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might have been in the hands of passengers include three 1969 best sellers:
The Godfather
by Mario Puzo,
Deliverance
by James Dickey, and
The Andromeda Strain
by first time novelist Michael Crichton. 1
    A few passengers no doubt would have been reading the newspaper. The
New York Times
for May 2, 1970 offered a perfect snapshot of what was going on in the world at the beginning of the new decade. The lead story concerned troops arriving in Cambodia. The story was accompanied by a photograph showing troops jumping out of a helicopterthat had just touched down on Cambodian soil. Two weeks earlier, President Nixon had addressed the nation with news of a planned withdrawal of over 150,000 troops from Vietnam. The Cambodian involvement, which Nixon claimed was necessary to eliminate a major Communist staging and communications area, fueled the fires of war protesters and demonstrators who felt that Nixon had gone back on his word. A few states were forced to call out the National Guard to help control disorderly protestors. A day earlier, the
New York Times
had run a story on the front page concerning students protesting on the campus of Kent State University in Ohio. A photograph showing student demonstrators going head to bayonet with National Guardsmen dressed in full battle gear and wearing gas masks took up most of the front page.
    Inside the paper there was a story concerning two of the three Apollo 13 astronauts. Jim Lovell and Jack Swigert, along with several of the Apollo 13 flight controllers, were honored with a parade in downtown Chicago. Fred Haise, the lunar module pilot on Apollo 13, was still recovering from the urinary tract infection he developed on the historic flight the month before.
    In the sports section, the big story was the ninety-sixth running of the Kentucky Derby, scheduled for later that afternoon. The favorite to win the race was the horse Terlago. In golf, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus battled for the top spot at the Byron Nelson Golf Classic in Dallas, Texas. Arnold Palmer had the lead going into Saturday’s third round. *
    Lastly, in the business section there were several stories related to the struggling economy. The country was at the halfway point of a recession that had begun in the third quarter of 1969. The DOW closed at 733.63. 2
    In early January, a few days before the New York–St. Maarten flights were scheduled to begin, Steedman received word that Douglas Aircraft had come up with a new drift-down procedure for the DC-9. This was the requirement for a two-engine aircraft to be within one hour of a suitable landing field in the case of the loss of one engine. Douglas Aircraft engineers had come up with a procedure that met the FAA requirement. It meant that ONA would not have to fly the longer route via the Bahamas. That same day, Steedman learned that the FAA and the CAB had granted approval for the flights. Steedman, who had given ALM the go ahead to market the flights even though the route had yet to be approved, breathed a sigh of relief.
    The New York–St. Maarten flights finally began on January 14, 1970. The plane was N935F, nicknamed the
Carib Queen
. All of ONA’s aircraft were given nicknames. The nicknames were painted on the aircraft below the Captain’s window. Steedman most likely came up with the name while dabbling with the riverboats the
Delta Queen
and the
Mississippi Queen
. The sleek jet was less than a year old.
    Several weeks after the twice-weekly flights to St. Marten began, an FAA examiner threatened to suspend the flights indefinitely. The reason: the FAA examiner wanted to do a line check on one of the flights and was told that he couldn’t because the jump seat was occupied. An agreement was worked out very quickly, in writing, that stated the navigator was to occupy the jump seat unless an FAA examiner requested the seat. In this case, the co-pilot was to perform the navigator’s duties. The agreement satisfied the FAA examiner,