Milestone memories abound

Marian Rizzo poses with photos of herself from the time she was a flight attendant and a model of a Lake Central Airlines Douglas DC-3 at her home in Silver Springs Shores, Fla. on Tuesday, July 22, 2025. The propeller-powered DC-3 was the first plane she worked on when she started being a flight attendant in 1966 with Lake Central Airlines. She went on to work for Allegheny Airlines and U.S. Air before she retired in 1983. Rizzo is a member of the Central Florida Flight Attendant Group, which meets monthly at different locations around central Florida. [Bruce Ackerman/Ocala Gazette] 2025.

Now that they have their feet on the ground, many of the airline industry’s retired flight attendants have settled in Central Florida. Members of the Central Florida Flight Attendant Club gather monthly for lunch and field trips to local attractions. During their times together, they share their “war stories,” including accounts of anxiety, heart-warming episodes and moments of comic relief.

As a member of the club, conversations often take me back to my own 17 years of flying, starting in 1969 with Lake Central Airlines, then, as companies merged, with Allegheny Airlines and ultimately with US Air, until I retired.

Aside from the time we hit birds and lost an engine over Binghamton, New York, I didn’t experience any nerve-wracking trips.

Among my favorite memories was the day we took a planeload of Japanese tourists to Washington, D.C. Those small in stature men with smiling faces and cameras dangling from their necks were very excited to be visiting our nation’s capital.

As we flew over the city en route to the airport, the captain gave a little spiel, pointing out various landmarks. “On your right is the Washington Monument and on your left is the Lincoln Memorial, and over here is the White House.” This set off a flurry of activity in the cabin.

The captain called me up to the cockpit and asked, “What’s going on back there? I’m having trouble keeping this thing level.”

“It’s your fault,” I informed him. “Your tour of the city has gotten everyone rushing from side to side to take pictures.”

One of Edie Marie Rattner’s fondest memories didn’t take place on an airplane but during one of her overnight stays. After spending 41 years flying with Delta Airlines, Rattner clearly remembers the 24-hour layover she had in Barcelona, Spain.

“I had time for myself, so I took one of the tours to Costa Brado,” Rattner recalled. “A young lady I sat next to was a college student. We started chatting and we toured together. The first place we stopped was a town called Girona, where they filmed ‘Game of Thrones.’ It was the sixth season. Neither she nor I had ever watched it, but everybody else on the bus got all excited.”

Sometimes, coincidences abound. When a passenger died on one of Rattner’s flights to Dubai, the pilot’s wife happened to be on board and sat with the wife of the deceased man to comfort her. It turned out that both women had sons who were doctors at the same hospital in Atlanta, Georgia.

“We went up and told the captain and he was able to get a message to his son and let him know the other doctor’s father had passed away,” Rattner recalled. “The mother was able to talk to her son. She was more concerned about how her son was going to feel.”

Such incidents were rare. Most of the time, flights were fairly routine. For Rattner, the most memorable moments centered around important people who came aboard.

“I was standing at the boarding door of the 727 greeting passengers and a tall recognizable man walked past me and said hello,” recalled Rattner. “My first thought was that he looked just like Vincent Price. However he proceeded to economy class, and I thought, ‘Well that’s not him.’ In my small-town mind, I thought that all celebrities only flew first class. When we were ready to close the boarding door, the gate agent gave us the manifest of passengers on board. Sure enough, it was Vincent Price and he was seated in coach!”

Tommi Chappell is certain that flying for three years with Trans World Airlines (TWA) changed her life for the better.

“I grew up in a log cabin in the boondocks of Illinois,” said Chappell. “I attended school in a one-room schoolhouse with my brother. We had only lived in four states before I was 21 years old. I had never seen the ocean, never been on an airplane, never been out of those four states.”

A friend convinced her to go to the Indianapolis airport to interview with three major airlines. Though her friend wasn’t accepted, Chappell was approved by all three interviewers. She had made up her mind not to go if her friend couldn’t, then her father pushed her out of the proverbial nest.

“My dad said, ‘You’ll never get out of the Midwest if you don’t take this opportunity,” recalled Chappell. “I got on an airplane for the first time and prayed that I wasn’t going to get sick. I flew to Kansas City for training. My first base was New York City. There were eight of us that were from the Midwest that had never been to New York City. We got a three-bedroom apartment near the East River. But we were never there all together. We weren’t sure if the front doorman knew we were different. We all looked alike coming and going in our uniforms.”

Sharon Matiyow’s career began with a tale of terror and ended with a bit of nostalgia. She was in her third month of flying with American Airlines when a hijacker held her at gunpoint for several hours in the back of a Boeing 727.

Matiyow still remembers the incident with a twinge of trepidation. During the flight, a man wearing a wig, dark glasses and surgical gloves emerged from one of the bathrooms carrying a sawed-off machine gun. He also had a briefcase filled with weapons, including a hand grenade, a knife, a pistol and some dynamite. He chose an aisle seat in the last row and always had one of the flight attendants sitting in the seat in front of him. This was 1971 before the FAA tightened up security.

I was 22 years old. I was scared. We were all scared. He said to me, ‘Miss, would you like to come back here and sit beside me?’ I said, ‘No.’ But I went back and sat in the seat by the window. I was praying, ‘Just bring him the money. Bring him what he wants and let him go,’” Matiyow said.

The hijacker requested $500,000 and five parachutes. He intended to leap from the back exit the way D.B. Cooper had successfully done several months before. When they landed in St. Louis for fuel and to remove most of the passengers, FBI agents sent aboard the requested bag of money and the five parachutes.

Once again in the air, the hijacker attached the bag of money to his belt, donned a parachute and leaped from the rear stairway. On his way down, the money bag detached from his belt and landed in a farmer’s field in Peru, Indiana. The hijacker, now known as Martin McNally, was apprehended by FBI agents. Matiyow attended his trial in December 1972. McNally went to prison for 20 years, attempted to escape a few years later and ended up getting more time.

In November 2020, Matiyow reconnected with her hijacker when a West Coast cinematographer, Eli Kooras, did a podcast called “American Skyjacker” and interviewed Matiyow and McNally on separate occasions. Matiyow asked if she could exchange cell phone numbers with her hijacker.

“He called me the next day. He was very pleasant. I still get texts from him from time to time. He’s 81 years old now,” said Matiyow. “I texted him on June 23, 2025, and said, ‘Well, today is the 53^rd anniversary of our chance encounter.’ And he said, ‘Thanks for reminding me. Of those 53 years I was under the control of the government for 44 years. What a wasted life.’”

Kooras recently produced a film, also titled “American Skyjacker,” and expects it will hit selected theaters in late September.

Marge Parnell was among the founding members of the Central Florida Flight Attendant Club and served as its president for four years. Reflecting back on her career with American Airlines, she said, “It was one of the finest experiences of my life. I have wonderful memories.”

“The thing that really left the biggest impression on me was all the people that we met—incredibly famous people—movie stars, athletes, all kinds of celebrities would cross our paths and we’d cross the country with them from San Francisco to New York,” recalled Parnell. “We’d have a conversation with them. It was very personal and it was first class, everything was top of the line meals. One of the people I met was John Wayne. He was traveling with his son Patrick at the time. His voice was so strong and so vibrant, it bounced off the walls, and he was so friendly. He just left such a wonderful impression on all the people.”

Other kind notables who left an impression on her were Lamar Hunt, who owned the Kansas City Chiefs; Billy Wilder, director of numerous feature films; and actor Richard Boone, who played cards with her.

“We played cards with a lot of people,” Parnell said. “They loved it.”

The flight attendant club’s current president, Beverly Carroll, said about 36 airlines are represented. Out of approximately 105 members, several are still flying. Carroll herself looks back on a 17-year airline career having flown four years with Delta and 13 with Eastern.

“Delta at the time would not allow you to be married, so when I got married, I had to resign,” explained Carroll. “I went with my husband to finish college, graduated cum laude and came back to Atlanta. Then I went back to Delta for an interview and was told, ‘We don’t rehire employees that quit.’ That would never happen now. Eastern was interviewing, so I said, ‘Well, fine. I’ll just go over and interview with Eastern.’ They had a class starting in two weeks. I had smooth sailing for 17 years. I’m thankful that I didn’t have any incidents.

When Carroll left the airline industry, having trained in college in health education biology, she went into medical sales and equipment and thoroughly enjoyed that career as well.

“After having spent 20 years in medical sales, it’s so meaningful to step back and be part of a group like this,” she said of the flight attendant club. “It’s a nostalgic group. It just brings back memories.”

Central Florida Flight Attendant Group

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