Early on the morning of May 2, 1970, Overseas National Airways (ONA) mechanic George Chopay began his day with a walk-around inspection of aircraft N935F. The plane had just returned from an all-night flight from Las Vegas, landing at John F. Kennedy airport a little after 7:00 A.M. The DC-9 would have only a couple of hours on the ground before it was once again sent back out for a full day of flying, this time to the Caribbean and back.

It was a quiet morning as George made his way around the like-new jet. Saturday mornings were always a little slow. The normal cacophony of jet engines and spinning propellers was supplanted by the sound of seagulls searching for food along the shores of nearby Jamaica Bay. The ever-present seagulls were a constant reminder of just how close to water JFK actually lies.

After completing the walk-around inspection and clearing two minor maintenance items, George taxied the plane from the north passenger terminal to the international terminal located on the northwest side of the airport. He parked the plane on the ramp. Passengers would later board using stairs that extended out and down from just under the main cabin door.

Before exiting the cockpit, George called for fuel and requested that the aircraft be topped off. He would later note that the digital fuel totalizer indicated just under 29,000 pounds after the fueling, which was almost 500 pounds more than the stated maximum fuel capacity of the DC-9, the difference attributed to fuel density.

Sometime between 10:10 A.M. and 10:20 A.M. the three flight crewmembers arrived at the aircraft. The flight crew consisted of Captain Balsey DeWitt, First Officer Harry Evans, and Navigator Hugh Hart. George handed the captain the fuel slip and told him about the two write-ups that had been cleared earlier. George knew Captain DeWitt well. Thirty-seven-year-old Balsey DeWitt was a check airman and flight instructor for ONA. George glanced at the other two crewmembers and wondered which one of them was getting a line check. He guessed the first officer by the way he was standing with his hands stuffed in his pockets and his eyes fixed on the pavement. George was glad he wasn't in the first officer's shoes. Balsey had a reputation for being a tough examiner.

With the handover completed, Balsey and Hugh climbed the stairs to the cabin while Harry Evans began an exterior preflight. If Harry had appeared uneasy to George, there was good reason. Harry hadn't flown much in the past three months. And while he wasn't getting a line check this day, he was making his first international flight. It also didn't help that he was flying with a check airman. Regardless of the circumstances, flying with a flight examiner is always stressful.

Inside the aircraft, Balsey and Hugh found the two flight stewards and one stewardess busy with their own preflight checks. There was a brief exchange but no formal briefing. Balsey had flown with purser Wilfred Spencer and stewardess Margareth Abraham before and had confidence in their abilities. Had he not recognized them, he might have spent a little more time with them. As it was, they were already running a little behind schedule. Departure was less than forty-five minutes away.

Balsey took his seat on the left side of the cockpit and started to run through his preflight checks. Pilots use cockpit flows that allow them to perform the necessary checks without reference to a checklist. The flow on the DC-9 starts with the overhead panel, from there down to the glare shield, the center instrument panel, and finally to the center pedestal, where the dials for the communication and navigation radios are located. Balsey and Harry would later go through the checklist item by item to make sure that nothing was missed.

One of the last things Balsey did before the passengers boarded was test the PA system. PA announcements from the cockpit are made through a phone like handset located aft of the center pedestal. Testing the PA was not a checklist item. It was something Balsey did by habit. He picked up the handset and talked into it. He turned around and asked if anyone in back had heard the test. Hugh Hart, who was standing in the forward galley, indicated that all he heard was static and noise. Balsey spoke once more into the handset, and once again Hugh told him it was garbled.

Balsey pulled out the minimum equipment list (MEL) and looked to see if the PA was a mandatory item. The MEL is a list of aircraft components that can be inoperative as long as the inoperative component is repaired within a designated time period. Balsey found that the PA system was listed in the MEL, which meant it didn't have to be working. That was all he needed to know. Had there been more time, he would have written the PA up in the logbook and had George Chopay attempt to fix the problem. George was still inside the international terminal. He normally stayed with the aircraft until it departed the ramp, just in case he was needed. Balsey either didn't know that George was inside or deemed the problem too insignificant to delay the flight. There wasn't that much to talk about flying over the Atlantic anyway. He decided that the problem could be resolved when the plane returned later that evening.

The reason why the cockpit PA system was not a required item was because there were alternative means of communicating with the passengers. The PA system from the back was working normally. Balsey had heard one of the flight attendants checking the cabin PA earlier. There was also a backup procedure for communicating with the flight attendants using bells for in-flight alerts. One bell meant that the flight attendant was to pick up the interphone; two bells meant that the flight attendant should come to the cockpit; three bells signaled an emergency.

Inside the terminal, the passengers lined up by the door as they prepared to board ALM Flight 980 to St. Maarten. There was a normal mix of passengers. The only anomaly was the twenty-six adult women, which was slightly more than typical for this time period. Most were from the New York area, but there were a few from the Caribbean and elsewhere. One passenger, fifty-six-year-old Jeannie Larmony, who was currently living in New York but was originally from St. Maarten, struck up a conversation with another passenger as she stood in line. The passenger was Walter Hodge. Walter was a bus driver for the New York City transit system and a former resident of the Dutch side of St. Maarten. He was headed home for a long awaited visit. The two compared notes on the island as the boarding proceeded.

Balsey, who could see the boarding process from his seat in the cockpit, made a cursory inspection of the passengers as they made their way to the plane. He spotted two little girls traveling with their parents. He guessed the girls were about four or five.

Balsey enjoyed having children on board. He would always assume that it was their first time on an airplane and would make an extra effort to give them a smooth ride. He especially liked it when the kids would come up to the cockpit for a visit. They would usually stand just outside the cockpit door, wide-eyed and mouths agape. Balsey would invite them in for a closer look. Once they realized that Balsey wasn't going to bite their heads off, they would start firing off the questions. What's that switch for? How fast does this thing go? How do you make the plane go up in...