It was 40 years ago this month when Honolulu newsman Al Allen was killed in a plane crash. This month we look back at Allen and his contributions to the news scene in Hawaii.
He was born March 21, 1933, in New York City but grew up in the Sacramento area of California. Allen served in the Air Force during the Korean War, was taught communications and learned how to fly a plane. After the service he worked as a radio staff announcer and program director for radio stations in New Mexico and California before arriving in the islands in May 1965.
Allen’s first work in Hawaii was serving as program director for KORL radio. He hosted the daily "Commuters Carousel" program during the afternoon drive-time hours. In July 1966, Allen moved to television, co-anchoring the KHON news with Ron Cooper.
The following year, Bob Sevey hired Allen as a reporter at KGMB where he was dubbed the "Man on the Move" for being adept at arriving on the scene before everyone else. In 1971, Allen returned to KHON and was hired by news director Bob Basso, who was organizing his new Eyewitness news team.
"I didn’t have the budget to hire another reporter, but he was too good to pass up. We had worked in radio together, and Al was always the go-to guy to handle breaking news. He flat-out loved the news business and always seemed to be the first reporter on the scene," Basso said.
Whether it was bank robberies, multiple-alarm fires or rowdy student demonstrations, Allen was there to cover the story and often first before anyone else.
"Al had the knack you can’t teach: extemporizing in the middle of chaos with a clear narrative that included every angle of the drama unfolding," Basso said. "I remember sending him to cover a very dicey situation at (the University of Hawaii) where student demonstrations were turning ugly. Reporters were told to back off for their own safety, and they did. All except Al. There he was in the middle of the pushing, shoving and rock throwing that was being cooled off by a fire hose at full force attempting to push back the angry mob. Al was knocked down twice and he never missed a beat."
While working at KHON, Allen also gave daily morning radio reports for KHAI in a Beechcraft Cherokee airplane. It was Saturday, April 21, 1973, the day before Easter, when Allen rented a Beechcraft Musketeer Sport Three plane from the Aero Marine flight school at Honolulu Airport. He invited along new KHON anchor B.J. Sams and his son, Billy Jack, 11, who sat in the front seat next to Allen.
Shortly after taking off from the airport at 12:50 p.m., the plane had trouble getting enough lift or power and began to fall approximately 2,000 feet from the runway. Allen tried to return to the airport and radioed the control tower.
"Al’s last words before we crashed were, ‘Hang on, we are going to ditch,’" Sams recalled.
The plane fell from approximately 200 feet, bouncing off a warehouse and striking a parked car before rolling into a parking lot at the Lillie Continental Mechanical Corp. at 2895 Ualena St. Sams was the only survivor.
At the time, Allen’s wife, Judith, and their 4-month-old son, Marc, were in California visiting family.
In 2003, Marc Allen returned to Honolulu and his father’s grave at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl, and a chance meeting with Basso a few years later on an Alaska cruise started to help him put together some of the puzzle pieces of his father’s life.
"Years later I was lecturing on a cruise ship when a young man tapped me on the shoulder. I turned and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was the spitting image of Al Allen," Basso said.
Since that time the younger Allen has been able to correspond or meet with some of his father’s colleagues: Ron Cooper, Scott Shirai and the late Jack Kellner.
A.J. McWhorter, a collector of film and videotape cataloging Hawaii’s TV history, has worked as a producer, writer and researcher for both local and national media. Email him at flashback@hawaii.rr.com.
