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Don Boyd | all galleries >> Memories of Old Hialeah, Old Miami and Old South Florida Photo Galleries - largest non-Facebook collection on the internet >> Miami and Florida AVIATION Historical Photos Gallery - Airports, Airlines, Aircraft - All Years - click on image to view >> Historical Pan American Airways System and Pan American World Airways Photo Gallery - click on image to enter > 1936 - Pan American Airways System Sikorsky S-43 NC16927
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1936 Florida State Archives

1936 - Pan American Airways System Sikorsky S-43 NC16927

Miami, Florida


The date in the state archives says "1931" but the comments state: "The Sikorsky S-43 was placed in operation by PAA in 1936 on its Caribbean routes. This amphibian could carry 14 passengers."


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Janet Sauve 25-Sep-2021 15:54
I flew on this plane in 1941 and again in 1944 as a small child. As someone else said, water covered the windows doing takeoff speeds (though it flew barely over 100 mph and took 3 hours from Kingston Harbour to Miami). It leaked a lot, especially over doorways. It flew so low that we could see people in their swimming pools and the plane would suddenly drop sometimes over the Cuban mountains. Soup went flying. Crashes were not impossible, and one broke in half right after we left it in Miami. People in the front floated and survived. Well, maybe we were on the larger version of this plane because my memory seems to say the 17 drowned. I was a pretty scared little kid. In 1944, we couldn't get a flight back to Jamaica for a while because these planes were carrying troops.
Mark Lincoln 28-Apr-2015 14:06
As tre S-43 first flew in 1935 the later date (1936) is most likely right.