{"id":30012,"date":"2026-08-27T13:18:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T13:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/al-turath.org\/?p=30012"},"modified":"2026-09-02T14:02:52","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T14:02:52","slug":"in-farewell-to-michael-saba-prince-sultan-bin-salman-recalls-a-chapter-of-saudi-aviation-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/al-turath.org\/?p=30012","title":{"rendered":"In Farewell to Michael Saba.. Prince Sultan bin Salman Recalls a Chapter of Saudi Aviation History"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">The name of Dr. Michael Saba became linked to an important chapter of Saudi aviation history. He worked alongside HRH Prince Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz \u2014 Special Adviser to the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, and founder and chairman of the board of trustees of Al-Turath Foundation \u2014 to document the story of King Abdulaziz\u2019s aircraft and its pilot, in a work that combined personal narrative with photographs and documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">On July 28, 2026, Dr. Michael Saba passed away, after a career that spanned writing, teaching, humanitarian activityand public service. In bidding farewell to his friend, Prince Sultan bin Salman recalled years of friendship and shared work, saying: \u201cI knew my friend Dr. Michael Saba as a loyal and sincere man. We shared a friendship that spanned many years, forged by his love for the Kingdom and his passion for its history. Together we documented an important part of Saudi aviation history, in the book <em>The Gifts of History: The Story of King Abdulaziz and His Pilot<\/em>, published by Al-Turath Foundation in English, accompanied by a documentary film, and later published in Arabic. Dr. Saba has passed away, but his memory endures through works that will never be forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"849\" height=\"900\" src=\"https:\/\/al-turath.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-30013\" srcset=\"https:\/\/al-turath.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image.png 849w, https:\/\/al-turath.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image-283x300.png 283w, https:\/\/al-turath.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image-768x814.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 849px) 100vw, 849px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Prince Sultan bin Salman and the late Dr. Michael Saba during the Hangar Talks session at the SAND &amp; FUN 2024 expo<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>The Aircraft That Came Before the Airports<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">The story documented by Prince Sultan bin Salman and Dr. Michael Saba goes back to February 14, 1945, when King Abdulaziz \u2014 may God have mercy upon him \u2014 met American President Franklin Roosevelt aboard the USS Quincy, a historic meeting that helped shape the course of relations between the Kingdom and the United States. Among the fruits of that meeting was President Roosevelt\u2019s gift to King Abdulaziz of a Douglas DC-3 aircraft, flown to the Kingdom by American Captain Joe Grant. The aircraft arrived in a country whose network of airports, runways and air-navigation facilities was not yet complete, making it an early milestone in the development of civil aviation and a new means of connecting the Kingdom\u2019s regions and supporting its growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"680\" height=\"459\" src=\"https:\/\/al-turath.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image-1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-30014\" srcset=\"https:\/\/al-turath.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image-1.png 680w, https:\/\/al-turath.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image-1-300x203.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">King Abdulaziz and President Franklin Roosevelt aboard the American warship USS Quincy, 1945<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"680\" height=\"457\" src=\"https:\/\/al-turath.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image-2.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-30015\" srcset=\"https:\/\/al-turath.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image-2.png 680w, https:\/\/al-turath.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image-2-300x202.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">The gifted DC-3 aircraft<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>From Memory to Documentation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Decades after that flight, many of its details remained preserved in the pilot\u2019s memory. This marked the beginning of the most important phase in documenting this history: Saba reached Captain Joe Grant, documented his first-hand testimony, and gathered the rare photographs Grant had kept from his time in the Kingdom. That testimony and those photographs formed the documentary foundation on which the project was built.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">In 2006, Grant returned to Riyadh at the age of ninety-eight to see the aircraft he had flown more than six decades earlier, now restored and preserved at the Saqr Al-Jazira Aviation Museum. Standing before it, he was overcome with emotion, reliving in a single moment a distant journey and an entire era in the beginnings of Saudi aviation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"680\" height=\"658\" src=\"https:\/\/al-turath.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image-3.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-30016\" srcset=\"https:\/\/al-turath.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image-3.png 680w, https:\/\/al-turath.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image-3-300x290.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Prince Sultan bin Salman, Captain Joe Grant and Dr. Michael Saba, Riyadh, 2006<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"680\" height=\"529\" src=\"https:\/\/al-turath.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image-4.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-30017\" srcset=\"https:\/\/al-turath.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image-4.png 680w, https:\/\/al-turath.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image-4-300x233.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Prince Sultan bin Salman presenting a model of the DC-3 to Captain Joe Grant, at Al-Udhaybat in Diriyah, Riyadh, 2009<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>A Book and Three Milestones in the Documentation Journey<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">The book\u2019s journey began with Grant\u2019s testimony and photographs. Its first milestone came in 2009, with the launch of the first edition, titled <em>King Abdulaziz: His Plane and His Pilot<\/em>, during the EAA AirVenture Oshkosh air show in Wisconsin. There, at the age of 101, Grant returned to the cockpit of a DC-3 aircraft, joined aboard by Prince Sultan bin Salman and Hall Delano Roosevelt \u2014 bringing together the grandsons of the two men with whom the story began, alongside the pilot who had flown the aircraft to the Kingdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"680\" height=\"452\" src=\"https:\/\/al-turath.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image-5.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-30018\" srcset=\"https:\/\/al-turath.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image-5.png 680w, https:\/\/al-turath.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image-5-300x199.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Prince Sultan bin Salman, Delano Roosevelt, Joe Grant and his son Edward, with Dr. Saba visible on the right<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">The second milestone came in 2016, when Al-Turath Non-Profit Foundation adopted the project and published its expanded English edition, <em>The Gifts of History: The Story of King Abdulaziz and His Pilot<\/em>, prepared by Prince Sultan bin Salman and Dr. Michael Saba, accompanied by a documentary film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">The third milestone came in 2024, with the publication of the revised and expanded Arabic edition, titled <em>A Plane from History: King Abdulaziz and His Pilot<\/em>. It was launched during the SAND&amp; FUN 2024 expo in Riyadh \u2014 the last occasion that brought Prince Sultan bin Salman together with his friend Michael Saba.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"679\" height=\"328\" src=\"https:\/\/al-turath.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image-6.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-30019\" srcset=\"https:\/\/al-turath.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image-6.png 679w, https:\/\/al-turath.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image-6-300x145.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 679px) 100vw, 679px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Publications of Al-Turath Foundation<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Thus, the work that brought together Prince Sultan bin Salman and Michael Saba went beyond the boundaries of a book and a film. It preserved the testimony of one of the witnesses to those beginnings, and made the story of King Abdulaziz\u2019s aircraft a living part of Saudi aviation\u2019s memory. What the two men accomplished together remains a documentary legacy that goes beyond the story of an aircraft or a pilot\u2019s journey \u2014 it preserves the memory of a nation\u2019s early beginnings, and affirms that documenting a country\u2019s memory does not start with the archive alone, but with listening to those who lived that history, and then safeguarding their testimony for generations to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"680\" height=\"510\" src=\"https:\/\/al-turath.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image-7.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-30020\" srcset=\"https:\/\/al-turath.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image-7.png 680w, https:\/\/al-turath.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image-7-300x225.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">SAND &amp; FUN 2024 Expo in Riyadh<a href=\"https:\/\/pbs.twimg.com\/media\/HQuqun8WgAAWEyH.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The name of Dr. Michael Saba became linked to an important chapter of Saudi aviation history. He worked alongside HRH [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":30019,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"book_review_cover_url":"","book_review_title":"","book_review_series":"","book_review_author":"","book_review_genre":"","book_review_isbn":"","book_review_publisher":"","book_review_release_date":"","book_review_format":"","book_review_pages":"","book_review_source":"","book_review_rating":"","book_review_summary":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-11"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/al-turath.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/al-turath.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/al-turath.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/al-turath.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/al-turath.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30012"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/al-turath.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30021,"href":"https:\/\/al-turath.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30012\/revisions\/30021"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/al-turath.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/al-turath.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/al-turath.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/al-turath.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}