The Jumbo Jet Lands at JFK

On January 22, 1970, Pan American World Airways flew the first commercial Boeing 747 from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport to London, opening the jumbo jet era at the airport that would come to define it. The flight had actually been booked for the evening before, but the aircraft assigned to the route, Clipper Young America, developed engine overheating and had to be swapped out, pushing departure back more than six hours into the morning of the 22nd. Pan Am put passengers on a second 747, registration N736PA, for the crossing to London instead. It was a rough start for a plane that would go on to define long haul travel out of New York for the next half century, carrying more people across the Atlantic than any jet before it.