Azriel Blackman, Airline Mechanic for 80 Years, Dies at 100
Wayne Hanna, an aircraft maintenance technician whose father was Mr. Blackman’s crew chief in the 1950s, said that, for the past few years, a group of mechanics visited Mr. Blackman at his home to celebrate his birthday, including his 100th last year. … In 2012, American honored Mr. Blackman’s tenure by flying him around New York City in a restored, propeller-driven DC-3, part of the airline’s fleet that carried passengers between the mid-1930s and the late 1940s. He sat in the cockpit as it flew along the Hudson River, over Central Park and past the former site of Aviation High [his alma mater].
He was older, and almost certainly more honorable, than American Airlines itself.