Do you have a family air tragedy, near-miss, humorous, or other aviation story to share?

Question

We are all aware of the sad state of commercial aviation these days, with windows, doors, and wheels falling off airplanes and near-misses possibly caused by DEI air traffic controllers, etc.  But aviation was one of our greatest success stories not too long ago, spawning heroes and heroines like Charles Lindbergh, Sally Ride, Elrey Jeppesen, Clen Curtis, Bessie Coleman, Clyde Cessna, Amelia Earhart, Chuck Yeager, and Chesley Sullenberger of US Airways Flight 1549.

Flying, the good and the bad, was a ubiquitous part of modern life for people around the world.  Does your family have any memories regarding civilian (or military aviation) that you'd like to share?  If so, many may find it interesting.

Comments

After leaving Vietnam, I met an SF-based PanAm stewardess on a flight to Rio de Janeiro (GIG).  As a senior stew she had some control over her schedule and chose long-haul flights (e.g., SFO-GIG) with a day or two between flights. Dating her was a bit of a challenge because she always set her watch (and internal clock) ahead to her next planned destination to avoid jet lag; just try living 4 hours out of sync with everyone around you some time.  A beautiful woman, she also had an unusual but attractive gait when she walked because she had broken her left leg in a crash some time previous, but after extensive rehab, had been cleared to return to flight duty.  When I met her, she had been back flying for just a few months after breaking her right leg in another crash.  People like her helped make the one-of-a-kind airline industry great.

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I was a student jumper on my 10 second delays. Military surplus with belly reserve for equipment. Total failure on the main deployment. I felt the main come off my back once I deployed the reserve. I had my main and reserve parachute tangled together until I finally cleared the main a couple hundred feet AGL and landed under the reserve. Had no idea where I was relative to the drop zone until I landed. To my surprise, I was only about 400 yards from where I needed to be but, I had two deployed chutes to carry and a good size creek to cross, and it was quite HOT! They didn't cover that scenario during training. I made three more jumps that day without further incident.

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The word around my Nam unit, the 173rd Airborne, was, "Whoever would want to jump from a perfectly good airplane?"

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Our jump plane was far from "perfectly good". The jumpmaster was also an A&P and often wrenched between loads.

Answer 1

Col. Paul Francis Pope, my 2nd cousin twice removed, a pilot for TWA, was killed, as a passenger, along with his 3 children, in this infamous crash.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_903

Comments

The cause was "failure of the rear master rod bearing on the number three engine".  It's remarkable that such sophisticated complex machines can fly at all.  So sad about your cousin and his children.

Answer 2

My Mom's cousin, who I knew in later year,s was shot down on D-Day over France. He was rescued by a French family and managed to get back to England and flew the rest of the war. He remained friends of the family who rescued him the rest of his life.

My husband was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam. He was shot down on Christmas Eve 1966. Thankfully, he and his crew were rescued with no fatalities.

Our oldest daughter was a Flight Attendant for American Airlines. On 9-11 her flight had left JFK in New York headed for Dallas. We knew that was where she was but did not hear from her for an hour and a half after hearing of the towers. It was the longest hours of our lives. She could easily have been on one of the other flights. We are forever grateful and at the same time sad for all the other families who lost loved ones.

Comments

Incredible experiences, all.  Thanks for sharing.

Answer 3

A funny story.

When my grandfather graduated from engineering school at OU in 1934, he got a job as an engineer with the Thompson Aircraft Company in Kansas City.   They were doing early work on a monoplane.

They'd leave the planes out on the runway at the end of the day and every evening the wind would flip the planes over onto their backs.   He swore a big chunk of his job was helping to flip over the planes at the start of the business day.

The company eventually failed and Grandpa wound up back in Oklahoma as the Chief Engineer for the Wiley Post Aircraft Company.

Comments

Roger, no wonder the company failed, maybe they should have figured out how to use tie downs.

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This gives a new meaning to the commercial art of "flipping planes" (renovating and selling used airplanes).

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Alexis:

      It's a pity you weren't there.  It would have saved them a lot of effort. Grin.

                           Roger

Answer 4

Who might remember this? 

"Have you ever felt like you were a pair of brown shoes in a world of tuxedoes?"

 During World War II, he enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces and served as a flight instructor in AT-9 aircraft at Altus, Oklahoma, and later in B-26 Marauder bombers at Frederick, Oklahoma. 

 In a 1969 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, He joked about his stateside wartime service: "There was not one Japanese aircraft that got past Tulsa."^[7][8] He resumed his career as an entertainer after the war, although he decided to focus predominantly on comedy rather than just singing.

 Who was George Goebel, final answer.

Comments

One of my friends told me a story about Amon Carter, the publisher of the Fort Worth Star Telegram, who reputedly hated Dallas.

Apparently, during World War II, the military was concerned about the Germans bombing Fort Worth and suggested to him that some of the distinctive elements of the Dallas skyline should be moved to Fort Worth; the idea was that German bombers would misidentify Fort Worth as Dallas and would bomb the then vacant areas west of Fort Worth.

Amon Carter reputedly told them that, if he had chose to between being bombed and being thought of as Dallas, he'd take being bombed.

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I guess our military didn't put much faith into German Navionics back then.

Was Fort Worth of military value as a target? I know Tulsa never got bombed.

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K:

There was a major bomber manufacturing facility at Fort Worth, where they built the B-24.

                    Roger

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Johnny Carson was an Ensign on the U.S.S. Pennsylvania in WWII.  He joked that the high point of his military career was performing a card trick for Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal.

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Roger: I guess there was some credibility to a potential air strike then. We are about 40 miles from Whiteman AFB, home of the B1B. Potential for nuclear attack. Lucky for me, I have more tangible fears to consider.

Answer 5

Ray, I decided to add a sweet story about a son’s love for his mother.

About 15 years after this photo was taken, my great aunt Della Mae Long, pictured with her 11 children, decided to venture out from Enid, Oklahoma with a flight to California to visit family.

 
On the way home, she was to go to Oklahoma City. When the plane made a stop in Dallas, Della Mae got off the plane. Then she realized that she should have stayed on the plane, and she just started crying until someone told her that they would call her family. Her dear son Paul, upper right, told her to not worry about anything. He would be in Dallas in 4 hours to get her, and his wife would be in Oklahoma City to get her luggage.

Comments

That was back in the days when, if the circumstance was explained, the airline would have probably rectified the situation without charge or hesitation.

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K, yes the airline would have helped her back then. Today, she would have been on her own, and he couldn’t have come to the gate to get her.

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A great story and a great-looking family.  It's just over 4 hours drive from Enid to Dallas, did Paul drive it or fly?

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Ray, Paul was living in Edmond, Oklahoma at this time, so he only had a 3 1/2 hour drive to Dallas. Enid would be another 100 miles away, but he was planning that drive. I have another story about my calling Paul from California to pick up my grandmother at the Will Rogers Airport in Oklahoma City. Without Paul, there would have been another elderly lady crying in an airport. He was a wonderful man.

Answer 6

One of our sons, Al, had planned the trip of a lifetime with a friend after graduating from high school.  They would fly and meet in LaPaz, Bolivia, hike the Cordillera Real, and then push north to Macchu Picchu before returning to Brisbane, Australia from Lima, Peru.  He found a great deal on his airfare to LaPaz. When, being parents, we sought to double-check his travel arrangements he of course thought that we didn't trust him and teenage stuff like that.  So he flew to LA and then caught a flight south to LaPaz. Things went off without a hitch until we got an emergency telephone call from LaPaz, Mexico, the capital of Baja California Sur, which is about as far from LaPaz, Bolivia as his start point of Brisbane, Australia is. Parents were then back in fashion and $2,000 was rushed to him via American Express.  

He now is a practicing Psychologist with PhD and a father of 3.

Comments

Ray, I have been accused of being an enabler, but I believe in helping when one can—especially children and grandchildren. Glad you sent the money. 

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Part of being parents is being there for your children. It goes together with giving them space to fall.

Answer 7

Tragedy,  Wikitree ID, King-42781

Check out the Profile of 1st Lt. US Air Force, Jon Marc King  

Jon was my brother-in-law. 

He was a fighter pilot in the late 1960’s. In 1970 he went to Vietnam and flew there for 6 months. 

On November 29, 1970, Jon boarded a transport plane on his way back home to see his wife, and newborn daughter. That plane crashed in the jungles of Vietnam and he was killed. 

His profile has more details. 

Comments

Hi Susan,

I visited 1LT Jon Marc King's profile.  Thank you for creating his profile.  

1LT King served with the 615th Tactical Fighter Squadron, 401st Tactical Fighter Wing, 13th Air Force at Phan Rang Air Base, Ninh Thuan Province, Vietnam.

If you are interested, feel free to add his military decoration to his profile.  He earned the Air Medal.

{{Medal|medal=Air Medal| image=Military_Medals-24.jpg}}

Jon is honored at the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial in Washington DC. His name is inscribed at Panel 06w, Line 93.

I also made some suggestions to complete his FindAGrave profile.  You may wish to add his photo and other photographs there.

Answer 8

I have a few.

My first cousin was a flight attendant for Northwest.  She had been in Montana on vacation. Her dad was waiting for her in the tiny local airport when it was announced that the inbound flight had crashed.  She wasn’t on the flight because she was an employee and the paying passengers had been prioritized. They crashed into a hillside on approach to the airport. May they rest in peace.

I have been in two aborted takeoffs, a tech stop for more fuel due to a 100 mph headwind, a not so great landing at ORD in one of the original three United 777’s within the first 30 days it was put in service, a very rough ride from HOU to MEM, been stuck overnight numerous times, and had three flights with grossly misbehaving passengers - one of which was arrested at the gate.  I’m somewhere in the 500k lifetime miles range, all flights considered.  I’ve seen some stuff.

The last time I flew was in December 2018 in the 737 Max between the two crashes which resulted in the grounding of all the aircraft.  I’m done; I drive now.

I was at the runway when STS-107 (Columbia) did not return.  I had worked with the Commander (STS-96 was both our first flights) and was a classmate of the Mission Specialist in our Remote Sensing graduate school class.  It was devastating, and I carry it with me every day.  It’s burned into my memory. My people always come first.

Comments

Your stories are very interesting, and pretty much cover the "modern" history of aviation.  Thanks.  Coincidently. my aunt and her sister were both Seattle-based stewardesses for Northwest.  Karen later met my uncle, a promising Boeing engineer, onboard a flight.  Her sister became one of Northwest's most senior stewardesses.