Pan Am

A bomb over Scotland in 1988 is remembered as the moment Pan Am died. But the airline had just posted its most profitable quarter ever — Q3 1988 — while sitting on $2.6 billion of debt and $1.6 billion of assets. Lockerbie didn't cause the collapse. It accelerated one that was already three deregulated, over-leveraged decades in the making.

In 1966 Pan Am ordered 25 Boeing 747s for $525 million and launched the jet age. Every one of those seats was a naked bet on perpetual international growth - with no domestic feeder system to catch the fall. By 1969, the losses had already started.

The legend says deregulation killed Pan Am. But it ordered 25 jumbo jets for $525 million in 1966, bought National for $437 million in 1980, and sold its only profitable routes for $750 million in 1985. Deregulation just removed the oxygen mask from a patient already dying.