick, let's do it with a podcast network.
It's called exactly the right media. Here are some highlights this week.
On Buried Bones, Kate and Paul cover the death of investigative reporter Don Bolais, who was known for exposing organized crime in Phoenix and who was killed in a nineteen seventy six car bombing. Tune in to hear how his legacy still impacts journalism today.
Wow.
And then over on Ghosted by ros Hernandez Roz slides down the banister to welcome the comedian rosebud Baker. They discuss a haunted toys r Us, spirit babies, and a wild encounter with a medium at a comedy club.
And then over on Rewind with Karen and Georgia, that's you and I. We're traveling back to Recap episode thirty two, which was the episode where we covered the tragic death of the singer Selena and the now infamous Zancu chicken murders. On that show, we bring you all new case updates and insights and secrets in Easter Egg.
You should be checking out Rewind. If you're not, it's just got everything. Gloria, get over there, and then there's a lot we don't know these days. I think you and i'd be the first to admit. But one thing we can all agree on is that there's never been a worse time than now.
That's true.
So in honor of that, we're relaunching that this is terrible keep going design this time in navy blue with white lettering. So Greg, your unisex shirt, a lady's tea, a zip hoody, whatever you want, because really it is terrible right now and we absolutely need everyone.
To keep going. Yes, please keep going. Please, yes, all right, you're first.
I am first today. Okay, So I have a feeling you're going to know this story, maybe because I've talked about parts of it. But it's the story of two infamous British gangster brothers who achieved full Caro status just a few years after their rise to fame. They were charming, entertaining nightclub owners who rubbed shoulders with the biggest stars of their day and became celebrities themselves. They were all so hardened criminals who use intimidation, violence, extortion and murder to claw their way to the top of London's crime world and the swinging sixties social scene. This is a story of the notorious Cray Twins.
Holy shit, do you know this yes, and they've been brought up a lot in the podcast, but we've never covered them.
I guess that's yeah. I think I'm doing this now because we were talking about Tom Hardy and the movie Legend and all that stuff, so it was like, oh, well, actually, let's just go back and cover it.
Yeah.
So the main sources used in this story today are the book Our Story, written by Ronnie and Reggie Cray and fred Diinage. Also the book The Profession of Violence, The Rise and Fall of the Cray Twins by John Pearson, and an article by writer Duncan Campbell that ran in The Guardian in twenty fifteen titled The Selling of the Craze, How two mediocre criminals created their own legend. And the rest are in our show notes. So it all begins in October nineteen thirty three, when Reggie and Ronnie Cray are born into this world ten minutes apart, Reggie first, then Ronnie, at the family home in the Haggerston neighborhood of East London. In nineteen thirty eight, the Cray family left that home and moved to bethnal Green. Big long pause, because I was so positive. I was like it couldn't be that easy to pronounce. At the time, London's East End is gritty, overcrowded, and many of its residents are trapped in the constant cycle of poverty and unemployment. The Cray's parents are east Enders, Violet and Charlie Cray, who already have a seven year old son named Charles Junior when the twins arrive. So by nineteen thirty nine, as World War Two is kicking off, Ronnie and Reggie are six years old and their father, Charlie, is gone much of the time. Reggie will later say, quote, my dad in those days was nearly always on the run, usually from the army, but also occasionally from the police. During his years on the run, it was difficult for him to make a proper living, so he would occasionally have to resort to a bit of thieving and the like, Sure you know, just a touch, it's been off in there. Meanwhile, the twins' mom, Violet, is a loving and attentive mother who instills in her boys a deep respect for family. Even in the most desperate times, as London is bombed and the family's evacuated and money runs low, she somehow shields her children from the serious difficulties of everyday life during World War Two. Amazing. Reggie will later say, quote, my dad being away meant a hell of a lot of responsibility for our mother. But she did brilliantly. She kept the family together, she kept us clothed and fed. Though how she did it I'll never know. She was the kindest woman in the world. She never hit us, not even when we've been right little bastards, and the Kray twins are right little bastards from the start. So this is a quote from the craze walking to our information page on the website London Walks, which is walks. They nailed that one. They must have got it early. Quote. The East End of London in the fifties and sixties was a hard place to live. Legendary photographer David Bailey came from the East End at that time and he said quote quote within quote, if you came from the East End and you wanted out, there were only three things. You could become. A boxer, a car thief, or maybe a musician. Wow end quote to give you a little a perspective of what it was like there. Luckily, Reggie and Ronnie got into a lot of fights with neighborhood kids, and so, as expected, as they entered their late teens, they also get into boxing. Both their father and grandfather were boxers, and their older brother, Charles Junior, is the one who actually teaches them the ropes, so he is too. For a while, boxing seems like a promising career path for them both, especially Reggie, who was said to be an exceptional athlete and very meticulous and thoughtful in the ring. Ronnie, on the other hand, is more brutal and unpredictable, and these two boxing styles actually ended up mirroring how people will describe the craze personalities, Reggie being the brains, Ronnie being the muscle. So that said, both brothers are talented enough to participate in local youth championships and their fights even get some press attention in the London newspapers. They actually even fight each other.
A couple times.
Oooh, that's kind of a twins. Yeah boxing each other.
I thought, was like a you know, a good cell Yeah, like you fucking see, these guys look exactly the same.
Yeah, fun little human interest moment.
Beat the shit out of each other.
They do it anyway at home. Then in nineteen fifty two, the Craze get drafted into the army, but things spiral almost immediately. When they show up at the reporting station, they refuse to cooperate, punch a corporal, and end up fleeing. Can't do that, No, you can't no. So, just as their father had done throughout their childhoods, the brothers spend much of the next two years a wall from the army or getting arrested and serving short stints in military prisons. As they do, they meet countless other men with criminal records, and these relationships spark the twins' interest in criminal activities and the promise of easy money. In nineteen fifty four, when both boys are twenty one, they finally serve all their time and are dishonorably discharged from the military. At this point, Ronnie and Reggie's lives have completely changed. Their criminal records effectively bar them from the legitimate boxing world, so their one career path is now entirely cut off, and it's around this time Ronnie starts to struggle with his mental health. This is a big part of the movie, the Legend movie, which is that these weren't just like kind of bloodthirsty sociopathic gangsters. Reggie was kind of a businessman. He was very strategic about what they were trying to do. Ronnie was schizophrenic. He was a paranoid schizophrenic.
Wow.
He didn't know it, and he was dealing with the kind of effects of that. It was basically at that age, the onset of paranoid schizophrenia. He will later remember it by saying, I can joke about it now, but it was a bad time for me. For a while, I was treated at a mental hospital, but I stopped going there. I still wasn't right. I kept getting these urges to kill people because I was convinced they were plotting to kill me.
Wow.
Yeah, scary, which also must be hard if you are starting to be a bit of a criminal or thinking of it.
Right where nothing is like don't do that. It's like kind of part of your profession in a way.
Yeah, And it's going to kind of escalate things where it's yeah. So that's the kind of context playing out in the background as the twins head back to bethnal Green and soon pursue some legitimate business. There's an east end billiard hall called the Regal, and it's just kind of past its prime. The paint is chipping, the interiors are dingy, and it basically has a CD enough reputation that like insurers won't ensure it. But the crazy it is a perfect investment. So they stop by one day, and then the next, and then suddenly there's a strange uptick in violent activity at the Regal. Unruly guests start infiltrating the place. They destroy the furniture, smash glasses, threaten to burn the building to the ground. And although the craze deny having anything to do with this sudden influx of bad business at the Regal, it all suspiciously works in their favor. They offer the billiard Halls beleaguered owner five pounds a week to take over the business, which would be.
Around five pounds in nineteen forty.
Now it's fifties.
Not like it fucking matters, Like I'm going to be closer. You might get five pounds and nineteen late forties, mid fifties, many fifties, midy fifties. It's like what I like to call it, right, one hundred and fifty dollars a.
Week, close one sixties on it. Yes, because you also made the switch from dollars to pounds. That's a great job.
That's why, thank you.
That's why it was so hard. According to writer John Pearson quote, the day their offer was accepted, the violence stopped as mysteriously as.
It had started.
To imagine that, so the craze give the Regal a lot overdue makeover. They repaint and redecorate it, and soon it starts drawing a new crowd of patrons for the first time in years. Unfortunately, though, this includes members of a local gang who waltz into the Regal and demand money from the craze in exchange for protection.
Not from the craze. No, you don't say that to the not to these boys.
But they weren't known, so it was kind of like, oh, you think you're gonna have a billion?
All okay?
It's this is called a protection racket. And in Reggie's oone words, this is how protection rackets work, okay, And he would know a gang would offer to protect clubs, pubs, shops and the like from other gangs in return for a fee, which is when I was reading this part, I was just like, oh, this is the mob and keep blinders. Later days it's just like all the same thing over and.
Over keep Blinders later days, oh classic.
Often, of course, the business was not in any danger from those other gangs. But if the the owner of the business was to make this point and refuse to pay the protection fee, he would generally find that his business had been burgled, set fire to, or generally smashed up. By then, of course he was more than ready to pay his fee. Very few business owners went to the law because if they did, the matter became personal and they themselves would become the target of the gang.
Right, and the law was like on the take.
Probably most likely Yeah, according to what I've seen in Peaky Blinders.
Absolutely listen, we have been infiltrated the mob before, and so we know we know.
Also Tom Hardy also on Peaky Blinders.
Cute.
Do you want him in the Craze movie legend? Do you want him in Peaky Blinders?
You want him in every movie you want him?
So the Craze were not at all scared of this gang or their threats. Of course, in fact, when these gang members show up demanding their protection money, the brothers don't just say no in front of their patrons and God and everybody. Ronnie grabs a sword and chases the gang out of the regal Sword. I say, wow, this is when the craze have their light bulb moment. If they're tough enough to run off the local gang running a protection racket, why not just become the local gang running a protection racket. So they do. They form a gang known as the Firm, and they begin running their own East End protection rackets and armed robberies and arson and blackmail schemes, and they get rich doing it. I think the name for a gang in the fifties, naming it the Firm is so cool, so visionary, so good. I just need to say that credit where credits due. So as Ronnie and Reggie run this gang, they also open more nightclubs. In nineteen fifty seven they open the Double r and homage to their first names. Then in nineteen sixty they acquire a popular West End club called Esmeralda's Barn.
Let's go back to the.
Drawing board on that one. I hope we could see west End Does barn mean something else in British fifties?
Then?
Now, yes, it means a trunk, a boot, a lift, a flat. They basically harass and extort the previous owner of Esmeralda's and then they just take over themselves. Then in nineteen sixty three, they debut The Kentucky back in East London, and soon after it's opening, The Kentucky serves as a filming location for the movie Sparrows Can't Sing Your Favorite Film, early sixties hit. Ronnie and Reggie are invited to the film's premiere and they host its celebrity filled after party. About this, Reggie says quote, it was on that night, with ron and me done up like dogs, dinners in our bow ties and dinner jackets, and surrounded by the rich and famous, that I realized that we were well on the way to making it to the very top. I felt so powerful that night, I felt nothing was to stop us. So through the mid sixties, the craze open more clubs and they become the center of London night life and they're becoming celebrities in their own right. Their public image is complex. It's well known that Ronnie and Reggie are involved in all sorts of illegal activities, that they're wildly brutal to those who cross them, and that they're gaining the firm rules the East End. They're also running what's called long firm frauds, and this involves setting up a fake business, ordering goods or merchandise on credit, then shutting down that business and stiffing the seller and offloading the goods that they didn't pay.
For for a quick profit.
Sure, but these crimes and the craze criminal infamy not only doesn't scare customers away, their notorious reputation enhances their popularity. They seem dangerous, which is enticing to some customers. Duncan Campbell writes, quote, this cross fertilization between crime and show business, exemplified in the US by Frank Sinatra's relationship with the mafia, had benefits for both sides. Prestige for the gangsters, edgy cool for the stars. Can we like?
I want to make clear though, they don't look like Tom Hardy right like Tom Hardy. I don't know what he played he played them in the movie.
Yes, that's something.
They look like the picture I saw of the Crazy. They look like boxers. They look like they've had their nose smashed a bunch of times.
It's like if Alan Rickman had been a boxer. Yes, and was terrifying.
But also like very concerned with like slicked back hair fifties like cool suits, sixties cool suits. Yeah, yeah, Ok, they were very image savvy. Yeah, they styled themselves after characters in American gangster films. They dress in double breasted suits with their hair slicked back excess rising, with big, chunky rings and gold cuff links. They even form a friendly relationship with powerful members of the American mafia. So they're going for it. Yeah. But as hard as the twins work to push a very specific gangster image, they also buck social norms by openly engaging in relationships with other men.
Oh right, Oh, I didn't know that.
Yeah, being an out gay man in this era is very rare. Wow, homosexuality at the time is against the lawn in but Ronnie lives openly as a gay man. And actually that part of the movie legend is really funny because he is Ronnie being the big tough guy. He also has this kind of like he's very like takes the world as it is and very you know, like of the moment. So anytime anyone tries to like insult him or try to infer that there's anything wrong with what he's doing, he's just like kind of confused, like I don't know what your problem is.
Wow.
Yeah, I mean that's just the way it's played in the movie, which made me laugh really hard. He's just not having it really And Reggie, who eventually marries a woman named Francis, say he's more often described as bisexual. So I feel like, basically they just do what they want.
Yeah, like weirdly progressive.
Yeah, and they're very strong, tough guy brand that they've created is great for business and kind of goes, you know, it just plays and enables them to do whatever they want. Essentially, they're not Clubs are increasingly popular hangouts for glamorous clientele like James Mansfield, Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra. Even Judy Garland went there and became a close friend to the cray brothers. At one point, she actually introduced the craze to the Beatles.
Tou dyew.
She was the link between the craze. Mother actually invited Judy Garland to tea and while she was there, Judy sang somewhere over the rainbow for her. But this is according to Duncan Campbell, the writer, this was the quote from Violet Craye. Judy was a frightened little thing, too skinny that was her verdict on having fucking Judy Garland in her house, singing.
Yep Wow, tough, legendary.
Tough lady, I mean Violet. So for years the Craze seem untouchable. When police look into their crimes, the investigations always stall because witnesses are simply too afraid to talk. But of course nothing lasts forever. While Ronnie and Reggie's rise to the top of London's underworld is swift, by nineteen six sixty six, tensions between the Craze and a South London group of gangsters called the Richardson Gang come to a head. While these two gangs typically steer clear of each other's business, Ronnie later claims that the Craze had spies inside the Richardson camp, and those spies eventually report back that one of the Richardson's gang associates, who was a guy named George Cornell who used to be in the firm, so he was like an ex Craze gang member that went to the Richardson's gang, George had been talking about a plan to move into the Crazed territory. Ronnie also admits, though, that this rift with their ex colleague was very personal with this George Cornell, because he says, quote, the trouble might still have been avoided. But then Cornell did the most stupid thing he'd ever done in his life in front of a table full of villains. He actually called me a fat poof. He virtually signed his own death warrant.
Yeah, he can't do that end quote. You gotta be.
Careful, yeah, like in front of everybody, and to a person where it was just like, oh okay, well then there you go. So as you can imagine, things escalate from there. On March eighth, nineteen sixty six, members of the Richardson Gang, including George Cornell, shoot up a pub that's frequented by members of the firm. Ronnie and Reggie aren't there, but one of their associates is killed. So one night later, Ronnie's out drinking when he learns that George Cornell is posted up at a pub called the Blind Beggar that's also in the East End, and it's also in the firm's territory. So Ronnie walks over, walks up to George of the bar and shoots him in front of basically all the patrons that are in there. George Cornell dies later that night. After the murder, Ronnie says, quote, I felt fucking marvelous. Jesus, Well, don't call him slurves then, I know, certainly don't call him fat.
I don't know why I'm expecting like a gang stir to be like I didn't like it.
It's like now, Carsey fucking felt fad.
I didn't give a shit. You would just be fucking traumatized into infinity if you had totally months pass. Ronnie faces zero repercussions for George's murder because again, no witnesses are willing to talk about. A year later, with a rivalry between the Craze and the Richardson gang continuing to build, Reggie brutally murders a low ranking member of his own gang over basically a small debt. This man's name was Jack the Hat mcvittie. I'm and start calling you.
The hat for sure.
Please do that if you could just wear a little hat all the time. Jack is baited into a basement. He's told there's a party down there that everyone's going to. We never go to a party, especially in the basement. When he gets down there, he instead finds Reggie and Ronnie waiting for him. Reggie pulls the trigger to shoot Jack. The gun jams come on, so Ronnie holds Jack down. Reggie pulls out a knife and repeatedly stabs him in the face, throat, and chest until he bleeds out on the floor, and Jack mcvittie's body is disposed of and never recovered.
Wow.
So that's where all the glamor and glitz and kind of like superficial stuff really really melts away from me, where it's like, oh, that's cute, neat and tom hardy in hooray. But then it's like, you you could do that.
That's fucking brutal as shit.
To someone in your own gang. Right, This murder is seen as a terrible, needless, and very sloppy move, and it alienates the craze from members of their own gang. It's also out of character for Reggie, who's typically more of the strategic and thinking one. Years later, he blames this decision to murder Jack on his poor mental state because his beloved wife Francis had recently taken her own life.
Oh no, yeah still no no, oh no for her.
Yeah, strictly, like the oh no stops firmly there so both the murders of Jack mcviie and George Cornell happened in front of witnesses over at Scotland Yard. There's a detective name letterdquote unquote Nipper, Reid Nipper.
That's your new nickname? Is it?
The hat Nipper and the ha in the hat? That's our new Tuesday show. No, So the Nippers determined to bring down the craze. Essentially in nineteen sixty eight, Ronnie Reggie in about fifteen members of the firm are arrested for various illicit activities. Reid's plan is to bring them all in and then flip someone from the inside. He holds separate interrogations with each gang member and offers them legal protection in exchange for their testimony about the murders of Cornell and mcvittie, and the plan works. After about a decade of getting nothing but silence, Reid is finally able to turn members of Cray's own inner circle, who are finally willing to speak in court. The Twins nineteen sixty nine trial is a true media sensation, I bet, thanks to all the damning evidence and most crucially the consequential testimony against them. It ends with both Ronnie and Reggie being found guilty of the murders of George Cornell and Jack mcvittie, respectively, as well as all the unprovable crimes that no one would or could talk about up until that point. The crazer sentenced to life sentences in separate prisons. They're both thirty five years old. At their sentencing hearing, the judge tells them, quote, in my view, society has earned a rest from your activities, but they don't get arrest from the craze activities. Instead, Ronnie and Reggie maintain a very public profile once they're in prison. Duncan Campbell reports that quote once jailed, they devoted their considerable energies to their image as gang land stars, always open to visitors from the outside, The twins are able to generate a decent income by feeding stories to visitors, who would then sell them to British tabloids and then bring the money.
Back to the craze in jail. Oh that's smart, right.
They also have more elaborate ways of capitalizing off their imprisonment. In nineteen eighty five, for example, Ronnie gets engaged to a woman named Elaine who's been writing him letters during his incarceration.
There's always these Elaines, these Elaines.
By this point, Ronnie's been transferred to Broadmoor, a famous London psychiatric hospital we have talked about on the show many times. Ronnie and Elaine decide to get married at the facility's chapel. But there's an ulterior motive here.
Oh it's not love.
I mean, it could have been the greatest Valentine's Day of all time, but no, it's not real. When the tabloids catch wind about this upcoming wedding, the Sun offers twenty thousand pounds, which is nearly how much in today's US dollars.
Twenty thousand in the eighties, yep, equals three hundred and fifty.
One hundred thousand.
Damn it.
Try, I was trying to send it to you, Thank you God. I was gonna say, pathologically one hundred thousand dollars for the rights to cover it. Ronnie accepts the offer, takes the money, resumably we don't have proof, and then interestingly, his marriage to Elaine is over within.
A few years.
Yeah, I mean he worked the Sun. That's kind of great, totally, that's a lot of money. These guys are really good at being kind of Robin Hood esque, except for the murder right. Ronnie Cray dies of Broadmoor in nineteen ninety five at the age of sixty one after a heart attack. Reggie Cray meanwhile bounces around to different prisons until the year two thousand, when they release him on compassionate grounds because he's dying of cancer. Reggie dies a few weeks later on October first.
At the age of sixty six.
Today, the Cray brothers are buried side by side in London next to their parents, and even after their deaths, the Cray twins continue to fascinate the public, and their twisted underdog story has inspired a niche industry of books, movies, and TV shows and true crime podcasts. This includes the twenty fifteen film Legend, where the great Tom Hardy. It was a dual blockbuster performance as both brothers in one movie. If you haven't seen it.
It really is the best I haven't I watch it.
It's also just a really like in my opinion, beautifully directed film and very compelling, but it's just so good and he's so different. The two brothers are so different.
And to play both of them that's gotta be a challenge. It's cool, it's not just a pretty face.
He's not just start crying. There's also a nineteen ninety film starring Martin and Gary Kemp as the Kray Brothers. It's called The Craze. And if you're not old then you probably don't know. The Kemp brothers were the bass and guitar players for the band Spanned Out Ballet.
Oh wow.
Yeah, So they were kind of already famous British and then somebody wanted to make The Craze movie and they're like, those guys are brothers, They're badasses. They wear jackets really well. Today, the Kray brand remains strong. Many continue to capitalize off of it. There are now gangster walking tours in London that roll through the areas where Ronnie and Reggie used to hang out, including London Walks at Walks dot com go ahead and get your Craze walking tour over there. Full Circle and the pub The Blind Beggar where Ronnie killed George Cornell also benefits from the connection to the Craze. Reporter Duncan Campbell notes, quote, you can take a selfie in the place where Cornell was shot and The pub sells Crazed DVDs for twenty pounds and a Craze Walk booklet for three pounds. Not only that, but I in looking on that website found that there's a walking tour called Darkest Victorian London, which I beg anybody that can get to it to please take and then write into my favorite Murder gmail dot com and tell me everything about the Darkest Victorian.
That's your dream walking tour.
There's also a virtual walking tour of Jane Austen's Bath, which I want.
Wow, can I just sit or do I have to actually walk on a treadmillon you.
Have to walk in a treadmillane your own home.
Like virtual means I can virtually walk too for a walk.
It's just kind of virtual, like you know, think about walking while you while you watch it done. And that's the story of the Notorious east Ender, Twin Gangsters, the Craze.
Wow, I just have the best idea right now. So like you get a treadmill and it has like the walking tours of like the like beautiful or the walking hikes and the mountains and the forest and all the beautiful hikes you can take. Yes, why aren't there like ghost tour treadmill walks and like you know, Jack the Ripper, like neighborhood treadmill walks.
So that your heart rate keeps going up and keeps going up.
Oh my god, brought to you by my favorite murder. Yeah, let's do this.
Poor man's copyright. Don't try to do it. We're doing it. But it's also like you're on a treadmill, but then like a ghost from Scooby Doo kind of just flies through.
Right.
Yeah, it's a great idea.
It's great. Sorry, that was so good. Thank thank you, good.
Job, thank you, thank you. You've done it again.
You have It's I'll tell Marty's fault and we appreciate it. That's right. All right.
Well, here's one that a lot of people are going to be mad at me about that. I'm mad at me about, okay, because the timing is bad and it's a bad story, and.
It's it's I know about you're like, and this is the American Revolution.
This is the Civil War. Uh, it's something that is a lot of us who have anxiety. It's on our minds right now. Even though this is a story from over forty five years ago. This is the story of the deadliest aviation accident in history.
I know.
Alejandra called me last week and was like, are you sure you want to cover this? And I'm like, let's just do it, but let's talk about what's happening currently too.
Yeah, you know, yep.
So we don't try away here, except sometimes we do.
I'm I mean, like, we do what we can do week to week, right, all right, let's do it. Yeah, let's dig in.
This story is wild because it's a story of chance, like so many little things, human error, the weather, like things you could not control, all lining up in such a way that this one event occurred and it results in a tragedy that ultimately claims the lives of five hundred and eighty three people.
I know.
This disaster also led to some major changes in the way international aviation works. That said, safety experts have been warning for years that there are still gaps in the systems and that another tragedy is likely. Their warnings have only just recently come to fruition in the recent American Airlines crash in Washington, d C. To'll talk about the end. This is the story of the tenor Reef Airport disaster.
Do you know it. Yeah, did you watch.
The Nova episode called the Deadliest Plane Crash? It's like, I survived.
What year was it from?
It's two thousand and six. It feels I may have.
Yeah, yeah, I bet you did, because it totally reads like a nice survived episode. Okay, and it's so hard to watch, And the rest of the sources can be found in the show notes. That was the main source I used when I watched it and cried. But then I was like, Vince, I shouldn't do this this week, right, And he was like, I'm not worried about it, and I'm like, oh, it's just us who have anxiety.
I mean, I think it's that piece where a lot of us had the little factoid in our heads every time we flew, which is it's more common to have to be killed in your own bathroom.
Yeah, and a car accident. That's cars are less safe than airplanes.
Right.
But I think when we see any kind of air disaster in the news, it shakes that kind of comfort that we hold on too, very very dearly, on top of this kind of governmental crumbling vibe, which then you're like, well that's gonna you know, it's easy to then begin to write what's going to happen.
Yeah, and I think that we also feel some kind of control when it comes just stepping into a bathtub or getting into a car. We at least have a little bit of control over what's happening. And in an airplane you give it all up.
And so it's scary, very true, excepta just like to remind everybody that one step you take off the bath mat and there's a little water on your it's like tile floor. I did that the other day and caught myself. I was like, I could have like just cracked my head so hard and it was like like a fast totally one that I then caught and I was like, oh my god, thank god I caught myself.
That's terrifying.
Yeah, everything's terrifying, guy.
Everything is terrifying.
We can do this. Just walk slowly, you know, keep the ground dry.
Carry a beta blocker.
You don't have to take it, which is like knowing that it's in my purse does help sometimes.
Okay.
Also, we're getting on a plane next month. You and I so sorry about that.
We're going to be doing this a lot. It's people. One million people are going to get on planes today and be fine.
Someone's flying right now and they're like, I'm just gonna listen until I can't anymore. Yeah, Jessica, stay with us. You've got this, okay. So let's talk about the Canary Islands. They are a chain of southern islands off the coast of northwestern Africa. As you know, however, there's Spanish territories. This is clearly a bit contentious with everybody. There have been several movements for independence over the years, with disputes of who controls some of the waters around the islands. Regardless, we're not getting to that today. The islands are a hugely popular tourist destination. We've heard of them, right.
I have because there was those murders.
Oh, that's right recently, regardless. So the islands are sunny, they're tropical. It's tropical weather pretty much year round, and they are home to hundreds of beach resorts and water parks, a beautiful place to go. When you hear British people talking about a sun holiday, they're probably talking about the Canary Islands, like they go there a lot. So here we are on the island of Grand Canaria on March twenty seventh, nineteen seventy seven. It's shortly after one pm at the Grand Canaria Airport, which is the main airport servicing the islands. So it's a pretty sizable island an airport, and a bomb explodes in the departures area. So this is just one of those little moments. It has nothing to do with the plane crash that's going to happen later. It's just a chance thing that leads to the next thing.
Right.
A group called the Canary Islands Separatist Movement takes credit for the explosion, injures eight people, and the group threatens that there will be a second explosion that day, so that's the first thing that happens. The airport's evacuated, obviously, and all flights that are scheduled to land there are diverted. Most of them are diverted to the much smaller Los Rdeus Airport on the neighboring island of Tenor Reef, and it's about a twenty five minute flight between the two islands. Los Verdeas has only a single runway, it's very small, one large taxiway and four much smaller taxiways branching off of that. So it's like the Burbank Airport compared to like Lax, right, you know, and it's not designed to accommodate the number of aircraft that have now been diverted there because of this unexpected explosion. Also, it's a Sunday, and so there are only two air traffic controllers on duty at this smaller airport. So among the flights that have been diverted to Los Rodeos are pan Am flight seventeen thirty six, which flew out of Lax. Yeah you know all this do you know this one? One?
No? No, No, I don't know. I don't know like.
That Okay, yeah, that was a Boeing, Like it's amazing.
It's just that it's like those the plane crashes from the seventies feel like, yeah, a lot of them were pan Am Yeah, or like when it's like when you hear the phrase pan Am flight and then a number, it's like it gives me adjita totally.
So it had flown out of Lax, made a refueling stop at JFK in New York. And then the other flight was KLM flight four eight oh five. That one originated in Amsterdam and that is a charter flight for a tour company the Holland International Travel Group. So both planes are as you just said, Boeing seven forty sevens the first wide body plane designed for commercial travel to be considered a jumbo jet. And they have a distinctive upper deck as well, which we don't have anymore, right, every deck.
You know that I've gone on planes recently that had upstairs. Wow, there was something I flew I was upstairs when I flew home from Italy.
It was a biggie huge jumbo jet.
So like, those were the only two jumbo jets that went to tenor Reef that day. Everything else was smaller, but you know they weren't supposed to be there, right. The pilot of the KLM flight, the Dutch flight, is Jacob van Zanten. He is one of the most senior pilots at KLM. In fact, he is the airline's chief pilot and is in charge of training new pilots. He's like the best of the best, this kind of older senior pilot. He's so well regarded in the industry that he is featured prominently in KLM's advertising when they like these are the people who fly you, It's like this guy is.
Like the face of it you get to see a picture of him.
Yeah, he's like a you know, older Gray Zaddy type.
Sure.
Yeah.
I feel like of all the populations of people on this planet, pilots would have the least amount of patients with me, you know what I mean why because they're just so like, you know, kind of like all business business, kind of very logical.
Yeah, like almost like engineers are the engineers. I mean they might be.
There's no extra chit chat. It feels like with them.
No extra words, because there's just like yeah.
Because they're like but then like I would be on there just like, oh my god, if you've ever seen anything weird, and they would just be like, I don't know what you're talking about.
Yeah, yeah, there's no chit chat. You're totally right. So he's definitely that guy. However, if we're wrong about.
That, right in pilots, let us know if you're wrong.
But I will say about this guy though, and you'll like this. He everyone says he's a warm and friendly guy. H oh great, and that he insisted his coworkers call him by his first name instead of addressing him as captain, so like he's fucking down to earth chill chill good at what he does. Maybe he'll tell you about that one time he saw the UFO.
The weird thing in this guy, yes.
Like yes, so likable.
Then the first officer co pilot, he's pretty green and he's currently being trained by Captain ben Zanten. And almost everyone on that flight is Dutch. Many of them are families going on vacation. And among the Dutch passengers are several tour guides who are from the Netherlands originally but now most live on the Canary Islands and they're like, they're coming with the group to the Canary Islands. Among them as a young woman in her twenties name Robina van Landschott. Both flights land at Los Ordeos around two pm. You know they've been diverted, as I keep telling you. The passengers from the Dutch Kalem flight are allowed off the plane and into the airport while they wait, which is kind of crowded, but at least they get it off the plane. And it's here that Robina makes a split second decision. See her boyfriend, like Newish boyfriend, lives on tenor reef where they had to land where they were diverted, so she decides to stay on the island and go see him. She's close friends with the other two Dutch tour guides on the flight. She tries to convince them to like, come with her, we'll make a night out of it, we'll have some fun. But they've already made plans to see friends on Grand Canario, and so they're like, we're just gonna wait till we're allowed to get back on the plane and go go back to the island, Like they want to get this whole trip over with. So the passengers on the pan Am flight from LA they have to stay on the plane. Unfortunately, nearly all of them had departed from Los Angeles and they had already made that stop in New York. So at this point they've all been traveling for about twelve hours and you know, probably really shitty conditions back in the seventies, right, lots of cigarettes, lots of smoking, lots of cigarette smoke. They're anxious to complete this final twenty five minute leg of their trip. They're like, can we get this over with. Among these passengers is a twenty seven year old woman named Joni Holt. Joni is a former police officer and has a three year old daughter back home in San Diego. She's divorced and in a relatively new relationship with a man named Jack, and she and Jack are about to go on this trip of a lifetime together in this new relationship they're in. They're going on a two week cruise through the Mediterranean, and actually a large proportion of the passengers on that flight are supposed to go on this same cruise. It's scheduled to leave from Grand Canaria and nake stops in the Canary Islands, Morocco, Sicily, Athens. Like, everyone is just ready for this flight to be over so they can move on with their lives.
Yeah.
So, Joany and her boyfriend have slurged on first class tickets for the flight, and the luxurious pan Am seven forty seven has a first class bar area on the upper deck.
Wow about upper deck, you love.
At this point on the journey, Joany and her boyfriend have befriended their seat mates, something I don't ever do.
No, God, no, you shouldn't.
Once they've been diverted to tenor Reef, some of those seat mates invite them upstair to the lounge to hang out, but Joni and Jack decide to stay downstairs in their seats. They're just like they want to be where they're supposed to be when the flight's supposed to take off, like they're ready to freaking go. Yeah, so they don't go upstairs to the bar. That flight to Australia that had a bar in it. You won't remember that, but Vince and I remember slept behind.
Yes, yeah cool.
Yeah.
So first Class has a dedicated crew and among them on the pan Am flight are best friends Suzanne Donovan and Joan Jackson. These two young women try to coordinate so that they work on the same flights together. That's so much they enjoy each other's company. So at about five PM, the Grand Canaria Airport has been secured and reopens, and so flights are allowed to begin taking off for that twenty five minute journey. Now the two air traffic controllers are going to have to play a game of tetris to move all these unexpected planes around to give them space to take off down that one small runway that they have. Then, at the same time, one of these other fucking bits of chance happens. A thick fog begins to roll in, I know, fucking fog. The airport is two thousand feet above sea level, which you know means it's prone to thick cloud cover at times. And there's another issue. The center lights on the runway aren't working.
Crucial, crucial, especially if you have fog. Yeah, but oh my god.
Yeah yeah.
At this point, everyone has been stranded at Los Rodeos for about three hours. They're anxious to get into the air. In addition to this, the Dutch KLM crew is in danger of timing out, which basically means that everyone working that flight would have to stay a certain amount of hours at that airport before they're allowed to fly again. And like there's not room for that on the island. They're all fucking over it, like let's they just like kind of are in a hurry in a way they wouldn't be normally. Yeah, And so because of this, maybe not everyone is thinking every step through the air traffic controllers instruct the KLM flight to taxi to the end of the runway and then they're supposed to wait for the pan AM flight to follow behind it and get behind it to take off after it. All the other planes at the airport are on the taxi or a holding area because these are the two big planes, but there's interference and the radio transmissions aren't clear. There's also the language barrier issue. All of the communications are being done in English, but the air traffic controllers and the KLM pilots don't have a standard aviation centered knowledge of the language. The air traffic controllers first language is Spanish, the KLM flight crew's first language is Dutch, and so the two groups are just not working with the standardized aviation English vocabulary, just the limited amount of English that they both happen to know. So obviously things are going to get mixed up. The Dutch speaking pilots on the KLM flight taxi to the end the runway as they're supposed to, and then Captain van Zanten says okay, we are at takeoff, and then the air traffic controllers say, okay, stand by for takeoff.
I will call you.
But because of the radio interference, only the okay is audible in the Kalem cockpit, so no one had actually given the Kalem flight clearance to take off. But Captain van Zantin must have misunderstood. As he initiates takeoff, he basically goes down anthing on the runway they have to do a U turn and they're supposed to wait for the other flight to go down and go behind it, but it's still driving down the runway. Right, they're like basically facing each other. The transmissions are choppy, and then the pan Am flight that's still taxing down the runway they don't hear everything, but they still say, quote, we're still taxing down the runway. But this transmission overlaps with one from air traffic Control, and in the Kalem cockpit they only hear high pitch noise as they're playing barrels directly at the pan Am flight, which they can't see through that dense fall. Oh god, so it's just barreling towards this other plane. While all this is going on, the passengers in first class on the pan Am flight, they're kind of aware of what's going on. Jony remembers feeling nervous about the maneuvering that they had to do around the KLM flight. She remembers that her boyfriend joked, quote, don't worry if they hit us, you won't feel.
A thing end quote. But the KALM crew does.
Here the next transmission, when the tower tells the pan Am crew to report when they're clear, and so one member of the KALM crew then asks over the radio while they're at full speed taking off, if this means they're not clear already, like clearly. In that cockpit as well, there was some confusion like with everybody.
To be asking while you're taking like mid of like, oh, we're doing the thing. Are you saying we're not clear?
Right?
And the captain who's like things, we're clear and taking off is like old school season captains, so like questioning him is probably like not something most people do. Yeah, So that clear was his way of being like, this isn't right. So then the PanAm flight comes into view of the KALM flight that's trying to take off, and the last recording recovered from the Kalem cockpit is Captain VanZant crying out as he tries to pull up and take off to avoid hitting the PanAm flight.
So he just like fucking tries so hard.
To pull up, but they had just gotten a bunch of fuel on the plane too, which made it heavier. There are about eight seconds when the two planes are visible to each other, and in those eight seconds, the captain of the PanAm flight, named Victor Grubbs says, quote, God damn it, that son of a bitch is coming, and he tries to steer his plane off the runway to get it out of the way.
So sorry, they're both taking off at each other.
Essentially, the Dutch flight is taking off quickly in the direction of the Los Angeles flight that's just taxing and coming slowly forward. Okay, yeah, so they're both coming towards each other.
And then but one Dutch flight is actually going really fast and trying to take off.
Right despite the Kalem flight trying to pull up and the pan AM flight trying to veer away.
It's no use.
The KLM flight just gets off the ground but slices right through the upper deck of the pan Am flight, resulting in an instant explosion.
Oh god, I know.
The KLM flight remains airborne for a few seconds before crashing to the ground in a fireball. There are no survivors from the KLM flight, which had two hundred and forty eight people aboard.
Wow.
So meanwhile, at first pan AM First Officer Robert Bragg doesn't think their flight has been extensively damaged. They're the one who got hit that we're taxing because all he could feel was a bit of shaking, And then he realizes that all the windows in the cockpit are gone, and in this model of seven forty seven, the cockpit is on the upper level. So Robert turns around in a seat and sees the tail of the airplane, meaning the entire top part of the plane had just been sliced right off.
Oh my god, I know.
Just turns around and like he could see the tail of the plane in the cockpit. He says, quote, we had twenty eight people in the upstairs lounge. The lounge was no longer in the plane. It was just a big hole there end quote. That's the lounge that Jonie and her boyfriend had considered going up to, but instead had stayed in their seats. So Joni had felt the plane veer to the left before the impact, and the next thing she remembers is this horrific scene of devastation around her and destruction. There's debris and small fires everywhere in the cabin, but next to her, her boyfriend Jack is also still alive. They're both injured, but not horrifically so, and together they climb over the debris to a hole where one of the plane's doors used to be and seven forty sevens are high off the ground. It's about a twelve foot jump from the door to the ground, and a man is already down there telling Joni that he'll catch her, so she is able to jump from that hole to the ground, and meanwhile Jack starts to help a flight attendant get other passengers to this door to get off of the plane. At some point, terrifyingly, part of the plane collapses, but this actually makes the jump lower, so it's easy to get people to the ground. So they help get people off of the plane, which is incredible, and eventually Jack also gets off the plane and is reunited with Joni.
I know, Oh my God.
Among those who have also survived the impact are best friends Suzanne and Joan, and they both instruct the people who can make it to the door to leave everything behind and they help them get off of the burning plane, and eventually they have no choice but to get off as well. Once on the ground, Joan, the flight attendant, thinks they're going to walk around the plane and find more survivors who exited through the doors, but that doesn't happen. Some passengers do manage to get out over one of the wings of the plane, but the majority of the people on the flight are either killed on impact.
Or suffocate in the fire.
Of those on the pan Am flight, three hundred and thirty one people die and only sixty one survive. Oh my god, however, sixty one survivors. I mean, miraculous, completely miraculous.
Yeah. I told you you'd hate this.
I mean, it's just so unimaginable. It's just so kind of like the way you're describing it, where it's like that is literally how it would be where you're sitting there. You hear this weird noise. Yeah, all of a sudden, you're like, I guess there's things that are on fire. I better leave. Like you're in a full shock. Yeah, it's just wild to have been like on the thing and staying conscious and getting off the thing.
Yeah.
You probably got your purse with you because you just are like just totally in shock.
Yeah and go.
Yeah.
So in the aftermath, large memorial services for both flights are held. The Dutch service for the kale M flight is held in a hangar to accommodate more than three hundred caskets, which is I guess staggering to see them altogether, and those who died in the pan Am flight are buried in Westminster, California. The only person who should have been on that Kalm flight who does survive is Robina. Remember the tour guide who stayed behind on tener Reef to see her boyfriend. At that point, the two had only known each other for four months, but they go on to get married, and in that two thousand and six Nova documentary they say they've never separated since that day. She's like, love saved my life.
Yeah, I know.
And in two thousand and seven memorial to the crash and it's five hundred and eighty three victims is dedicated at the airport in tener Reef. So this tragedy leaves the aviation industry reeling and leads to major changes across all major airports and international airlines. There's just now a standard protocol for simple universal English phrases. No air traffic controllers can use words like okay or roger. Those words are not used anymore. No one says the word takeoff unless permission for takeoff is being given. Pilots and air traffic controllers only use the word departure.
Before that.
So because they're like like hold for takeoff, you don't say that anymore. It's like you can't say that word takeoff and tell you're because it's kind of what happened is it's just got a little confused and misunderstanding, so you won't hear that word unless it's allowed. Well, flying is still statistically very safe, as you and I know. Just a few weeks ago we saw the first accident involving a major US carrier in sixteen years. This came after several close calls in twenty twenty three. In the span of a few weeks, there were three near misses on American runways with planes almost colliding.
I know, I hate it. I just want to stay home.
Go ahead, can I sure? Oh?
Thank god.
Safety experts had cautioned that these misses should be taken as a warning to address issues like understaffing among air traffic controllers and modernizing warning systems. Unfortunately, these issues have not been addressed completely enough. On January thirty, just this past month, a black Hawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines flight that was landing at DC's Reagan Airport. Seven people were killed. There were no survivors as we know, and in fact, all the victims of the crash were still being pulled from the Potomac. Trump blamed diversity hiring in the air traffic control industry for the crash. And look, yes, we can totally get into politics here. I'm obviously no expert, but it's important to bring this stuff up. And I'll just quote an ex user named A Money Resists who said, quote, on your second day, you won fired the head of the Transportation Security Administration. Two fired the entire Aviation Security Advisory Committee. Three froze hiring of all air traffic controllers. Four fired one hundred top FAA security officers end quote. Now, many argue that these changes wouldn't have led to such immediate consequences that would have affected this crash that happened on the thirtieth, and at the time, the air traffic controller was filling in for a coworker and doing a job that was usually performed by two people, which of course points to the above understaffing issues. But you can't argue that they more than likely will eventually affect those things.
Here's what you can argue, in my opinion, is it has nothing to do with dei, right, that that idea that immediately blaming it on this buzzword.
Bullshit publicly like what a dangerous thing to say.
Well, but that they're just constantly pointing to people of color and women and these and it's like immediately like that that is just so wildly irresponsible. You just kind of have to separate it from everything that happened to go. It's too bad. There isn't leadership that doesn't measure their words and think about the effect of those words when they're talking about something this horrifyingly tragic.
Right, absolutely, And that is the story of the tenor Reef Airport disaster, the deadliest accident in aviation history.
And seemingly like one that all of those things coming together, Yeah, all of those it's almost like there's no world where there's blame, right for all of those things being on the table at one time. But to me, that's like, if you want to blame anything, you blame it being nineteen seventy seven, right.
And you know, however, there are things you can put into place that like, you know, looks out for those let's call them acts of God or whatever, or misunderstandings or misinformation or security issues or communication issues, like, let's put those into place instead of just fucking.
Well, and once they've been put into place, let's not take them back out of place and somehow then pretend that we never needed them in the first place.
Right, WHOA told you?
You really got in there and kind of faced you, really face down. I did a demon I did you did it?
I did it, you did it, we did it.
I mean it's almost like that love story of Robina and her boyfriend. Yeah, we can pull that out and just have that be the theme and say, that's a beautiful thing that sometimes happens among horrible circumstances.
Like that's the that's the little bright piece of it that we can look at, is that she wanted to see him so bad and she went and ran into his arms and never laughed, never laughed.
What's the positive piece about the story of the craze that we can romantically pull out.
Oh, there's no happy ending sometimes, and that's okay.
Hey, look, it's the happy ending is that we're willing to face the bad endings.
Yeah, and Valentine's is here, so so get some KFC.
Yeah, as much chocolate as you feel like it's your day.
It is your day.
And also stay sex and you don't get murdered.
Almost don't get married. Everybody don't get murdered. Goodbye, Elvis. Do you want a cookie?
This has been an exactly right production.
Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck.
Our managing producers Hannah Kyle Crichton.
Our editor is Aristotle Oscevedo.
This episode was mixed by Leona Scuolace.
Our researchers are Maren mcclashan and Ali Elkin.
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Bye Bye
