REPOST: A Brief Biography of American Airlines First Officer Sten Molin
Moving this over to Substack (exactly as it is on Medium) for those who missed it
These are a few verifiable facts.
I’ve heard from at least two dozen people since I wrote a story about Flight 587 back in September 2021. Based on new and credible information provided in many of the letters I received, I took both articles down.
Here are some facts (with sources provided at the end):
The late Sten Molin, the First Officer who was at the controls of American Airlines Flight 587 when it crashed in Queens and killed 265 people, grew up in one of the wealthiest towns in Connecticut.
After his death, a sailboat was donated in Sten’s name to the Old Greenwich Yacht Club, where he loved to sail when he was younger.
At 18, he enrolled at the University of Rhode Island.
While attending college there, he told his father, Stan Molin, that he wanted to be a pilot like his dad.
Stan Molin, who was born in Buffalo N.Y., was an Eastern Airlines pilot for over 30 years. He graduated from the University of Buffalo with a degree in psychology.
Sten did his pilot training at Bolivar Flight Academy in Tennessee.
After that, Sten flew for commuter airlines for a couple of years and was “laid off several times.”
In 1991, he was hired by American Airlines.
As we can see, this is a very tight timeline in his early life and does not leave much time for him to, hypothetically speaking, also serve in the Navy, attend MIT, train in France, attend the United States Naval Academy (Annapolis), become an astronaut, secretly work for NORAD, train in Pensacola as a fighter pilot, or obtain a scholarship to Yale to study medicine/become a doctor.
In his personal life, Diane Mascia, a longtime American Airlines flight attendant who died in 2021, was Sten’s girlfriend of record from approximately 1994 to 1997, though it was not reported they were exclusive, and other women say they were also dating him during that time.
The Flight 587 case file presented at the 2002 hearings investigating the crash said Sten had no children and was not married.
These are the facts as we know them now.
The end.
SOURCES
https://ogyc.org/resources/Documents/The%20Sten%20Molin%20Story.pdf
https://www.tampabay.com/archive/2002/06/09/father-listens-hard-to-find-clues-to-son-s-crash/
https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/greenwichtime/name/stanley-molin-obituary?id=17226782
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-nov-01-na-pilot1-story.html
Sara, I have been following your story and series on this. I am disgusted to know Molin was a predator & rapist. Not the slightest clue in my mind about him was associated with that until now (& I read about him as a kid & thought he was someone to look up to until I found out about this about him). The media painted a very "clean " version of him, which is untrue & misleading. I wish I knew sooner about who he really was. I feel saddened as a Dominican and lover of aviation, that Sten Molin was allowed to fly the A300s at American. I love the A300 alot, I grew up with it and flew on one to Santo Domingo when I was 8 in 2004 & wish I was a pilot for them, like Ed States was (Read about Ed too and feel that Ed inspired the New Jersey in me, since I grew up going to New Jersey & I know I would be a Jersey boy if I grew up in the same time as him). I don't like Molin at all upon finding this out. I feel saddened that he took 200+ people, my people, of the Dominican Republic :( with him in the tragedy of Flight 587. Molin hurt many women and he should have not been allowed to pilot large airliners. He was mentally unfit (given the email he sent about a woman clawing him with her nails) him stalking his victims, and had a penchant for alcohol. He was truly a sick bastard!! I will keep on reading your story and encourage you to keep spreading awareness and women should feel safe in the workplace & more needs to be done to get rid of predators. Molin should have gone to prison for this!!
I had a close call with Molin coming back from drinks one night with a friend. We are in the Hotel corridor and he must have been listening for us in his room, because a door opens and out he walks.
He comes up to us and goes why don’t you come back to my room, I have drinks, I have food. We said no it was heading into morning and who wants to eat at that time? And who is this guy we hardly know? He looked middle aged to us at the time, around 40, so we thought this is just some sad older pilot.
My friend goes to me as a joke, why don’t you go? So I said no you go. Blah blah. It’s too late to eat. We’ve been out already.
Molin then goes Or I could just e—t both of you out.
Who says that? Who the hell does this guy think he is?
We thought this was hilarious because it was so bad it was funny. My friend has this put down for men she often used. So she goes I always use protection, I just called the local drug store and they’re run out of tiny condoms so you’re out of luck sorry. The mood changes. He got aggressive. He goes what do you mean by that? What are you saying? What are you implying? Nothing and just headed into our rooms. I thought this was a funny story about some douche. Now reading these posts here I know that if I had been alone he probably would have raped me. Having someone else there, he wasn’t going to take on 2 people.