LES MOSS 1949 - 1971 PILOT FTW ACF GSW DAL DFW Les Moss died in July, 1984. -FARPA Newsletter (Jan 2000 issue) I was surfin' the net and came upon your web site. It brought back the memories when I was living in Tulsa, OK about a half mile south of the old Tulsa Municipal Airport. We had to move when the new (and present terminal) was built and the expressway that ran along side the airport. I never had the opportunity to fly on Central but I remember watching the DC-3s and CV-240s taking off and landing. (I guess that was because my father worked at, and retired from, the American Airlines maintenance base). But nevertheless, I do remember watching Central and all the other airlines that flew into Tulsa. One incident I do remember about Central, it was in the early '60s, a CV-240 made a belly landing at Tulsa. If I remember the newspaper article, the Convair was on its milkrun across Kansas when it experienced landing gear problems. The flight was diverted to Tulsa. The runway was foamed down and the crew set the plane down. It really was uneventful, but it made the front page headlines and TV news. I wonder anybody has any more details about this event. Anyway, great web site and I hope there are more photos and articles to be added. -Mike Moreno, Plano, Texas (7/29/00) Hi Mike, Good hearing from you and glad you enjoyed the site. I worked for Central & Frontier Airlines for 22 years - til Frontier went bankrupt in 1986. I recall the Tulsa incident back in the 60s very well. Capt. Les Moss was flying into Tri-Cities (PPF) in Kansas (Parsons, etc.) and his landing gear would not extend. Thus the belly landing at Tulsa. By all reports he did an outstanding job of bringing everyone safely back to earth. Les was also a great guy and a terrific pilot. -Jake Lamkins (7/30/00) Central Airlines Plane Makes Forced Landing TULSA, (AP) - Twelve persons aboard a Central Airlines' plane escaped injury Friday when the craft made what one passenger called a "marvelously smooth" wheels-up landing here. The plane, with nine passengers and three crew members aboard made the pancake landing after the right main landing gear jammed. The landing came after the craft circled Tulsa International Airport 20 minutes trying to jar the gear into a landing position. Capt. Lester Moss, pilot of the twin-engine Convair 240, said the gear refused to go down when he attempted to land in Topeka, Kan. Moss said he flew the plane to Kansas City for another landing attempt, but came on to Tulsa when the weather worsened. "It's the first time I've ever made a pancake landing in 30 years of flying," Moss said, noting, "you don't get to practice this type of thing." One passenger, Shirley Duncan of Melbourne, Australia, said the landing was "marvelously smooth," a "very pleasant surprise." The plane was brought in by radar through a light rain and overcast. It scraped to a halt on the wet runway after about 200 feet. Fire engines immediately drenched the plane's motors in foam and the passengers deplaned through an emergency exit. Jack Marsh 26, Plainview, Tex. said the passengers were calm and commended the stewardess, Bonnie Bradbury of Dallas, for preventing panic. "The landing was the easiest part of it," Marsh said. "I've had wheels down landings that were harder." Moss took the plane into a number of steep banks while he was over Tulsa, attempting to bring the landing gear down with gravity force. "That was the roughest part of the flight," Marsh said. The passengers said they were first notified of trouble when Moss announced one of the gears was stuck. Miss. Bradbury, they said, instructed them to move to seats in the rear of the plane and prepared them for a landing. Asked how she felt after the landing, Miss Bradbury said only: "Great! We're in," -TULSA WORLD, 1/9/1965 J L MOSS Pilot seniority of 12/1/49 on the 10/28/67 FL/ALPA seniority list. -Jake Lamkins (7/3/09) FLacebook - FL Club FLight West: Les Moss FTW ACF GSW DAL DFW pilot Les Moss' memorial webpage has been updated at http://FAL-1.tripod.com/Les_Moss.html Several items added and the page brought up to date. -Jake Lamkins (4/22/17) Keith Sturgeon Les was a Super nice person. (1/9/21)