Metairie Library to screen 'Pan Am Flight 759'

"Pan Am Flight 759," a new documentary by filmmaker Royd Anderson, will be screened at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, May 23, at the East Bank Regional Library, 4747 W. Napoleon, Metairie. The free screening is part of the regularly scheduled meeting of the Jefferson Parish Historical Society. The filmmaker will be present at the screenings.

Pan Am Flight 759 crashed less than one minute after it took off on a stormy afternoon from New Orleans International Airport on July 9, 1982, killing all 146 people on board and eight people on the ground. The Boeing 727 jet plowed into south Kenner’s Morningside Park neighborhood. At the time, it was the nation’s second-deadliest crash.

Pan Am 759 was a regularly scheduled passenger flight from Miami to Las Vegas, with a stop in New Orleans. At the time of Flight 759's takeoff on July 9, 1982, there were thunderstorms over the east end of the airport. Microburst wind shear caused by that afternoon's powerful thunderstorm was blamed for the catastrophe, with the plane rapidly losing altitude almost immediately after taking off. The crash helped spur the development of sophisticated equipment incorporating Doppler radar to detect wind shear.

Royd Anderson specializes in documentary films pertaining to tragic events in Louisiana that he says are overlooked by historians. In 2006, Anderson wrote and directed the documentary The Luling Ferry Disaster for his master's degree thesis project in communication at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. The film recounts the story of the worst ferry disaster in U.S. history in which 77 lives were lost.

Louisiana Book News is written by award-winning author Chere Dastugue Coen, who writes Louisiana romances and mysteries under the pen name of Cherie Claire. Her first book in each series is FREE to download as an ebook, including "Emilie," book one of The Cajun Series, "Ticket to Paradise," book one of The Cajun Embassy series and "A Ghost of a Chance," the first Viola Valentine mystery.

New Orleans Up Stairs Lounge fire revisited June 27

“Reclaiming the Fire,” a free event on Wednesday, June 27, will commemorate the 45th anniversary of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire, which claimed 32 lives on June 24, 1973, in a second-floor gay bar at 141 Chartres St. in the French Quarter. The Historic New Orleans Collection and the LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana present this panel of historians and witnesses discussing how the event shaped the LGBT+ community locally and nationally.

Participants include:

• Royd Anderson, director of the documentary “The UpStairs Lounge Fire” (2013);
• Clayton Delery, award-winning author of “The Up Stairs Lounge Arson: Thirty-Two Deaths in a New Orleans Gay Bar, June 24, 1973” (McFarland, 2014);
• Clancy DuBos, the journalist whose story “Blood, Moans: Charity Scene” ran on the front page of the Times-Picayune the morning after the fire;
• Robert W. Fieseler, author of “Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation” ( Liveright, 2018);
• and Frank Perez, president of the LGBT+ Archives Project and co-author of the forthcoming book “Southern Decadence in New Orleans” (LSU Press).

The event will also feature a reading and book signing for Fieseler’s book, which retails for $26.95 and will be available for sale at the event through The Shop at The Collection.

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Fieseler will also sign “Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation,” published by Liveright Publishing Corp., at 6 p.m. Friday, June 29, at Octavia Books of New Orleans.

Louisiana Book News is written by award-winning author Chere Dastugue Coen, who writes Louisiana romances and mysteries under the pen name of Cherie Claire. Her first book in each series is FREE to download as an ebook, including "Emilie," book one of The Cajun Series, "Ticket to Paradise," book one of The Cajun Embassy series and "A Ghost of a Chance," the first Viola Valentine mystery.