Southwest Airways
Martin 2-0-2 N93060
(c/n 9149)
In the early
1950s, California's Silicon Valley was in its infancy, but
growing. This, coupled with
the establishment by IBM of a large facility at Las Gatos brought San
Jose Airport into focus as a
major business terminal in central
California. Southwest, at that time, offered non stop flights to
Los
Angeles from San Jose and, to service this route, purchased four
ex-Northwest Airlines Martin
2-0-2s in October of 1952.
This particular machine had also been operated by Transocean Airlines
after NWA disposed of it, and it
actually saw service with JAL in Japan early in 1952 under lease.
Right after that SWA bought it. It went
briefly to TWA in 1960 but was withdrawn from use at
San Francisco a year later.