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46 - FedEx Flight 705 and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
46 Plays6 days ago
Jeff tells the heroic and riveting story of FedEx Flight 705.
Sam shares the horrifying story of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.
Visit us on Linktree for the collection of links, Instagram, or email us at downtherabbitholepod@gmail.com.
🔗 Jeff's sources:
- Hirschman, D. (1997). Hijacked: The True Story of the Heroes of Flight 705. Available on Amazon
- Wikipedia - Federal Express Flight 705
- Simple Flying - FedEx Flight 705 Hijack Story
- The Dollop Podcast
🔗 Sam's sources:
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Availability
00:00:01
Jeff Rogers
Hello Sam. Hi Jeffrey.
00:00:25
Jeff Rogers
Well hello Samantha. Hi Jeffrey. This is Down the Rabbit Hole with Jeff and Sam. I'm Jeff. And I'm Sam. Yes. How are you? I'm good. um I'm good. let's um ah You can find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, and Amazon.
00:00:44
Jeff Rogers
Instagram at downtherabbitholdthepod and Gmail at downtherabbitholdthepod at gmail.com. Follow, rate, review, subscribe. Message us. Talk to us. Tell friends. Yeah, give us ah recommendations. Because we are here to podcast for you. We are here pleasure you.
00:01:01
Jeff Rogers
Sam is. We're here to talk in your ears. In a sultry voice. Yes. Hello. while you're Welcome. While you jog along the boardwalk in Delaware.
00:01:13
Jeff Rogers
I'll let you shower. i mean, that's strange, right?
Listener Engagement and Reactions
00:01:18
Jeff Rogers
It's so weird. There's people listening to us in all aspects of their life. In your car. You're listening to us in your car right now.
00:01:26
Jeff Rogers
And your boyfriend is like, what the fuck is this? And you're like, no, it gets really good. I promise. Honestly, someone did say that to me one time. They were like, ah so I was giving a ah coworker or a friend a ride somewhere.
00:01:37
Jeff Rogers
And I had your podcast on and it was obviously one of those really murdery bad ones. And They came into the car in the middle of the episode and it was talking about something really horrible. And she was like, what the fuck are you listening to And, you know, it's just me and Jeff telling you some. Oh, my God.
00:01:57
Jeff Rogers
Cringe, cringe. Cringe-worthy stories. But. um What's new? There was something else I was going to say and I can't remember.
Sam's Travel Plans and Adventures
00:02:04
Jeff Rogers
Suddenly my um the other night, my calendar fills up a little bit.
00:02:10
Jeff Rogers
I try not to do that, but sometimes it just happens. And I'll be going to New York soon. Like in... So soon. Very soon. And then I'll be going to...
00:02:23
Jeff Rogers
Oh my gosh, I'm going to go to Oregon. You do love Oregon. In July. My aunt and uncle live out there. They live in a Portland suburb. And ah I'm going to meet ah my cousin who lives down in Klamath Falls.
00:02:37
Jeff Rogers
He's going to come up. And we're going to do whitewater rafting down the Deschutes River. my favorite It's like my favorite state that I've ever lived in. It's so beautiful. I say it's kind of like Colorado, but it has the coast.
00:02:50
Jeff Rogers
Truth, truth, truth. And so i texted my aunt the other night. I'm like, Hey, if I come out there to visit, can, how would you guys feel about going to the coast for a sunset? She just said, yes.
00:03:02
Jeff Rogers
Just yes. I'll be seeing the sunset on the West coast again. so excited. That's awesome. That's awesome. I haven't been out to the PNW in a while. I gotta go. I love it.
00:03:14
Jeff Rogers
I gotta go. I do love it out there. It's gorgeous. In July, it's going to perfect. Oh, And the water, there's this one part of the Deschutes River when you're on the raft and you're rafting down.
00:03:27
Jeff Rogers
The water ahead of you you can see it, it's kind of a jade color. And the reason why it's this color is because that's the snow melt coming off the mountain. So it turns the water into this beautiful... It's warm.
00:03:38
Jeff Rogers
No. God, no. Not.
Jeff's Upcoming Events and Amusing Confusions
00:03:41
Jeff Rogers
It's so cold that at one point they were like, you guys can jump out of the boat to pee because we've been in the raft for a long time. Like, if you want to pee, jump out of the boat, float along the boat, and, you know, and none of us could because it was so cold. soon as you jump in the water, everything clamps down. You're like, ooh. We could not pee. We were like, well, we'll just save it for later. Okay.
00:04:04
Jeff Rogers
Yikes. No, thank you. But it's going to be beautiful. It's going be great. I'm gonna hang out with my family. i'm excited about that. That's awesome. yeah Yeah. I did the same thing. My calendar is wonky. You know, I have my big trip in August coming up, so I finally like hammered down on my details for that. And when you look at my calendar, it's – let's see. Where is that?
00:04:32
Jeff Rogers
All of that yellow. his why is that is it makes me cringe. Oh my God, I'm so excited. But no, I mean, tomorrow or today, i will be... Or was that yesterday?
00:04:44
Jeff Rogers
Or was it Sunday? Sometime. I think it was Sunday.
00:04:48
Jeff Rogers
I've got you you. And there she goes. She's gone. Come back to me. Come back to me. We have a whole show to do. We do. We do. ah No, but tomorrow, as of when we're recording this, I will be up in Pittsburgh with Francois and his wife and Kelsey. We are going to see the Caps-Pens game. It is the last game of the season.
00:05:08
Jeff Rogers
and Is that soccer? Yes. Soccer. Soccer. It is. No, it's not. What it? No, it's not. It's hockey. Hockey. Oh, it's that sport.
00:05:20
Jeff Rogers
There is a commercial. Every time i see it it's the men without the front teeth. It's like for, I don't know what the commercial is for, but they are having a whole conversation, like ZocDoc or something.
00:05:32
Jeff Rogers
They're trying to find a dentist because they both play hockey and they're missing like their front teeth. Listen, I don't care what they look like because it is still one of the greatest sports. And it is – it's my fave.
00:05:47
Jeff Rogers
And so, yeah, I'll be there tomorrow. um And then when you're up in New York, I will be in Nashville. So there's a lot coming up. There's a lot coming up.
00:05:58
Jeff Rogers
and invited you to go to New
Sketchy Motel Stories and Safety Tips
00:06:00
Jeff Rogers
York with me. I didn't know that you had that trip planned. Yeah, it's our – call it our summer version of our winter wonderland escape that we did. Well, I'll tell you, last time I went to New York to the West Point place, i got west point place I got once you like, once there's an event that's scheduled to happen there, everybody you gets a hotel room for miles around West Point. Everybody gets a hotel room.
00:06:27
Jeff Rogers
I was like late to the game there. So I got a motel It was the sketchiest damn motel I've ever been in Even put the chair in the room over by the door in case somebody but was going to come in Guns raging.
00:06:43
Jeff Rogers
Listen, and we talked about this. This is how I sleep in every every place that I sleep outside of my own home or a friend's home. that doors That door is barricaded. Nobody's in there.
00:06:54
Jeff Rogers
I got a good one. I got a good good hotel this time, though. Remind me to tell you about my murder motel when I was doing...
00:07:04
Jeff Rogers
my um My Jersey assignment back at the beginning of COVID.
Entertainment Preferences and Avoiding Suspense
00:07:11
Jeff Rogers
got tell you that one. that one's bad. um But anyway, yeah. um Any new shows or books?
00:07:18
Jeff Rogers
Just The Pit I've got to finish. You do indeed. Because you finished it. I did indeed. Books. The only books I'm reading are ones that I want to turn into a story. um Okay. So can't tell you that. Okay. Don't tell me.
00:07:31
Jeff Rogers
Shows? I started watching one called Hannibal. Oh. Don't like it. Oh. Why? It's like predictable. Kind of.
00:07:42
Jeff Rogers
Okay. That makes my ADHD happy. You know, I have to skip to the end to figure out what's going on. i have to Google the spoilers. I'm not like that at all. I'm not like that at all. Nope. I have to. I mean, in oh, we went to go see that movie the other day.
00:07:56
Jeff Rogers
Oh, drop. 100% Googled the spoilers so that I know. Before we went, you already knew what was going to happen? I knew it sort of what was going to happen.
00:08:08
Jeff Rogers
So that movie was good. It was great. That movie was fun, like psychological thriller. and Yes. And also comedy. Yes. And it was odd. It made you at one point like you're stretching your arms like, I can't take it, the anxiety of it all. And that's even with me knowing the spoilers. So you know how bad it would be if I didn't know. Yeah.
00:08:29
Jeff Rogers
But that movie reminds me of, there was a movie with Taron Egerton and Jason Bateman called Carry On. Yeah, that was good. No, that was good. It was so good. It was very similar concept-y, but um yeah, Drop was great. Also, there were so many just beautiful specimens of people in it. I mean, they were just very gorgeous.
00:08:54
Jeff Rogers
Wolverine. Yeah. was not Wolverine, but it gave me Wolverine vibes. I think, I mean, listen, Hugh Jackman, I love you. i Don't you dare. that I won't say it.
00:09:05
Jeff Rogers
I won't say it. My
Flavored Sodas and Playful Games
00:09:08
Jeff Rogers
God. I won't say it. Okay. Okay. Let's move on now. Can we flip a coin and can we open up our soda?
00:09:17
Jeff Rogers
What are you drinking? Ollipop. li but honey but Water lime for me. Water lime? watermelon lime? Oh yeah, that's what I meant. Watermelon lime. I am doing cream soda.
00:09:31
Jeff Rogers
I just had a spastic moment. You've never. Always. Okay, here we go. Oh, yours is... Looks like cream soda. That's pretty.
00:09:43
Jeff Rogers
So pretty.
00:09:48
Jeff Rogers
Cheers, quiz. Cheers, quiz. Why do we always do accents with that? I don't. You started it. I did. ah Italian thing. New York Italian thing. That's all you. What does it taste?
00:10:05
Jeff Rogers
That's a vibe. That tastes like a flower. Not in a good way.
00:10:13
Jeff Rogers
Like a, yeah, I don't know. going to drink it. Ditto. I'm to drink it. Okay. All right. Tell me when to stop. Stop.
00:10:27
Jeff Rogers
All right. We have the Kelsey coin that she did one of her fancy things with. It's so big that if you lose that, it's going to hit you in the head and it'll knock you out. And I'll have to do the whole damn show on my own.
00:10:39
Jeff Rogers
Don't do it. Now I'm nervous. Yeah, you should be. I'm nervous for you. Don't hit me. Now I'm nervous for me. right. What are you? What am I? You are going to be the rabbit and I will be down the rabbit hole.
00:10:53
Jeff Rogers
Okay. Hands are cold and sweaty. Stop.
00:11:01
Jeff Rogers
I'm really nervous.
00:11:04
Jeff Rogers
And she dropped it. Holy mother... Son of a... Wait, get another one and flip it. That one left the room. you literally
Canadian Affection and Tourist Encounters
00:11:13
Jeff Rogers
flipped that coin so... you flipped it hard!
00:11:16
Jeff Rogers
You saw what I did. leaped through the kitchen. Rolled all the to the bathroom. Okay. I'll find that one later. All right. We are going to do, oh, Canada. Oh, Canada. Oh, Canada. We love you, Canada.
The FedEx Flight 705 Hijacking Drama
00:11:31
Jeff Rogers
We love you so much.
00:11:32
Jeff Rogers
Every time I've ever been to Canada, I've loved it so much. What was it? julie Julie and Janet that we met in, that I met in Aruba. Oh, remember you telling me, yeah. They were so wonderful. After that angry, angry little Italian man yelled at us.
00:11:47
Jeff Rogers
Happy, I don't know if that's their names, but they were wonderful. And we got into this big talk about how much we loved Canada. Stop, you're making me nervous. Okay, you're going to be the queen. the one with weapon.
00:11:58
Jeff Rogers
Where's the coin from? Canada. Still?
00:12:07
Jeff Rogers
ah I'm going to be the bear and you're the queen, okay? Okay, of course. Of course.
00:12:17
Jeff Rogers
you caught She caught the coin. She just threw one out of the room but caught the second one. Okay, while my pulse is racing, it landed on the queen. It's your turn. Oh my god, I think I might faint. That was just too exciting.
00:12:33
Jeff Rogers
Okay.
00:12:36
Jeff Rogers
Sam is doing her version of the goat. um'm I'm preventing it. Come back to me, Sam. Okay. I've got a story to tell you. okay okay Are you ready? Sure, I still can't feel my hands. Go ahead.
00:12:52
Jeff Rogers
Okay, this one, we're going to go on a little flight today, okay? Didn't take my Xanax.
00:13:01
Jeff Rogers
You ready? you ready for the flight? No, I never am. It's April 7th, 1994. ninety ninety four There's a flood FedEx Flight 705 scheduled to depart Memphis and go to San Jose, California.
00:13:16
Jeff Rogers
The plane is a DC-10 and it's scheduled to deliver packages. Okay. Is this the real life castaway? Oh my God. so the crew of the plane includes Captain David Sanders, First Officer Jim Tucker, and Engineer Andy Peterson.
00:13:37
Jeff Rogers
So they're all on board the plane, but to their surprise, surprise Sam just made the funniest face as she's drinking her drink. know you were looking To their surprise, it was when they get on the plane, there's a man named Auburn Calloway.
00:13:51
Jeff Rogers
And he was sitting in the flight engineer spot on the plane. He had on all the flight gear and he was doing the flight checks. And right off the bat, that's weird because Calloway was, number one, he was in a flight suit.
00:14:05
Jeff Rogers
And number two, he was sitting in the engineer spot on the plane. So the crew brushed it off because FedEx employees can hop on and can hop off planes. Basically, it's a free flight open to FedEx employees.
00:14:18
Jeff Rogers
Or it was at the time. Do you think anyone else like does that still? a pro I wonder. That's a good question. ah Nobody says anything, though, because they're like, yeah maybe he's just White Hopping, you know?
00:14:31
Jeff Rogers
They brush it off. And immediately Calloway stands up and he gives the engineer he seat. So the one that the engineer was supposed to have, right? So Peterson, the flight engineer, begins doing checks.
00:14:43
Jeff Rogers
And during the routine checks, he finds out that the circuit breaker for the cockpit voice recorder was off. Maybe it was tripped. I don't know. So Peterson turned it back on.
00:14:55
Jeff Rogers
Callaway, which was the wrong man in the wrong seat, was also a FedEx employee. So he was a graduate of Stanford. He flew for the Navy, but FedEx had just learned that he had lied on his resume, like he embellished his flying experience from the Navy.
00:15:12
Jeff Rogers
FedEx had scheduled a disciplinary hearing for this. Basically, Callaway was going to get fired, period. And he had originally been scheduled on this flight as the flight engineer, but he was removed.
00:15:26
Jeff Rogers
So maybe he's just hopping flight, right? So he straps himself outside the cockpit door and the jump seat, and he buckles in.
00:15:37
Jeff Rogers
The actual flight engineer got up and did a few things, and when he came back to the seat again, the damn circuit breaker was tripped again. So he turned it back on. Callaway had prepared for this flight.
00:15:50
Jeff Rogers
He had changed the beneficiary of his $2.5 million dollars life insurance policy. He had packed the stuff for the flight. The bag included two claw hammers, two sledge mallets, a knife, and a spear gun, all packed into a guitar case.
00:16:11
Jeff Rogers
are you looking at me like that for?
00:16:15
Jeff Rogers
That's not normal packing. Right? You don't think two claw hammers, two sledgehammers, a knife and a spear gun into a guitar case.
00:16:27
Jeff Rogers
For a gentleman who's about to get canned. Cool, cool, cool. So in about 30 minutes, the plane reaches cruising altitude. It's little history. Now we're going back to the flight. 30 minutes, the plane reaches cruising altitude.
00:16:42
Jeff Rogers
Callaway gets up, goes over to the luggage area, opens up the guitar case. He took out the claw hammer. The thing about a plane crash is when they find the bodies later on there's a lot of injuries, right?
00:16:59
Jeff Rogers
Yeah. Callaway knows this. They have a lot of blunt wounds.
00:17:06
Jeff Rogers
Callaway...
00:17:09
Jeff Rogers
Let's see. He headed up to the cockpit. And on the voice recorder, you can hear Captain Sanders as they look out the window. Captain Sanders and the other co-pilot, they're up in the front. And you hear like, oh, over there you see this. Over there you see that. It's just normal conversation.
00:17:25
Jeff Rogers
Look at all the trees. Do you live in Arkansas? No, no, sir. I live in Fisherville. was normal talk. And then suddenly, out of nowhere, on the recording, you hear striking blows from the hammer.
00:17:41
Jeff Rogers
I mean, the pilots are being beaten by the hammer. Peterson is like, ow, Tucker. Sanders said, oh, God. then you hear a bunch of moaning.
00:17:52
Jeff Rogers
Get him, Sanders, get him. I can't get him. You see, Callaway had entered the cockpit quietly and started beating the two men with the hammer. Some of the blows hit Captain Sanders and some of them missed Captain Sanders.
00:18:08
Jeff Rogers
And then the plane started lurching, or it started veering, and all of the alarms started going off on the plane. The auto alarm system started repeating, back angle, back angle.
00:18:21
Jeff Rogers
Luckily, Tucker... And Peterson recovered enough to get up and fight Calloway off for now. But now Calloway is in the cockpit with three men. And Calloway feels cornered, so he starts swinging the hammer trying to keep the three men away from him.
00:18:37
Jeff Rogers
and It's like a movie. The crew would fight Calloway and then reach down and try to control the plane while they are fighting with him. So this is kind of becoming an unmanned plane, right?
00:18:49
Jeff Rogers
They're having to fight the man that's attacking him with the hammer. But now Calloway's forced to retreat from the cockpit and all the men are bloody. So now in the cockpit, Sanderson and Peterson and Tucker are all trying to figure out what the fuck just happened.
00:19:04
Jeff Rogers
Like, why did Calloway do this? They have no idea. And as they're gathering their thoughts, Calloway bursts back in, but this time he has the spear gun. So Calloway starts yelling, sit down, sit down.
00:19:17
Jeff Rogers
Sanders and Tuckers are telling Peterson to get him, get him. And Peterson is bleeding from all the wounds on his face at this point. And he's losing consciousness. His eyesight is going in and out.
00:19:29
Jeff Rogers
He can't even see Calloway, but right there in his face was the tip of the spear gun. Peterson then grabbed the weapon and sort of fought Calloway off until he, Peterson, had all of his weight on Calloway.
00:19:42
Jeff Rogers
So as for Tucker, the co-pilot, the right side of his body wasn't able to move. The blows to the head from the hammer had paralyzed the right side of his body.
00:19:54
Jeff Rogers
You're making funny faces over there.
00:19:57
Jeff Rogers
Tucker... so tucker knew that Sanders and Peterson weren't going to be able to fight Callaway off for long. What with all the holes in their head and stuff.
00:20:08
Jeff Rogers
And also Callaway had been trained in martial arts. So he wasn't going to go down easily. So Tucker, the um co-pilot, he was an experienced combat flight instructor.
00:20:22
Jeff Rogers
So he grabbed the controls with his left hand and he rolled them all the way to the left. This little move had just started the plane in a barrel roll. Now, there are planes that are built to do this. This is not one of
Reflections on the Podcast Journey
00:20:35
Jeff Rogers
them. But the DC-10 is definitely not one of those planes.
00:20:38
Jeff Rogers
Also, it's going 400 miles per hour. So the voice recording during the barrel roll was crazy. Before the roll, you heard a lot of screaming. But during the rolls, you hear people slamming up against the roof of the plane in the galley of the plane, hitting the floor up against the roof everywhere in the galley. Right? Right.
00:20:58
Jeff Rogers
ah The plane would was even upside down at 19,000 feet, doing almost 400 miles per hour. Now the men are fighting on the ceiling of the plane. Tucker, his plan was to use the G-force to toss them around until he could land the damn plane.
00:21:16
Jeff Rogers
Isn't that insane? He's like, I'm going to roll this thing and flip them and flop them all around just until I can land it. That's his plan. So he keeps barrel rolling the plane.
00:21:30
Jeff Rogers
And he knows that Peterson and Sanders can't last long. I mean, Callaway has the spear gun and the hammer. Back in the air traffic controllers, or the control tower, the controllers are watching all of this and they don't know what's going on.
00:21:45
Jeff Rogers
Because they can't get a hold of anybody because they're busy fighting for their life on this plane. So when Tucker puts the plane in a vertical dive, so now they're going straight down, vertical dive.
00:21:57
Jeff Rogers
Down it goes. Then Tucker realizes that he can't slow the plane down now. It's diving headfirst, and he can't slow it down. Well, duh.
00:22:08
Jeff Rogers
And Tucker can't slow it down because he can't move the right side of his body to get to the thing to pull it back up right? The plane is going faster and faster. Faster than any DC-10 had ever gone.
00:22:21
Jeff Rogers
It couldn't continue at this speed or it would fall apart. It was making insane sounds. Then suddenly Tucker was able to get the plane out of the dive. And with a lot of effort, he got his right hand to move to slow the plane down.
00:22:37
Jeff Rogers
And he called air traffic control in Memphis. Tucker to tells air traffic control that the crew needs an ambulance and an armed intervention. Control is now directing Tucker to Memphis.
00:22:50
Jeff Rogers
All the while, you can hear the men in the background fighting. Sanders and Peterson are in the back of the plane, basically bleeding out, but they keep fighting. Tucker is swaying the plane, or rolling the plane, from side to side to keep Callaway off his feet and unstable.
00:23:08
Jeff Rogers
This is...
00:23:11
Jeff Rogers
Tucker put the plane on autopilot and made his way back to see Peterson on top of Calloway and Sanders holding the spear gun to Calloway's neck. So now Tucker takes the spear gun and he's holding it to Calloway's neck.
00:23:25
Jeff Rogers
Sanders goes up front to fly the plane, to land the plane. Calloway makes one more attempt to make it to the cockpit. Now he's strong, trained in martial arts, so he is he's basically taking Tucker and Peterson with him to the cockpit, but they're fighting him.
00:23:43
Jeff Rogers
Calloway then stuck one of his fingers in Tucker's eye socket, gouging his eye out. Tucker was able to land one more hammer blow on Calloway's head, and this ended the fight.
00:23:59
Jeff Rogers
Sanders landed the plane. Emergency vehicles are all over the place waiting to for the plane to land. a paramedic boarded and found the inside of the plane to be covered in so much blood.
00:24:11
Jeff Rogers
Blood was everywhere in the galley and in the cockpit. Sanders and Peterson were laying on top of Calloway. Tucker was sitting in the co-pilot's chair shaking, as he should be.
00:24:22
Jeff Rogers
Security handcuffed Calloway and took him away. The next day, the FBI went into Calloway's apartment and learned of his plan. The stuff in the apartment was detailed.
00:24:33
Jeff Rogers
He had a list of who would be on the plane, a list of his weapons, and a list, and he left his will on his bed. He would take control of the plane by beating the crew with blunt objects, and he would crash into the FedEx headquarters.
00:24:47
Jeff Rogers
His wife and his kids would be taken care of by the insurance policy. Calloway pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. But that didn't work out for him. Good. The jury conducted him of attempted aircraft piracy, interference of flight operations, and attempted murder.
00:25:04
Jeff Rogers
He is serving life in prison in Victorville, California. Captain Sanders had several lacerations to the head. He was stabbed in the right arm and his jaw was dislocated and one of his ears was nearly severed.
00:25:18
Jeff Rogers
Tucker's skull was severely fractured. That included a very large hole. He recovered from his right-sided paralysis mostly. He still had impaired movement in his right arm and his right leg though, but for the most part, he had got the function back.
00:25:32
Jeff Rogers
He also lost sight in the eye that Calloway gouged. Peterson suffered many lacerations and injuries, including a severed temporal artery.
00:25:43
Jeff Rogers
Damage to the plane for perspective was $800,000 in 1994. That's $1.7 million dollars today. That's how much damage was done to the plane.
00:25:55
Jeff Rogers
None of the crew were ever cleared to fly commercially again, but Tucker now flies recreationally. With one eye? Yep. And as for the plane, it was in use it was in use until 2018.
00:26:11
Jeff Rogers
And that, my dear Samantha, is the insane story of FedEx Flight 705. That is so much worse than Castaway. Oh my god. honest to god when you said castaway i was like um my god it kind of is no but not so much
00:26:32
Jeff Rogers
you know i started to tell you before i told the story i don't want to see you making faces i want to hear what you're thinking into the um but the problem is that sometimes i don't have words for it it's just like i know i would look over at you once in a while you'd be like what
00:26:47
Jeff Rogers
That's insane. It's insane. Good for those guys though. I mean, you think about like, the The will to survive and the adrenaline that was keeping them functioning. i mean, with those injuries that they described at the end, just yeah way to go, Tucker. Just said fuck it fuck this. I'm just going to barrel all this bullshit.
00:27:10
Jeff Rogers
Just to keep Callaway off his fucking feet. Like he's rolling the plane that isn't supposed to roll. It's not. It is not built for it. Honestly, the moment you said that, I was like, that's not built for that. And then when it's doing a nosedive, can you imagine the sounds that that thing is making?
00:27:24
Jeff Rogers
just the wings are trying to break off at that speed golly that was good that was terrible that was terribly good wasn't it so good this is so i had a plan to do a horrific serial killer but you know last moment i changed to something else and i'm like oop this is what i want to do this is what i want to do i think that's a good story that's a great story glad you enjoyed it i just wish i cannot wait until we video these things your facial expressions are gonna say it all you won't even have to talk i look over at you and you're like m yeah yeah yeah i do that a lot just a lot is not words i love it okay love it love it okay well i hope the world's ready for that because it'll be in just a few months i'm not ready for that god i'm not ready
00:28:15
Jeff Rogers
We're going to have to be. We've got a whole crew
The 1911 Factory Fire and Labor Reforms
00:28:18
Jeff Rogers
ready to get us going. It's insane. Yeah, listen. Oh, I want to say hi to Rupert. everything We have new listeners.
00:28:26
Jeff Rogers
I think every week that we do this, we have new people that listen. yeah And just to all you, thank you for listening. This is so much fun for me and Sam to do. And I think we need to repeat this from time to time, right?
00:28:39
Jeff Rogers
I've been working with Sam for about two years. About a year and a half ago, i told Sam a horrible story at work and she's like, um my God, tell me more. And then we said, let's do a podcast.
00:28:51
Jeff Rogers
And then we were like, we don't know how to use a computer. And then we learned. And now here we are. And that was the start of this fun thing that we get to do every week. Even if one person listens, it's still fun for us to sit here and chat with each other and tell each other stories. feel really cool with these headphones.
00:29:07
Jeff Rogers
They're cool headphones, and it's a cool microphone. It is, and we have the little splash guard or whatever this thing is called. Yes. It's for the P's and the S's and the... Does it work, though? but So to the people that tune in every week and listen, and to the new ones that are coming along for the ride, God, this is fun, and we hope you enjoy it, and we do it for you We do.
00:29:27
Jeff Rogers
Yeah. And so now it's Sam's turn. She's going to tell us a heartwarming, uplifting, cute story. Wait, no, not heartwarming. It's not uplifting. It's not great. It's not great. It's not great. It's not the worst one I've ever done. Okay.
00:29:41
Jeff Rogers
It's not good though. Okay.
00:29:44
Jeff Rogers
In 1911, the Triangle Waste Company had a factory on the top three floors of the Ash Building, which was later renamed the Brown Building, east of Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village, New York City.
00:29:58
Jeff Rogers
Max Blank and Isaac Harris owned to the company that produced women's blouses, employed approximately 500 workers, mostly young Italian and Jewish immigrant women and girls,
00:30:10
Jeff Rogers
The women worked a 52-hour work week and got paid between $7 and $12 per week. Reports indicated that Blank and Harris preferred to hire immigrant women because they would work harder for less pay and had a low likelihood of unionizing, which, you know, that's every big company's fear, right?
00:30:29
Jeff Rogers
At approximately 4.40 p.m. on March 25th... I'm sorry. That's a couple of their fears. Women yeah and unions... Right? Too true. Women and unions. Oh my God. We can't have them. We can't have it all.
00:30:44
Jeff Rogers
Right? Yeah. Yeah. So 440 in the evening on March 25th, the workday was coming to a close. A fire started in a scrap bin on the eighth floor.
00:30:55
Jeff Rogers
There was plenty of speculation about how the fire started. Some say it was a still lit cigarette butt or a match, even though smoking was banned in the factory. Obviously, people still managed to do it.
00:31:06
Jeff Rogers
Others suggested that it was the engines from the large sewing machines. Some people even hinted at arson and insurance fraud because the primary product had recently gone out of fashion and the owners had four previous suspicious fires at their companies.
00:31:24
Jeff Rogers
The first fire alarm was sounded approximately five minutes after the fire started when a pedestrian down on the street noticed smoke and fire coming from the window on the eighth floor. The 10th floor was alerted by a phone call from the 8th floor, but there was no way to contact the 9th floor.
00:31:41
Jeff Rogers
The fire spread rapidly through all of the materials hanging from the ceiling, strapped over the machines and the tables. And this was what year? 1911. I mean, imagine what it took to make phone call.
00:31:54
Jeff Rogers
Or to notify anybody. Right. right
00:31:58
Jeff Rogers
Yeda Lovitz recalled that the first warning the 9th floor got was at the same time the fire appeared. my God. going to be horrible. It's going to horrible.
00:32:10
Jeff Rogers
Fire blocked the exit to Green Street, and the exit to Washington Place was locked, as it always was, to prevent theft by employees and unsanctioned breaks.
00:32:21
Jeff Rogers
The foreman who had the key to the Washington Place exit had already fled the building, leaving the door locked. Elevators continued to work for a time, and some workers crammed into the lifts,
00:32:33
Jeff Rogers
They had already fled the building. Yeah. And the door was locked. Yep. Okay. Other employees fled up the open part of the stairwell to the roof. Then the available stairwell rapidly became unusable and panic increased.
00:32:50
Jeff Rogers
Workers began crowding into the single exterior fire exit. There were supposed to be three, but the company only paid for one. However, it was flimsy and possibly already broken before the fire.
00:33:02
Jeff Rogers
It collapsed with 20 workers on it. They fell 100 feet to their deaths. In panic and sheer terror, other workers lunged from the windows to escape the flames, while some remained in the building and succumbed to the smoke and flames.
00:33:18
Jeff Rogers
Gaspar Mortillaro and Joseph Zito were elevator operators and saved mit many as they continued to make trips up to the ninth floor. Workers panicked and forced open the doors to the shaft with Zito's lift and they plummeted down or shimmied down the cables.
00:33:36
Jeff Rogers
The repeated impact warped the elevator and it was unable to continue making trips. Mortellaro was forced to stop his runs when the heat warped the rails and the lift buckled.
00:33:50
Jeff Rogers
Firefighters arrived quickly, but their response was limited because their ladders only reached the seventh floor. And the bodies on the street from those who had fallen or jumped were blocking access to the building.
00:34:05
Jeff Rogers
William Gunn Shepard, a reporter at the tragedy, would later say, I learned a new sound that day, a sound more horrible than description can picture, the thud of a speeding living body on the stone sidewalk.
00:34:24
Jeff Rogers
Imagine the therapy that takes. You didn't even have the back Exactly. Lewis Waldman remembered the day as he raced to the scene of the fire from the library where he had been relaxing.
00:34:36
Jeff Rogers
He stated, Horrified and helpless, the crowds, I among them, looked up at the burning building, saw girl after girl appear at the reddened windows, pause for a terrified moment, and then leap to the pavement below, to land as mangled bloody pulp.
00:34:54
Jeff Rogers
This went on for what seemed a ghastly eternity. Occasionally, a girl who had hesitated too long was licked by the pursuing flames and screaming with clothing and hair ablaze plunged like a living torch to the street.
00:35:09
Jeff Rogers
Life nets held by the firemen were torn by the impact of the falling bodies. 146 people died that day, women and girls and twenty three men they died of burns asphyxiation blunt impact or combination.
00:35:26
Jeff Rogers
All of the bodies were moved to Charity's Pier, also known as Misery Lane, for identification. All but six victims were identified at the time. The remaining unidentified victims were finally identified in 2011. I didn't know that.
00:35:42
Jeff Rogers
Their remains now rest beneath a large marble monument of a woman kneeling in remembrance of the tragedy. Max Blank and Isaac Harris were indicted on charges of first and second degree manslaughter.
00:35:55
Jeff Rogers
The defense attorneys did their jobs well and destroyed the credibility of some of the witnesses. One of the key arguments for the prosecution was that the exit doors had been blocked, but the defense argued that there was no way to prove that Harris and Blank were aware that the doors were locked.
00:36:11
Jeff Rogers
The two men were acquitted on the manslaughter charges. In the civil suit that followed, they were found liable of wrongful death However, the bastards actually made a profit on the incident because they were only made to pay a whopping $75 for each life lost, but the insurance company paid them $400 per life.
00:36:35
Jeff Rogers
A couple years later, they had new factories and were fined again $25 whole dollars for locking exit doors. Eventually, the two broke up the company and parted ways.
00:36:48
Jeff Rogers
It's that thing and it still happens. Like the fine is so minuscule. It's worth just paying the fine. Yeah. You know? And not correcting the behavior. Yeah. The extent of the tragedy and the lives lost could have been much less if the company had taken the necessary precautions and responded to a warning notice they had received earlier in the year.
00:37:10
Jeff Rogers
However, the climate of business competition at the time led to frequent cutting corners and a violation of building codes. After the fire, many things happened. The building remains standing and is part of the and NYU campus.
00:37:25
Jeff Rogers
It's a National Historic Landmark and a New York City landmark.
00:37:31
Jeff Rogers
Legislature created the Factory Investigating Commission. Their reports helped modernize the state's labor laws, making New York State, quote, one of the most progressive states in terms of labor reform.
00:37:43
Jeff Rogers
New laws mandated better building access and egress, fireproofing requirements, the availability of fire extinguishers, the installation of alarm systems and automatic sprinklers, and better eating and toileting facilities for workers, and a limit to the number of hours that women and children could work.
00:38:02
Jeff Rogers
As a result of the fire, the American Society of Safety Professionals was founded in New York City on October 14, 1911. nineteen eleven
00:38:14
Jeff Rogers
The Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition grew out of a public art project called Chalk, created by the New York City filmmaker, Ruf Sergal. Every year, beginning in 2004, Sergal and volunteer artists went across New York City on the van anniversary of the fire to inscribe in chalk the names, ages, and causes of death of the victims in front of their former homes, often including drawings of flowers, tombstones, or a triangle.
00:38:43
Jeff Rogers
Years after the fire, the fire department also made adjustments as a result of their ineffective response to the Triangle Fire. They revamped their water pump system and added extra longer ladders to their response crews and more training.
00:38:57
Jeff Rogers
On the 100th anniversary of the fire, a ceremony and march was organized to remember the lives lost. At 4.45 p.m., the moment the first fire alarm was sounded in 1911,
00:39:10
Jeff Rogers
Hundreds of bells rang out in cities and towns across the nation. In 2011, the coalition began discussing with NYU about a permanent memorial for the tragedy and those who died.
00:39:24
Jeff Rogers
The goals were to honor the memory of those who died from the fire, to affirm the dignity of all workers, to value women's work, to remember the movement for worker safety and social justice stirred by the tragedy,
00:39:37
Jeff Rogers
and to inspire future generations of activists. An international competition was started for the honor of creating the design. 170 entries from 30 different countries was narrowed down to one powerful design by Richard Jun Yu and Yuri Wegman. In 2015, Governor Cuomo announced $1.5 million for the memorial.
00:40:00
Jeff Rogers
earmarked for the memorial It was officially unveiled on October 11, 2023, more than a century after the fire occurred. March 25, 1911 was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of New York City and remains one of the deadliest in U.S. history.
00:40:19
Jeff Rogers
That's insane. right I knew that story. I think it also played a part. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think it also played a part in OSHA. Yes, it did.
00:40:30
Jeff Rogers
Yes. It did. it was actually the that That whole, all of the commissions and the coalitions that came out afterwards, like the... FIC. Yeah, so all of that was creating OSHA standards, basically. So, yeah, it was um
00:40:49
Jeff Rogers
it was... they found out who the bodies, who the victims were 2011. 100 years after it happened. So... after it happened so A reporter and a historian had spent years going back through newspaper articles, missing persons reports, all kinds of genealogical records, trying to identify those six bodies because all of the victims were buried in different places.
00:41:20
Jeff Rogers
But those six had remained... um in one cemetery right there near Greenwich. And then after they were identified, the families all agreed that they could be buried under the memorial. So.
00:41:35
Jeff Rogers
Yeah. I wonder, I wonder what it was that made the reporter do that. Right. That's so cool. Just to take that up as your thing you do, you know, but good. Good for the victims. Right.
00:41:49
Jeff Rogers
Yeah. That was a good one. Horrible. It was a horrible one, but it's an interesting story. It really is. it It had me kind of flashing back to your Connecticut circus fire. Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:42:00
Jeff Rogers
Very, very similar horrible nastiness, but. Let's put up a circus tent. Let's cut it with gasoline. and flammable tar. and And put hay all around it.
00:42:14
Jeff Rogers
And smoke a cigarette. And allow people to smoke cigarettes. That sounds like a great idea. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, that's basically, it was, everything that was in the factory was kindling. Like, it just went up like a torch. It was, I think they said it was within, like, 24 minutes. The whole thing was just, the pictures are horrific. Mm-hmm.
00:42:36
Jeff Rogers
I've seen the building, I think. Because it's it's it's now the Brown Building. That's crazy. And it's on the and NYU campus. But it is. I mean, it's wild because they don't they didn't tear it down.
00:42:47
Jeff Rogers
And they use that building. that's That's where the permanent memorial is. And they have – the way they described it was just beautiful. They have – in Yiddish and Italian because most of the workers – Jewish or Italian, they have everyone's names, their ages.
00:43:03
Jeff Rogers
If they were married, they have their married name and their maiden name. they have such a beautiful idea. One moment in day, 200 and something people. Right? 200 and something? 146. 146 people gone. Who knows what they could have done? I think the youngest was 14.
Closing Remarks and Gratitude
00:43:22
Jeff Rogers
who knows what they couldve done am and i think the youngest was fourteen And the oldest was only 43 or something. It was not. It was a lot of young people. Well, all right.
00:43:38
Jeff Rogers
I'm not happy now. Hey, look. This was a solid show today We talked. We did our thing. New people listened. We hope you liked it. We really did. We hope you liked it.
00:43:50
Jeff Rogers
um Dan, you're favorite. One of our absolute favorites. Supporting us from the moment we started. Yes, he did something last night at work that was so surprising to me and so funny to me.
00:44:07
Jeff Rogers
I'm trying to like do Duolingo. Oh, I another language, right? And it's trying to teach me the alphabet of the other language. And it's 10 hours into my shift, and I'm like, I don't want to know the alphabet. Teach me how to say where is the bathroom.
00:44:24
Jeff Rogers
That's the important stuff, right? I should maybe start learning that. And I showed him that, just to show him that, and he was like matching... The sound with the letter in the other language.
00:44:37
Jeff Rogers
It was crazy. Like the whole alphabet? This goes to this one. This goes to this one. This goes to this one. didn't know spoke that. I'm like, I'm going to take my phone and walk away. Does he speak it fluently? I don't know. We'll text him. Yeah.
00:44:52
Jeff Rogers
No, I mean, I don't know. I was angry at him for being a know-it-all. When are you not? I love him. um Anyway, so that's our show. Oh, I saw Vince today, as you know.
00:45:03
Jeff Rogers
That's not our show. real quick. Yeah, and Vince, I didn't call you that name. um But you would. um But he said that at one of our other episodes, we we said his name or something, and he was riding his little bike to his new job in the civilian world, and he said he almost crashed off his bike because he was just listening. There there we are yelling at him.
00:45:23
Jeff Rogers
Vince. Vince. Yeah, we're talking about you. Are you riding your bike? Watch out. He's living his best life. and in his best He looked good in that picture today. He looked so happy and and at peace.
00:45:33
Jeff Rogers
You know, you bought us, what was this? Frozen lemonade something? Frozen lemonade. And I'm sitting here as you're telling your story. Did you hear it? I did. I'm so into your story that I'm sitting here going.
00:45:44
Jeff Rogers
Oh my God, I gotta stop. I gotta stop that. I forget that up there's a microphone right in my face, you know? That's good, you're comfortable. Tell me more.
00:45:55
Jeff Rogers
Tell me more. But wait, there's more. Like, did he have a car? You can't even, don't say that. You've never even watched that movie. Okay. No, go away. Shame. Yeah, so much. You're a gay man and you've never watched Grease.
00:46:07
Jeff Rogers
I'm not. I am. Okay. Yeah. All right. um That's it, right? Sure. Oh. Alan. Alan, Alan, Alan. Alan. We can't say it enough.
00:46:18
Jeff Rogers
He's our overqualified, um underpaid master publisher content creator extraordinaire. Ashley, the ultimate and epically unmatched hype queen editor. Can we just say she is a hype queen? She is such a queen. Have you ever met more of a hype queen in your life? No.
00:46:35
Jeff Rogers
ah Genuinely no. Right? And Kelsey. Kelsey, Kelsey, our incomparable swag and merch creator. Together, our first. And forever. Fans. And that's it, folks.
00:46:47
Jeff Rogers
Y'all have a good one. Bye.