The second story of a trilogy.
One morning early in October of 1956, Vernon Whitney woke up in his studio unit in the Benjamin Apartments, a young attractive stewardess by the name of Nadine Nimbus asleep on his arm.
Whitney couldn’t tell how long she’d been there, but his arm had lost all feeling. Glancing down at her naked form stretched out on the moist sheets before him, he was quickly made aware that nothing else had gone numb. A quick glance at the turquoise General Electric alarm clock on the nightstand made it clear that time wouldn’t allow nature to run its course. The two had to get up, get dressed, and make their way to the airport and catch a Pan Am flight to Philadelphia. They were the assigned flight crew of the Sovereign Of The Skies, a Boeing 377 Stratocruiser. The Sovereign was making an around the world flight and both Whitney and Nimbus were part of the crew for the much sought after trip.
The flight originated in Philadelphia, departed for Europe and Asia, eventually landing in Honolulu, before making its final stop in San Francisco. Whitney and Nimbus planned on spending a few days in the city by the bay at the conclusion of the journey. While long and tiring, the trip had gone according to schedule and without incident for the several days it had taken them to get to Honolulu. The flight crew took advantage of the late departure for San Francisco to get caught up on some much needed shuteye. Raising a few eyebrows, Whitney and Nimbus elected to take their own cab from the hotel to the airport.
When the new 1956 Plymouth Savoy taxi pulled up in front of the hotel to pick them up, the pair were somewhat taken aback at the glitz of the thing. Two-toned orange and red, the cab looked far more attractive than the normal Checkers and Fords they were used to riding in. There seemed to be enough chrome to blind someone if the sun was shining on it just right, especially the crossbow-like hood ornament and long trim strips going down each side of the car. “I swear the ass end of this thing looks almost as sexy as you do from behind,” Whitney whispered into Nadine’s ear as he opened the rear door. The driver, loading their minimal bags into the deep trunk smiled and agreed to himself.
The flight took off from Honolulu bound for California at 8:26 PM. Most of the passengers quickly fell asleep as the sky turned almost black and the drone of the engines lulled them into a deep slumber. Whitney and Nimbus had the opportunity to discreetly meet at the back of the plane and tease each other with tales of what they intended to do once they’d touched down in San Francisco and made their way to the St. Francis Hotel where they had reservations.
In the cockpit, the first officer, George Haaker, had just received permission to take the aircraft up to an altitude of 21,000 feet. Once at that altitude, Haaker slowed the aircraft as he noted the time of 1:20 AM. He realized almost immediately that the engine started to overspeed as power was reduced. He reacted in textbook fashion by slowing the plane’s speed even further. He extended the flaps and attempted to feather the propeller. To his dismay and concern, the propellers refused to feather and the engine continued to turn at alarmingly excessive RPMs.
Sensing the severity of the situation, Captain Richard Ogg took over. He made the decision to cut the oil supply to the engine. It didn’t take long being denied oil for the engine to seize. In the back of the aircraft, Whitney was checking Nimbus’ flaps when the drive shaft of the seized engine broke and shook the entire plane. Even with the driveshaft broken, the propeller continued to turn due to the windmill effect in the jet stream. This created additional drag on the Boeing 377, causing it to fly even slower. All of these conditions had the net effect of forcing the plane to fly lower and slower over the inky black ocean below. The remaining three engines were adjusted as needed in order to attempt to slow the rate of descent. To add to a rapidly declining situation, at 2:45 AM Engine Number 4 began to fail. It was producing only partial power despite being flown at full throttle. The crew had little choice but to shut it down. The Stratocruiser was losing altitude at 500 feet per minute.
What was becoming obvious to the crew in the cockpit was that they did not have enough fuel to reach their destination of San Francisco. And yet, they had gone too far to turn back to Honolulu. There was nowhere for them to land with what little fuel they had available. Captain Ogg radioed a message: “PanAm 90943, Flight 6, declaring an emergency over the Pacific.”
Stewardess Nimbus pulled her skirt back down to its regulation length. Whitney attempted to adjust himself, as some of the contents of his boxers had shifted during flight. Passengers were beginning to stir and detect that something was wrong over the Pacific. A US Coast Guard cutter, the Pontchartrain, was contacted on the surface below and gave the wounded Stratocruiser weather and sea conditions and a flight pattern that would put the ship in the best position to attempt to rescue passengers and crew members once the aircraft was ditched into the ocean.
The captain aimed the wounded aircraft towards the direction of the coordinates provided. Once arriving at the appointed location, he circled the ship till first light, figuring his chances of success to be greater if he could attempt the maneuver in daylight rather than darkness. As light appeared on the horizon, the captain made the passengers aware of what was about to take place and prepared them for a crash landing on the ocean’s surface.
Whitney, Nimbus, and the other members of the crew cleared passengers from the rear of the plane and removed loose items from the cabin. Small children were placed on their parents’ laps without seatbelts. Looking out the small windows of the plane, the crew witnessed something no flight crew ever wants to see . . . the waves of the ocean below getting larger and larger as the plane drew closer to them.
3 responses to “CLIPPED WINGS, Part II”
Typically, taxicabs used Plymouth’s lowly base model, the Plaza, while the midrange and somewhat more civilized 1956 Savoy offered a bit more creature comfort along with a kind of hokey stainless trim to differentiate a two-toned paint job. The pictured top of the line sedan is of course a Belvedere, painted in a garish taxi version which would not be typical for factory options. I had two 1956 Plymouth Belvederes – an all black 4-door sedan which Dad bought used from his cousin Mel, and the bumblebee yellow and black 2-door hardtop we got used around 1962 from my cousin Barry which was T-Boned later that year by one of my school mates who ran a stop sign as I drove to my part time job at an auto parts wholesaler.
The idea of having to ditch any plane in the Pacific is scary, but doing so with a commercial airliner and being responsible for the potential lives of passengers and crew is almost unimaginable, bringing up images of coolheadedness displayed by “Sully” Sullenberger. He managed to not take out a serious portion of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, or Hoboken, North Bergen, and the New Jersey Palisades – all while saving the lives of all souls in his care.
Keeping one’s calm under pressure is indeed to be appreciated.
It’s always interesting and a pleasure when The Captain writes about historical events. Anxious to find out what we’re in store for after splashdown tomorrow.
I’m certain that for Vernon and Nadine, survivor sex will be de rigueur.