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American Airlines mechanic Azriel “Al” Blackman has died
- toomuchtodo 1mo agoAzriel "Al" Blackman https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/29/us/azriel-al-blackman-dead.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/29/us/azriel-al-blackman-dea... | https://archive.today/dmcaA https://archive.today/dmcaA https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/105781-longest-career-as-an-airline-mechanic https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/105781-lo... https://www.local591.com/docs/Al%20Blackman%20Passing.pdf https://www.local591.com/docs/Al%20Blackman%20Passing.pdf
- rvz 1mo agoAviation Legend. RIP Azriel.
- DivingForGold 1mo agoLEGEND
- rvz 1mo agoHang on... My comment was not made "hours ago". It was made 3 days (2026-08-29) before this post reached the front page. You can hover over the "hours ago" link and the timestamp does not match the title. Why is the timestamp of my comment (and many others) of this post manipulated? Was this post recently merged with another duplicate?
- embedding-shape 1mo ago"second-chance" pool or the "repost invited" pool. Seems it's not on https://news.ycombinator.com/invited https://news.ycombinator.com/invited so "second-chance" seems to be what happened. Introduced a mere 5 years ago :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308 Interesting you've been here at least since then and haven't noticed it before, happens relatively often, dare I say at least once a day?
- senordevnyc 1mo agoYeah, but that's different from what they're talking about. It looks like the code for comment timestamps has a bug where the human-readable version keys off the updated story timestamp or something?
- embedding-shape 1mo agoNo, what happens when an old submission goes through that invited/second-chance process is that any comments made on the submission would have their timestamps updated, so comments I left days ago, could show up as being made hours/minutes ago, although I didn't personally repost them. Exactly what parent describes. I'm guessing HN either by choice or by accident shows the "original timestamp" in that title attribute, while the user-facing rendering shows the newly bumped timestamp.
- lapetitejort 1mo agoI didn't know about it until one of my submissions was chosen as a second chance. Just one of the many features that old-timers have to pass on to the new blood
- embedding-shape 1mo agoHow many apprentices did this guy managed to put through the pipeline before his career was over? It always shocks me how low this number tends to be for highly skilled craftsmen. They spend their century maintaining/creating some of the best work on the planet but when they disappear, unenumerable amount of knowledge, tips and experience silently disappears as quickly as it was gained, and it's sad to observe every single time.
- logseman 1mo agoTheir status and whatever wage they commanded depended on training as few apprentices as possible.
- PunchyHamster 1mo agoIncorrect. I don't think I've met one person that were actually good at their job but didn't wanted to share the skill. It's because management didn't value it. They put the veteran on on more jobs rather on moving them to training, because short term it's more profitable, and mid term it's easier to poach veterans off competition rather than train them in house
- lmz 1mo agoHow do you explain guilds restricting supply then? (The most common example is Physicians).
- NetMageSCW 1mo agoExplain how that restriction is working in the face of NPs?
- lmz 1mo agoWe are debating the attempt to restrict supply here as a counterargument to "everyone wants to share their skill", not the success or failure of such attempts.
- andyst 1mo agoPossibly the website has been hugged to death, but the principle resonates with me from the headline. In the large and old enterprises I've worked with, there is such a stark shift from I suppose, lifetime service to the consultant economy as the workforce transition follows the boomer generation out, and forecasting where that might leave us. Short term drivers like a bad quarter or to be seen "disrupting" as a measure of progress, rather then genuine demonstrations of skills, turf out tenured employees often mid-career. Or perhaps being in the engine room of many companies, doesn't often give you the lifestyle you want anymore, so the race to the top is the optimal spot to go for. Even if it means going up and falling down a few times on the heirarchy, its worth it. The value of the nature of not having custodians of certain crafts, like aviation or really at the guts of any industry, seems to me its really going to set us back towards really transactional style of operating businesses that are only financially engineered and not really innovating the product in a way they should. just random thoughts around how to have a fulfilling career, when most of the effort is in sales & marketing, and not much in operations when the funding pot gets allocated across a business.
- GNR_Radio 1mo ago[dead]
- skinwill 1mo agoA buddy of mine is the son of a United Airlines mechanic who was fairly high up in the organization. When his dad passed United gave him a stack of blank wax tickets. His son could write the destination on them and fly for free. Near the end of the stack they were largely ornamental as he could just tell them where he wanted to go and they would print a proper ticket. But still, it was a rather classy way to honor his father.
- kelseyfrog 1mo agoI haven't heard the term before. What's a 'wax ticket'?
- vidarh 1mo agoIt refers to exactly what they describe: A blank, open-ended ticket you can fill in by hand.
- magiclaw 1mo agoIt's translucent slab of pale honey-scented wax whose faint, imprinted digits will distort if you press them too firmly. Also keep away from even moderate heat.
- rzzzt 1mo agoIt's a decorated envelope, you write the destination on a clean sheet of paper then wax seal it with the company-issued signet ring.
- carabiner 1mo agoI didn't know wax was used as a medium anywhere today. Isn't it heavy and hard to write on?
- kulahan 1mo agoThere is no wax. It was a typo.
- nottorp 1mo ago[flagged]
- nashashmi 1mo agoHis late wife: He went to work to play with his friends.
- RankingMember 1mo agoThe man clearly found the right job for himself. Happy for him and his long career.
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- ak217 1mo agoIf you're interested in commercial aircraft and their maintenance process, check out Stig Shift on YouTube. He's another AA mechanic based in LAX, and makes interesting videos with some technical deep dives interspersed with planespotting.
- Simon_O_Rourke 1mo ago[flagged]
- Butterchuck 1mo agoIt seems like this guy just truly loved his work. It's ok to be inspired by his passion rather than immediately turning to the most cynical explanation for his long tenure.
- AndrewKemendo 1mo agoIts a pretty classic orphan crushing machine example https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/orphan-crushing-machine https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/orphan-crushing-machine
- drew870mitchell 1mo agoSomebody in his position (major crew chief, maxed out seniority) would've been making about 120k real dollars, plus his defined benefit retirement, plus flight benefits for him and family, for the past few decades. He spent his time off volunteering to fix museum aircraft so we can say he really really loved the work.
- grouchomarx 1mo agoretirement doesn't suit everyone
- jmye 1mo agoOr, you know, some people like their fucking jobs. Not everything needs to be some min-max'ed income thing - sometimes people do what they love, as utterly mind-blowing and completely incomprehensible as that apparently is to the folks raised on social media.
- TechSquidTV 1mo agoDear God, I hope he transferred that knowledge the best he could.
- uninstaller 1mo ago[flagged]
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- 777777777 1mo ago4dd
- CodeWriter23 1mo ago"just 50 cents per hour" which was 1.66x minimum wage at the time.
- Vishal_Max 1mo ago80 years if career? Is that even possible? I mean if that is true definitely he was good at his job that his employer did not want him to leave or he was really really loving his job that he was the best at it.
- jihadjihad 1mo agoOT, but Azriel/Azrael translates to the Grim Reaper/Angel of Death [0]. 0: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Azrael https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Azrael
- schoen 1mo agoWell, it translates to "God is my Help", it's just that the angel called that is identified with the Angel of Death!
- fjfkfkkg 1mo ago[dead]
- bloomingeek 1mo agoI worked at the AA maintenance base in Tulsa and retired after thirty years. Although I worked in the power plant and was not an A&P mechanic, over the years I had the pleasure of working around some of the thousands of plane mechanics employed on the base. I even had an ex brother-in-law who was a dock crew chief on one of the 737 lines. I was always impressed by how seriously they took their jobs and how they were quick to tell anyone that they knew people's live could be at stake. The complexity of the work made experienced and long career hands absolutely necessary. The gravity of the job always weighs heavy on new hires and the help they received can't be measured. The online and classroom training that all receive during the length of their careers is extensive. In all the many different trades at the base, two jokes were always told and I guarantee they're still being told today: Classroom training taught me how to drink coffee. And they wouldn't fly on AA because they knew the guys who worked on the planes. (The first one is absolutely true. The second was is not, especially after the company started flying to New Zealand!)
- tracerbulletx 1mo agoAl: middle class, unassuming, regular joe. Azriel: All mighty servant of Yahweh. He who cleaves soul from body, angel of death. Archangel.