SEATTLE, July 7 (UPI) -- Everett Webb, one of the four aeronautical engineers who designed and created the world's first jumbo jet, the Boeing 747, has died. He was 80.
Webb died July 2 of congestive heart failure. He retired from the Boeing Co. in 1987 after a 46-year career.
He was on the design team with Joseph Sutter, Kenneth Holtby and Robert Davis. Together, the won numerous awards, including the $250,000 Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Aerospace Prize for design excellence and the Elmer A. Sperry Award, which is administered by aeronautical, electrical, automotive, mechanical and naval engineers.
Since the Boeing 747 was first introduced in 1968, the aircraft has carried more than 2 billion people and covered more than 25 billion miles. The 747 was intended to be a luxury aircraft, but instead helped make air travel more affordable.
"It wasn't my father's dollars that went into it," Webb's daughter Connie Cummings of Seattle told the Seattle Times Sunday. "But it was him who made sure it worked."
"He was a problem solver with an intricate mind that could consider every possibility before making a decision," she said. "He wasn't just interested in doing things better, he wanted them done the best way."
In addition to his wife, Phyllis and daughter, Webb is survived by four other children, eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
Copyright © 2002 United Press International
