THE INTERVIEW: AL TOPPING! (PART 3 OF 3)

Haing S. Ngor, M.D. accepting his Oscar for "The Killing Fields"

Dr. Ngor portrayed Nguyen Van Luc in 1990's "Last Flight Out"

(March 22, 1940-February 25, 1996)

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MM: In the movie Last Flight Out there is a tense scene before departure when an inspector boards the airstairs with armed guards and tells Richard Crenna's character, "Before you take off, I must ensure that every person on board has the proper Exit Visa. This flight is most irregular. I think Mr. Topping is trying to hide something. Now stand aside!". Was that accurate?

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AT: It was more of a Hollywood kind of thing. It made it look a lot more dramatic than it really was. Having said that, there was a moment of truth, because at that moment there was no turning back. We had a load of people on the airplane ready to go, the place was surrounded; this was no time to be playing games. We kind of got together some funds before boarding. So, the confrontation they showed in the film was the kind of thing that would have happened if we hadn't planned and acted wisely. But they made it look more dramatic.

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Also, let me clarify: Richard Crenna played Captain Dan Hood, who was not the pilot on that flight. Captain Bob Berg was actually our pilot. I saw some South Vietnamese soldiers boarding the plane, and of course I didn't try to stop them because I knew they were not going to hijack us. They were there to get out of town. After takeoff we collected their weapons.

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MM: Did you interact with James Earl Jones, Richard Crenna and Haing S. Ngor?

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AT: The film was shot in Bangkok, Thailand, and I wasn't there. I did some extensive interviews with executive producer Michael Manheim and producer Norman I. Cohen. At the time there were so many movies about Vietnam that had been made, such as Apocalypse Now and so forth. The guy who was responsible for getting this project going was married to Lisa Yates, a Pan Am flight attendant who was on the actual last flight out, and he played the role of the co-pilot in the film. When Lisa told her husband what happened, he said, "This has got to be a movie". And it took him years to get Michael Manheim to produce the film. It was only after the film was made that I met James Earl Jones, and he told me that he didn't want to really talk to me beforehand because he wanted to experience for himself what he thought I was going through---that's the way he works. And you want to know something fascinating? He did something in the film that I thought about doing, but didn't do. There was a scene where I found out that the FAA put a restriction on all of our carriers and we could not operate flights out of Saigon any longer. And in the scene I take my desk and flip it over on the floor and slammed a book against a wall. And that's what I actually felt like doing. But I didn't do it. That was not my style---becoming violent---but that was how I felt. All that work, and then we find out that flight cannot operate!

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Haing Ngor's character---Nguyen Van Luc in real life---was a Pan Am employee who had a wife, eleven children, and a mother who was too sick to travel. So, he kept the whole family behind. Believe it or not, he's in the United States now. I was back in the United States some ten years after all of this when I received a letter from Luc that said "Please help me get out". I helped get he and his family out.

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What's sad about that was that a year after we left, his mother died. Then his wife was killed in a motorbike accident, and he was put in a 're-education camp' after the fall of Saigon. His cell was a metal aircraft cargo container that sat outside. He was forced to endure 100-degree temperatures in that container wearing very little clothing. One of his fellow prisoners died, and the North Vietnamese left the man's decomposing body in the container with Luc and the others until the next day. Finally, Luc became so sick that his captors let him out. But he almost died.

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MM: I believe you ultimately had 463 souls on board?

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AT: Yeah, we had an airplane with a capacity for 375 people.

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MM: What went through your mind as the plane began to roll?

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AT: Oh, so many things! 'Will this thing even get off the ground?' 'Will they fire a missile at us?' I don't think I was even breathing! I was just overwhelmed thinking of the newspaper headlines: 'Pan Am 747 Blown Up'. Then finally we lifted off, I was sitting in the cockpit jump-seat looking outside the window for anything, and finally when I saw the fleet of American warships in the South China Sea I knew we had made it.

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MM: Tell us about your return trip to Saigon in 1990?

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AT: Saigon basically looked the same. I returned to the home where I lived that was occupied by a retired North Vietnamese Army Officer. Not only that---I went into what was once my den and saw the original US Embassy phone book. And then, at the old downtown Pan Am ticket office the original Pan Am logo was still on the wall, but it was a trading company. My office had photos of Pan Am aircraft on the wall, but they were all missing, and the only picture on the wall was of Ho Chi Minh. A couple of Pan Am posters were left in the lobby. They were very friendly and they let me in. I had an interpreter and we sat down and had tea. After all this time you have to ask, 'What were we doing there?'

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MM: Al, do you miss the airline industry?

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AT: I do. But when I started out I used to look at Pan Am and think, 'In order to fly on Pan Am you had to wear a suit'. This was a classy, upscale international carrier. The message I've tried to convey is that over the years Pan Am has affected the lives of so many people beyond the employees; even passengers tell me they miss us so much.

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My sincere thanks to Al Topping for his time in sharing this amazing story with me. It was originally published last April in Airways magazine and appears here with the permission of the author! :)

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Authors Note: Today, Al Topping is an in-demand Guest Speaker available to organizations to discuss his experiences in Vietnam "Up Close and Personal". I have seen him behind a podium and he is a very relevant and inspiring speaker, indeed. Al has also informed me that anyone who wishes to purchase a DVD copy of the movie "Last Flight Out" can do so by mailing a Check for $23 (US) payable to PAAVN at:

PAAVN

P.O. Box 771992

Miami, Florida 33177

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Please include your Address, Phone Number and Email Address. The cost includes shipping & handling. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Soc Trang and Sister Teresa Orphanages in Vietnam. Also, Al is planning an exciting Golf Tournament to be held in the Spring of 2007! The Tournament will be a fundraiser to assist PAAVN to continue its mission. In addition, PAAVN supports the work of CNN Headline News Anchor Betty Nguyen at HELP THE HUNGRY: www.help-the-hungry.org.

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CNN News Anchor Betty Nguyen

Betty is a lovely person who previously worked as a Television News Anchor in Dallas at KTVT CBS 11, while I worked across town at the ABC Radio News Network. Betty will be making her annual trip to Vietnam this September to deliver desperately needed supplies to those less fortunate. Both Al Topping and Betty Nguyen set a great example for each of us who are blessed to be able to reach out to our brothers and sisters in need to make the world a better place.

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