Chalk's International Airlines, formerly Chalk's Ocean Airways, was an airline with its headquarters on the grounds of Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in unincorporated<!--Do NOT say "Dania Beach" unless you find a city map that shows that the airport was annexed by Dania Beach!--> Broward County, Florida near Fort Lauderdale. It operated scheduled seaplane services to the Bahamas. Its main base was Miami Seaplane Base (MPB) until 2001, with a hub at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. On September 30, 2007, the United States Department of Transportation revoked the flying charter for the airline, and later that year, the airline ceased operations after nearly 90 years of flying.

History

The airline was founded by Arthur Burns "Pappy" Chalk, and started ad-hoc charter operations as the Red Arrow Flying Service in 1917 flying a floatplane. After "Pappy" Chalk served in the Army Air Service in World War I, he returned to Miami. The company claimed to have commenced scheduled service between Miami and Bimini in the Bahamas in February 1919 as Chalk's Flying Service. Chalk's first base was a beach umbrella on the Miami shore of Biscayne Bay. In 1926 a landfill island, Watson Island, was created in Biscayne Bay close to Miami. Chalk's built an air terminal there, and operated from the island for the next 75 years.

During Prohibition, Chalk's was a major source of alcohol smuggled from the Bahamas to the United States.

Pappy Chalk sold the airline to his friend in 1966, but continued to be involved in the daily operations of the airline until he retired in 1975. He died in 1977 at the age of 88.

thumb|right|275px|Chalk's Turbo Mallard taking-off from Miami Harbor in 1989

In the early 1970s, Frakes Aviation bought the rights to the aircraft and began a conversion program, replacing the old Pratt & Whitney R-1340 Wasp radial engines with Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6 turboprops. By 1985 three of Chalk's eight Grumman Mallards had been converted, with five ex-military piston engined Grumman Albatross aircraft making up the balance of the fleet.

In 1974, Resorts International purchased Chalk's Airlines, which became the primary air carrier to Paradise Island near the Bahamian capital of Nassau, where Resorts International owned and operated hotels and other resort facilities. After Resorts International constructed a short take off and landing (STOL) runway on Paradise Island and switched to using STOL-capable de Havilland Canada DHC-7 Dash 7 turboprop aircraft operated by subsidiary Paradise Island Airlines, it sold Chalk's in 1991 to United Capital Corporation, an Illinois-based investment firm (which was not affiliated with United Airlines). Prior to the acquisition, Resorts International was in severe financial distress and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 1989.

The television show Miami Vice, a symbol of both Miami and the 1980s, featured a Chalk's seaplane in its opening credits. N2969, which had a fatal accident in 2005, as Flight 101 is featured in an extended scene at the end of the third-season episode Baseballs of Death, when the antagonist attempts to leave the US. The music video for George Michael's "Careless Whisper" and Miami Vice second-season episode One Way Ticket featured a Chalk's seaplane, N2974. In one of the final scenes of the motion picture Silence of the Lambs, Dr Frederick Chilton is seen disembarking a Chalk's aircraft in Bimini, where Hannibal Lecter is waiting to "have him for dinner". A Chalks plane also makes an appearance at the end of the movie 'After The Sunset' with Pierce Brosnan and Salma Hayek's characters embracing as they stand next to it. Chalk's fleet was as high-maintenance as it was glamorous. It was a unique carrier, its Watson Island base being the smallest port of entry in the United States. Chalk's revenues were about $7.5 million in 1986, when it carried 130,000 passengers. Most were staying at Resorts International properties, although island residents used the airline for shopping trips to Miami.

United Capital expanded Chalk's service to Key West, Florida, and Nassau and acquired additional aircraft, but struggled financially. but its airworthiness certificate issued by the Bahamas had expired. It resorted to using aircraft "wet leased" from and operated by Big Sky Airlines to operate flights from Fort Lauderdale to Key West and to St. Petersburg, Florida. Chalk's added flights between Palm Beach International Airport (PBIA) and destinations in the Bahamas in late May 2007, but carried only 14 passengers through PBIA that August.

thumb|right|287px|Chalk's Grumman Albatross arriving in Miami Harbor from Nassau, Bahamas, in March 1987

As of March 2007 the Chalk's International Airlines fleet comprised:

  • On December 19, 2005, Chalk's Ocean Airways Flight 101 from Fort Lauderdale to Bimini made an unscheduled stop at Watson Island, Miami. Witnesses said they saw smoke billowing from the plane and the separation of its right wing as it plunged into the ocean. None of the twenty people on boardeighteen passengers and two pilotssurvived. At first, only nineteen of the twenty bodies were found (by the Coast Guard and Miami Beach Ocean Rescue); on December 23, 2005, the twentieth was found by two Miami-Dade firefighters while fishing on their day off. Investigators later identified cracks in the main support beam connecting the wing to the fuselage. The plane was a Grumman G-73T Turbo Mallard, registration N2969, manufactured in 1947. It was the second fatal accident for Chalk's Ocean Airways. A few months after the NTSB released its report on the crash, the airline shut down.

See also

  • List of defunct airlines of the United States
  • List of seaplane operators

References

  • Chalk's International Airlines (archive)