I received an email early today from Dave O’Malley, who writes and does graphics for the Vintage Wings of Canada website.
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He explained that he’s been searching for a photo of the old Honolulu Airport to illustrate a story about the famous ditching of a Pan Am passenger plane that went into the ocean between Honolulu and San Francisco in October 1956 after two of its four engines failed.
Amazingly, by today’s standards, all of the 31 people aboard survived.
At that time, the Coast Guard stationed a ship mid-way between Hawaii and the west coast for just such emergencies.
He requested permission to use one of my collection of photos showing Boeing StratoCruisers at Honolulu Airport in 1952. The photo shows my parents and sister, Bonnie, with the planes in the background.
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Fascinating. I had no idea — a posted Coast Guard boat in the middle. My mother brought my younger brother Jimmy and I (age 3) from Los Angeles to Hawaii (Kona) in 1959, but we came by way of Oakland on a 13-hr. prop flight. I never tire of hearing these stories.
Thanks for the heads up on this. I started flying back and forth to Hawaii from California in 1959, as a kid of 13 to help in a family business in Honolulu and of course, do a lot of surfing. I remember the flights being long but plenty of good service and food. Never knew about the Coast Guard, floating near the point of no return. BTW, a United 777 turned around a couple of weeks ago, on the way to SFO at the point of no return because of fuel problems–nothing really changes.
Ponder that picture for a moment…a 4 foot high chain link fence separating you from the plane…today we have terrorists, TSA and trillions in debt.
I understand the very first Trans-Pacific flight to Hawaii didn’t quite make it ashore, either. They ended up fashioning a sail, and coming to Hawaii on the surface of the ocean, quite a long ways!
“(John Rodgers’) flying boat was forced to land in the ocean when it ran out of fuel on September 1, 1925….. Rodgers and his crew made a sail using fabric from a wing and later used the plane’s metal flooring to fashion leeboards to improve their ability to steer the flying boat while it was sailing. Nine days later, after sailing the plane 450 miles to within 15 miles of Nawiliwili Bay, Kauai, the plane was found by a submarine and towed to the reef, whereupon the harbor master and his daughter rowed out to the plane and helped Rodgers and his crew over the reef and into the harbor…”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rodgers_(naval_officer,_World_War_I)
Trans-pac airline stories:
In the early days of TV news in Hawaii, planes that arrived from overseas with fewer than four (propeller) engines operating were an item. I think when they shut down an engine it was referred to as ‘feathering’ the engine. We often sent film crews to the airport to cover “feathered engine” landings – as though the landings would end, shall we say, unfavorably. None of these incidents ended in tragedy. But we had “film (of safe landings) at ten!”
And speaking of airport security:
Before satellite TV transmissions, our daily video recordings of network newscasts were flown in from California each night. The PanAm flight that was used most regularly was scheduled to arrive at about 9:30 pm, and every extraordinary effort was expended to get the tape from the airport to the newsroom so we could use excerpts on the ten p.m. news.
So we had this guy in LA speedy-deliver the tape from KCBS to the departure gate at LAX, run personally up the ramp, and stuff the tape under the seat on the left side of the aircraft nearest the “back” passenger door.
And then when the flight landed, our guy on this end, who was an actual courier delivery driver, would position himself at the arrival gate so that as soon as the rear door opened, he could run up the ramp to grab the tape from under the seat and make a beeline to the station. Honest to God . . .
Can you imagine? And this was never considered a ‘security lapse.’
One issue that is raised by this post is the amazing fact that, since the start of commercial airline operations to Hawaii, there have been very few incidents like this.
Now keep in mind, the route between Los Angeles/San Francisco and Hawaii is one of the busiest air corridors over the open ocean. So, if my recollection of air history in Hawaii is correct, it was this and another Pan American flight, also a Strat, that ditched between Hawaii and the continent. In the other case, though, all lives were lost (it might have been an intentional action by the pilot to ditch the plane)
Today, I have espoused to many people who have asked about it, that the air route between Hawaii and the mainland is one of the safest air routes in the world. Airplanes going either way are checked to a level of quality to assure all passengers will arrive on the other side in good shape. Our state is blessed by the fact that such attention is given to the airplanes here.
Because, if they were not, and we had incidents between the mainland and here, especially as of late, we’d not be having record-breaking tourism to the islands. That is how much our state depends on reliable, safe, secure air travel.