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Throwback Thursday: Frank Eugene Corder 1994
Thirty years ago, today, Frank Eugene Corder stole a Cessna 150 and crashed it on the South Lawn of White House. He did not survive.
Born in Perry Point, Maryland, he was the son of an aircraft mechanic. Dropping out of high school in the 11th grade, he enlisted in the Army in October 1974 and was stationed in Kentucky & Colorado, trained as a mechanic. Honorably discharged in 1975, he was a truck driver from 1976 until 1993. Arrested for theft & drug dealing in the same year, he spent 90 days in rehabilitation. His third wife left him, shortly thereafter.
Apparently, Corder wanted the attention of, then, President Bill Clinton. It was speculated that Corder was trying to emulate Mathias Rust. On September 11, Corder, severely intoxicated, stole the plane from Hartford County Airport and was picked up by radar at Reagan National Airport just minutes before he steered into the White House wall. He died on impact at 1:49am. This event brought procedures to the forefront, as Corder was in restricted airspace.
Clinton was not in the White House at the time, due to renovations. He was staying at the Blair House.
Additional:
♦ Frank Eugene Corder: Crashing His Cessna (History On The Net)
♦ Crash At The White House (NYTimes)
♦ Suicide Suspected In Plane Crash (Los Angeles Times).
TV Tuesday: The Wright Verdicts 1995
Twenty-five years ago, today, the television series The Wright Verdicts debuted on CBS. Created and executive-produced by Dick Wolf, it starred Tom Conti, Margaret Colin and Aida Turturro as the main cast (Variety also lists John Glover but, IMDB does not.). Notable guest stars were Candy Clark, Peter Facinelli, Allison Janney and Leslie Mann.
There were only six episodes that aired between March 31 and June 11 with a seventh episode intended for a May slot, never airing. It’s first episode was on a Friday, the second episode aired the following Wednesday, the third episode went back to Friday, the following week and the fourth episode showed up on a Sunday, the next week. The last two aired episodes were on Sundays in June. [No wonder it failed. ~Vic]
Legal drama with Charles Wright, an Englishman, working as a lawyer in New York City. Sandy Hamar is an ex-NYPD detective who serves as the mandatory private eye and Lydia is the super efficient secretary.
The Wright Verdicts is mature in the best sense. [I]t’s smart, has no false innocence and has the right amount of fun. Criminal lawyer Charles Wright (Tom Conti) will win juries over like clockwork and the series should likewise charm viewers. The character’s chief skill is blarney or, as his investigator puts it, shucking and jiving. Charles is bumbling and self-deprecating one minute, erudite and mischievous the next. Conti brings off Wright’s sense of humor and his status as a ladies’ man. The dynamic between Conti and his two female employees […] needs some work. [T]here’s so much flirtation that the relationships in this office triangle seem headed in only one direction.
The hour has a surplus of spectacular aerial shots of Manhattan.
With crimes revolving around designer drugs and cellular phones, the show poses itself as a Perry Mason for the ’90s. It’s about as conventional and formulaic as that old warhorse. The parlor-game plotting is more than passable but, the writing is undistinguished. Only Conti’s malty voice and trilling accent are enough to elevate the program’s mark a little.
Executive producer Dick Wolf has cannily combined two genres…Murder, She Wrote’s warm coziness and his own Law & Order’s cold, complex cases…and come up with a lukewarm show that’s nonetheless pretty irresistible.
Opening Credits
Cosmic-Observation 