Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, February 28, 1991                   TAG: 9102280121
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: C8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MIAMI                                LENGTH: Short

FAILED EASTERN'S FRESH OUT OF TIME; CAPSULE HAS TO GO

Company keepsakes, including the first dollar bill earned by Eastern, were placed in a copper box at the airline's 20th birthday party by Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker, then-president of the company and a World War I flying ace.

Earlier this month, longtime employees urged company officials to remove the capsule from the hangar cornerstone where it was stored.

The company complied, but is holding off on opening the box until details are worked out, including whether any valuable items must go into the company's bankruptcy estate, said spokeswoman Karen Ceremsak.

No date has been set, she said.

Among the items placed in the capsule were letters from longtime employees who wrote of their expectations for Eastern's future.

"I don't think anyone would have predicted that in 1991, the airline wouldn't be flying," Ceremsak said.

At an anniversary dinner following the placing of the time capsule, Rickenbacker bragged that he would double his company's work force. At its peak in the mid-1980s, Eastern employed 42,000 people.

But deregulation, management miscalculations and militant unions helped bring Eastern down. It had 18,000 workers left when it quit flying Jan. 18.