Floyd Gordon Nestegard
Obituary
Floyd G. Nestegard was born December 12 in Ramsey, North Dakota. Mom and Dad were Theresa and Thor Nestegard. He was the first and only boy in the family. His parents and three sisters: Belinda Viola, Lila Agnes and Alice adored him, holding him, feeding him, and playing with him many hours every day. His position of family favorite was only partially disrupted with the arrival of his younger sister, Alvern, two years later.
Dad owned the only grocery store in town, an IGA. Floyd was a great help to Dad, helping out in the store and collecting money owed when Dad’s customers abused his kindhearted extension of credit. When collecting overdue debts, Floyd sometimes received payment of chickens, eggs and other tangible goods instead of money. When Floyd wasn’t helping out in the store, he was free to explore the rural setting of his childhood, with his friends and his German Shepherd dog, Murphy. He often went fishing and hunting with his father. He was a popular high school student known as Nesty, was a North Dakota championship basketball player, playing forward, was on the football team and on the baseball team, which sparked a lifelong love of baseball – he was a devoted Mariners fan. He played the bassoon in the high school band. During band activities, he delighted in ignoring his younger sister, Alvern, who was a drum majorette for the marching band. During his high school years, he met and fell in love with his future wife, Selma.
Floyd never had children of his own, so when he and Selma asked their nephew, Bill, to come and stay with them, they were in for some big surprises — like how to reconcile new white carpeting and a new white sofa with a teenage mechanic with dirty shoes and greasy clothing. With love and patience, a bond developed among the three of them, which later expanded to include Bill’s wife and children.
Floyd moved with his family to Washington State in 1938. Shortly thereafter, he discovered a young airplane company called Boeing. From 1941 until his retirement as Superintendent of AOG, and Factory Manager in 1983, he was a devoted and loyal employee of his company. In the 1970’s he became known as the “Father of Airplane on the Ground” or “AOG,” a new program in the company. This program became a hallmark for the company because whenever a Boeing airplane had any type of problem, anywhere in the world, Floyd and his assembled team of AOG folks would immediately go to the scene of the problem. Floyd had a suitcase packed and ready to go at a moment’s notice beside his front door. Some memorable events of AOG are described in Rod Serling’s book, “Legend & Legacy, A Story of Boeing and Its People.” Those highlights are retyped below. Even when he was away on AOG trips, he would think of his family, sending postcards to his sisters buying gifts for his beloved wife, Selma and for his friends. His closeness to his family is demonstrated in many ways. About a year ago, he replaced the roof on his sister Lila’s home, and in March 2003, he drove to Apple Valley, California to celebrate her 90th birthday with her. He called each of his sisters every week, and visited his nephews and nieces often. After the end of World War Two, many people from Devils Lake contacted Floyd to help them get jobs at Boeing. He never seemed to tire of helping his friends and family.
After the death of his wife, Selma, Floyd was blessed to once again find love, this time with a close friend whom we all know as Lassie. They quickly became inseparable, and provided love, companionship and support to one another. Activities they enjoyed together included spending time with family, eating out – especially the Swedish pancake breakfasts, watching Mariner’s games, and participating in church activities.
Floyd enjoyed life until his untimely stroke on August 16, when he was taken by ambulance to Highline Community Hospital. The family would like to commend and thank the skilled, caring staff at both Highline Hospital and at the Wesley Home Health Center where he stayed for a very brief period. The family also would like to thank the staff, members and especially Pastor Olsen of Immanuel Lutheran Church for their prayers and support.
Floyd is survived by his love, Lassie, by his two sisters, Alvern Butcher of Sun City West, Arizona, Lila Moore of Apple Valley, California, by his nephews, Bill Butcher of Sequim, Gary Butcher of Switzerland, his niece, Judy Ziebarth, of Denver, Colorado, and his great nieces and nephews.
All those who knew and loved Floyd will miss him greatly; however, all are comforted with the knowledge that he is happy in the house of our Father.
Excerpted from “Legends and Legacy, A Story of Boeing and Its People.” On pages 356-360, Serling states:
“Enhancing customer support is a small, highly specialized Boeing unit known as Aircraft on the Ground, or AOG, which performs miracles with damaged airplanes that even airlines have considered unrepairable. In its early days, AOG was known as ‘Regan’s Raiders,’ after manufacturing chief Bob Regan who approved the initial organization.
It’s first major job involved a 707 that had undershot the runway at Guadeloupe in the French West Indies in 1960, collapsing the main landing gear, wiping out the nose gear, and turning the belly skin into metallic spaghetti. No one was killed or seriously injured, although an elderly woman passenger suffered a fatal heart attack after she got out of the plane and saw the wreckage.
The pioneering 50-man AOG team that arrived on the scene included Floyd Nestegard as coordinator, Glenn Jones, and Al Heitman. Nestegard, who had joined Boeing out of a North Dakota teachers’ college in 1941 and worked first in the Model 314 wire shop, became known as the ‘father’ of the AOG program.
There was no hangar at the airport, so the crew worked through intermittent rain showers and under a broiling sun. The airline’s local representatives thought the 707 should be written off as a total loss; Nestegard and Jones, whom Floyd named as team captain, believed otherwise and informed the carrier the plane would be repaired in 30 days; the job was finished in 29 but a minor hitch developed – a small oil leak was discovered in one engine. Pan Am had a spare oil cooler in San Juan, only a short hop away, so Boeing test pilot Sandy McMurray flew the 707 there early in the morning to pick up the part. As so often happens after an accident, the airline had painted over all identifying logos on the tail and fuselage before the AOG team had begun repairs.
Sandy had four people with him: his copilot and flight engineer, Glenn Jones, and an official from the airline. When they landed in San Juan, they were met by a U.S. Customs inspector who was extremely suspicious of five men who had arrived in an unmarked airplane. Only Jones had a passport with him, and the inspector wasn’t impressed by the airline man’s business card, the sole identification he had on him. Jones explained why the plane was unmarked, but the customs official didn’t believe him and summoned the local Pan Am station manager to examine the 707 and verify their story.
‘Is this the plane that crashed at Guadeloupe?’ the inspector asked. ‘No way,’ the station manager said firmly. ‘I saw picture of that wreck and it would have taken them six months to make it flyable.’
The five men were arrested and jailed until Jones called Seattle and got someone at Boeing to convince Customs they were for real.
The AOG teams learned to work under horrendous conditions, from desert heat to icy winds. Nestegard once surveyed a 707 in Turkey where the temperature was 40 degrees below zero, and one group got caught in the middle of the revolution in Angola – Nestegard remembered being confined there for eight days in a hotel room, watching artillery shells bursting outside. He had a team in Cairo the day the 1973 Israeli-Arab war broke out. The Boeing group managed to finished repairing a 707 sufficiently so it could be flown out by a test crew, but without passengers. The rest of the team finally got out of Egypt on a bus normally only used within the airport confines – the trip to safety took 35 hours, and included 21 stops for military security checks.
One of the most demanding AOG assignments occurred after a freak thunderstorm over the Jan Smuts Airport in Johannesburg, South Africa, January 15, 1980. The storm lasted a half-hour, dropping hailstones up to the size of a man’s fist and putting dents more than two inches deep into the wings and fuselages of parked planes. Among the damaged aircraft were four South African Airways 747s, a 727, four 737s, and a pair of 707s. The hailstone holocaust struck when most of the planes were out on the ramp, ready for departure, and even some in the hangers were damaged when the hail went through heavy plate-glass skylights.
It took the 747 survey team four days, working at least 12 hours a day, just to inspect the damage and compile a list of the parts and tools needed for repairs. The 707/727/737 team needed eight days, and a Flying Tigers 747 freighter had to be chartered to carry 63,000 pounds of replacement parts from Seattle to Johannesburg. Ailerons, elevators, flaps, spoilers, and huge skin sections were among the damaged components; not until mid-March were final repairs completed on the last of the 11 affected aircraft, although two of the 747s were back in service in a month.
In terms of time and manpower expended, Johannesburg topped the AOG list, but there were other missions equally or even more challenging. Typical, yet uniquely dramatic because of the circumstances, was an AOG assignment to Damascus, Syria, in 1969; hijackers had forced a TWA 707 to land there, then blew off the nose of the plane, including the entire cockpit. An advance AOG survey team rushed to the scene, advised TWA that the plane could be salvaged, and notified Seattle what was needed for repairs.
Boeing diverted a nearly completed 707 nose section from the Renton assembly line, and stuffed in the wiring, plumbing, and instrumentation that fitted the airline’s specifications. Wiring and plumbing components were left extra long so they could be pruned later to the required length. The new cockpit was loaded on a whale-like ‘Guppy’ transport – one of the converted C-97s – and flown to Damascus where a 58-man AOG crew was waiting.
They had a long wait – the Guppy took nine days to fly from Seattle to Syria, a harrowing trip delayed first by strong headwinds, and then a forced landing in Sicily because of engine trouble. But the Boeing team didn’t sit around idle. Within minutes after arriving in Damascus, they had started preparing the fuselage for mating to the new section. There was a production break near the forward passenger entry door where the new nose would fit, so the first task was to clean up all the debris and torn metal from the area.
Then they jacked up the fuselage and cut away what was left of the old cockpit at the production break. When the nose finally arrived, the crew just wheeled it up on a dolly and began riveting. It took four days to connect all the instruments, wiring, and hydraulic plumbing.
The once-ravaged 707 was flown first to Rome, where TWA had good maintenance facilities, for a preliminary inspection and then to the airline’s main maintenance base in Kansas City for final flight tests. It went back in service with a different serial number — for psychological reasons, TWA didn’t want crews to know they were on the 707 ‘with the nose job.’ Vice president of flight operations Bill Meador then very quietly had the number changed again just in case anyone had caught on to the first switch. And one captain had.
He came into Meador’s office and began teasing him about the secret switch. ‘You thought you were pretty smart, changing that number. I found out what the new tail number is just by checking the FAA records in Oklahoma City.’
‘That so? Have you seen it or flown it yet?’
‘No, but I’ve been watching for it.’
Meador smiled. He didn’t have the heart to tell the captain he had just walked off the same airplane.
The Damascus job had followed the procedures Nestegard had established for AOG operations, one that still applies today. The survey team went in first and prepared a ‘flow chart’ that outlined priority repair areas, those requiring more manpower and parts, plus the tools and other necessary equipment. TWA was given an estimate of the man-hours needed and the cost of repair.
More than one carrier has underestimated the speed at which these commandos can work. When Heitman was a field service rep in Australia, a tow tug ran under the nose of a brand-new Qantas 747 and tore off a large section of skin. An AOG team arrived and started the repairs at six A.M. Eric Kidd came into Heitman’s office around nine.
‘I want to go over and take a look at how those AOG people are doing,’ he announced. ‘We’ll walk over there around noon on our way to lunch and find out if the structure was damaged.’
‘Eric,’ Heitman warned, ‘if you want to see that airplane, you’d better go right now.’
‘They won’t have the skin off until this afternoon. Lunch time will be fine.’
‘I’m telling you, if you want to see the frame, noon’s too late.’
Kidd persisted and visited the AOG team on the way to lunch. The replacement skin was already on the airplane.
Heitman, however, fell victim to the truth of the ancient axiom: ‘Pride goeth before a fall.’ He headed an AOG team that went to Miami where a Northwest 707 had been damaged during refueling – a mechanic had overpressurized the outboard section of the right wing, which had swelled up like a balloon and popped all the ribs. It was one of Al’s first assignments in charge of an AOG crew and after getting the initial survey report, he had convinced Northwest it would cheaper to install a new wing than repair the old one.
Heitman arrived in Miami with his 12-man team at noon, checked them into a hotel, and by two P.M. they were at an Eastern hangar, where the Northwest 707 had been towed. He already had located a spare wing that had been shipped from New York, and by six P.M. they had the damaged wing off. A huge flatbed trailer rolled up to the hangar, carrying the crated new wing. Heitman thought, Boy, you’re really gonna make a name for yourself – they gave you ten days to do this job, we’ve already got the old wing off and the new one’s here.
They opened the mammoth crate and discovered New York had shipped a brand-new left wing. It took another six days before the right wing arrived, there were only two trucks in the United States capable of hauling a 707 wing – the one already in Miami and another in Philadelphia.
AOG team members learned to be self-sufficient, knowing they might have to work in remote areas far removed from civilized amenities. Carrying their own coffee and toilet paper became standard procedure; tools might range from the smallest wrench to jigs or airbags for raising a fuselage off the ground, but in AOG’s early days the teams didn’t always have access to portable jigs and big airbags. Heitman recalled a repair job in Lisbon that required the removal of a tail fin from a smashed-up 707, removing the four attaching bolts was easy, but they couldn’t find anything capable of lifting the fin itself.
They finally located an old army wrecker, a World War II relic, but the fin was so heavy that when the cable lifted it, the front end of the truck rose two feet in the air. Nestegard had to hire several local residents to sit on the truck hood so the front wheels stayed on the ground.
Working for AOG definitely was not a nine-to-five job, and each team member kept a bag packed at all times. Nestegard once was ordered to fly to Las Vegas to survey a 707 whose nose had been blown off by a bomb. It looked like a fairly quick, easy trip, so he told his wife he’d be hone that night. He caught a flight from Seattle to San Francisco where he was supposed to change planes for Las Vegas, but he was paged at the San Francisco airport and told to head for Johannesburg instead.
So he boarded a flight to Chicago, spent two hours shopping for clothes he had only an extra pair of socks and shorts with him, and then flew to South Africa where he stayed a week surveying a damaged 707. On the way home, he stopped in London where Heitman met him.
‘We’ve got a 727 down in Denmark,’ Heitman told him. ‘Seattle wants you to survey it.’
When Nestegard returned home, his one-day trip had lasted three weeks. Such was life in AOG, but all uncertainty and difficulties paled when measured against the pride Boeing takes in this elite group. Elite was no exaggeration; each man had to be certified in every aircraft category – electrical, structures, engines, flight controls, and hydraulics. They could call on specialists if necessary, but they themselves were real jacks of all trades.
Until AOG built up its own inventory of spare parts, for a long time the teams would take them off assembly line aircraft, or would cannibalize from older planes taken in trade-ins, which was faster than having to manufacture a new part. Speed was the determining factor, and meeting AOG’s ‘ending date’ – the day the airplane is ready to go back into service – became the greatest source of motivation.”
Although I only knew Floyd for a relatively short time as a member of his AOG survey team, and AOG planning meetings, his inimitable humour, thoughtful concern, and encouraging advice will always be remembered. My condolences to his many friends, AOG Team Members and his family. R.I.P.
Ken Marsh
Floyd Was a very fine man and will be missed by many friends and co-workers .Judy and I wish to extend our sympathies to the family and especially Bill and Mary Butcher.
Floyd used to give me a ride home from the Des Moines Senior center in his pride and joy the as I used to call it while he explained all the features of favorite Toy. He was always sitting next to me during lunch and we nostalgicly reminiscance our Boeing disadventures. Being partially disabled, I regretfully could not attend his Memorial Service. For the family, fherefor, Please accept my deep hearted and sincere sympathy. May Floyd rest in peace, while he will be in my thought, always.
To my dear Uncle Floyd
I thank you for the good time we had all at your place four years ago. There were you, grandma, aunt Mary and uncle Bill, my cousins Monica with her baby, Cathy and Robby. We all had a wonderful time together. I remember when we went out to eat in a beautiful restaurant, that was great for me. I enjoyed that very much. You were so friendly and good to us.This will be the memory I have from you. I hope to see soon aunt Lila and visit her, too bad you won’t be with us, but we will be thinking of you.
Thinking of you that you are now in Heaven with our Father. I pray for you.
Nathalie
I was named after Floyd but only met him a few times as a young boy. I always told people of my Uncle Floyd who worked for Boeing and flew all over the world. My memery of him is of a kind and warm person. I wished I had known him more. God bless the family and I pray for God’s comforting at this time.
I worked as an AOG mechanic from 1977-1981, Floyd was the Superintendent. When I saw him at a retirement in 2000 he remembered me at sight after almost 20 years. I was impressed and touched. I have always appreciated knowing him.
Floyd was my grandma’s brother and the pride and joy of his family. He spoke of daily walks with the same enthusiasm bestowed on world travel. With a curious mind and kind character, Floyd illustrated the life we should strive for. I will forever cherish the last visit we shared together.
We were privledged to spend a little time with him & his sisters. It was a delight!!
He was so warm & thoughtful.He meant so much to Alice.We will always hold him in our thoughts!!
I only met Uncle Floyd a few times in my life as my family lives in Florida. However, he was always thoughtful in keeping touch with us. I last saw him about eight years ago. His genuine warmth and generousity were truly overwhelming and confirmed what I remembered from my earlier childhood memories. While my father can better convey the feelings of my immediate family at the service itself, I can say for myself that he will be truly missed. My deepest sympathies to all those he left behind.
Floyd’s generousity will live in my heart always. He was a wonderful man and seeing him was the highlight of our several visits to Seattle, a city which I love.
Karen Amundrud, wife of Fred Amundrud, a cousin
Floyd was a good friend of ours and my wife’s mother Lassie. We enjoyed his company and our dog Harley loved to play with Floyd and I think Floyd loved it too.
We will miss him dearly.
Regards: Byron and Diana Potter
As our son Paul said in church Sunday, there is a huge hole left where Floyd always sat, Sunday after Sunday as he faithfully came to worship. His always pleasant and positive attitude was an inspiration to all of us. One of his greatest concerns was that the children of parish would learn about Jesus and how much he loves them. We pray for comfort for his family, for our dear friend Lassie, and for all of us who knew and loved him.
Nesty and I worked together for many years at Boeing. We were all proud of Nesty and his endeavors. It was a pleasure to work with him. He was always kind and considerate and very thoughtful. He did an outstanding job covering the world for Boeing, and all the customers were glad to have his support. A lot of us old timers will miss you Nesty.
Floyd Nestegard was fondly called by me as Onkel Floyd. His wife, Selma, was my Step-grandmother’s daughter. My family would go out and visit him and Tante Selma. I loved their dachshunds and they were very much part of the family. Onkel Floyd used to have one-arm slot machines at his home and he would always give me money to play the slots; always making sure I kept what I won. It has been about 2 years since I ran into Onkel Floyd by accident on Boeing Day at the Race Track in Renton. My whole sends their love to his remaing family and would like you all to know what a kind and generous man he was.
With deep sympathies,
Inge Betzler-Lettini and family.