justplainbil

Just Plain Bill

“One of our plane’s 2 propellers

is not turning!”

On occasion, when the weather pattern includes rain in Oakland, California, the airplanes planning to land in San Francisco start their decent right over the place where I live.  One day last week, I watched the planes flying low - and I was reminded of an incident from a day over 50 years ago.

I was flying back to Camp Pendleton Marine base from Pt. Magoo, near Santa Barbara, following a parade with my 1^st Marine Corps Division band. We were passengers in a Navy R4Q, also known as a “flying boxcar” – named for its bulbous shape primarily designed to carry military equipment. As was customary, a few of the band members were sleeping, a few were playing cards, and the rest were talking about how we’d had to use our weekend on duty and were missing some time off.

There was the usual amount of complaining going as Corporal Sanchez looked out the window of our plane, then said “One of our plane’s 2 propellers is not turning!”

All of a sudden the card game and all complaining stopped. We became glued to the windows as we watched the plane struggle to gain enough elevation to clear the mountains on our way down south towards Camp Pendleton. We’d flown enough to know these planes were not designed to fly on one engine and here we were, starting to climb over the mountain range north of Santa Barbara on our way to our landing field about 100 miles away. 

After Corporal Sanchez’ remark, the only sound to be heard was that single engine. It seemed to me the chatter of the passengers turned instantly into the sound of a collective breath being held. The complete absence of any noise by that group of grumbling passengers is one of those examples when silence really can be deafening.

Thanks to the skill of our pilots – and just a little bit of luck – our flying boxcar had gained just enough elevation at the time the engine quit to allow our plane to make a long, slow glide on that single engine into the closest military air field.

We were all overjoyed of course, but the tenor of our conversation changed because we all knew that only moments earlier, our lives had been in real danger. After that, everyone seemed a little kinder, more patient, and more supportive of each other on the trips that followed. Together, we had experienced a very scary event that could have been our last and final memory.