RIP Tempelhof :'(
Out of context: Reply #10
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- rafalski0
I remember the airport name from news reports as a kid, during the commie era. Polish runaway pilots would choose it as their main destination. The pilot (or a skyjacker) would go to jail for two years or so (as I remember), but the passengers became free people.
"A jogger, I ran Tempelhof’s inner perimeter. Once, in 1968, I looked up at a landing airplane and saw it had the letters LOT, which stood for the Polish national airline. Polish airliners are not allowed into Western airspace. Skyjacked! Still in my jogging clothes I reported the story, which included an interview with the base commander. He had learned that for one of the stewardesses, it was the second skyjacking to Tempelhof. “If she gets skyjacked again,” he said, “I’m going to make her a member of the officers’ club.” So many skyjacked LOT airliners landed at the airport that the joke around the field was that LOT stood for Land on Tempelhof."