Flight of the Forgotten. Mark A. Vance
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undoubtedly the most memorable of my “bush” flying career. The big oil companies I flew for regularly pumped liquid gold out of the ground and often allowed safety to become secondary to getting freight back and forth to their precious oil rigs. It was something we all accepted as part of the job, but when my ground crew started strapping drilling pipe with explosive heads to the floats of my seaplane one day, I began wondering about the whole program.
Ignoring my instincts, I kept reminding myself of the “build up those flying hours” motto I lived by and the countless number of other pilots ready to take my place and my job if I balked at going. So, decked out in my Mae West and leather flying jacket, I took off with my single passenger for Lake Charles, Louisiana, in a Cessna 180, overloaded with explosives and drilling equipment and badly out of trim. “Piece of cake.” I told myself for the first forty minutes. However, as I approached the Atchafalaya Swamp, the weather ahead suddenly deteriorated. Within minutes, I was forced to fly lower and lower to stay out of the clouds, eventually down to within 200 feet of the ground, deviating around rain showers that suddenly seemed to be everywhere. “Oh well, all part of the job.” I told myself. “Flight time is flight time.”
It wasn’t long, however, before that thinking soon evaporated, and I found my small Cessna surrounded by thunderstorms and lightning, rocking wildly from side to side in turbulence. Lightning and explosives were not exactly a harmless combination. I can still remember how strong the static electricity felt in the air that day. Between the static electricity and the lightning bolts dancing around me, the hair on the back of my neck was standing at full attention.
Seaplane flying is done entirely visually, without navaids or weather radar. Many seaplanes don’t have a radio, navaids or anything more sophisticated than a wet-compass to guide them. On occasion, I had used that wet compass for hours at a time, surrounded by water as I thought that surely it must have been like that for Lindbergh so many years before. Today though, I wasn’t over the open water like Lindbergh. I was dangerously low over an inland swamp, where drilling rigs dotted the landscape, rising to over 100 feet in the air. No problem if you were high enough, but because of the weather, I no longer was.
As the clouds thickened around me and the visibility continued to worsen, it wasn’t long before I had to descend again to maintain visual contact with the ground.
That was another thing about seaplanes. The gyros didn’t work well enough to give you proper attitude reference inside the clouds. It was an invitation to a graveyard spiral if you got caught for any length of time inside the clouds and had claimed many “bush” pilots lives over the years. So, with the rain beating heavily on my windshield and the lightning dancing around me, I eased the tiny Cessna down even further. Soon we were flying within 100 feet of the ground, and I prayed that the course I’d chosen wouldn’t bring me face to face with the superstructure of an oil rig.
As the visibility ahead decreased to almost zero, I slowed the tiny Cessna to just above a stall. That, I reasoned, would give me time to react to anything that suddenly appeared ahead. Hopefully, my flight path was unobstructed, but if not I could at least react to what I saw in time. With lightning striking the ground all around me, the little Cessna was now rocking like a canoe in white-water rapids. Within minutes, I was losing visual contact with the ground again, forced to fly even lower, eventually leveling the tiny Cessna just 30 feet above the ground. At 30 feet, everything below you is dangerous. Boats, drilling rigs, trees-almost anything can be lethal if you hit it in an airplane.
My biggest fear though, was the dreaded “Christmas tree,” a gas-pumping structure rising about 30 feet above the ground, painted light gray and almost invisible in a rainstorm. To collide with a “Christmas tree” as it pumped high-pressure natural gas out of the ground, promised a fire that would incinerate you in seconds.
At that moment something almost as horrifying struck the plane. A tremendous bolt of lightning abruptly tore through the right wing and ran down the forward instrument panel, leaving me blinded and disoriented.
The smell of burned wiring and fiberglass filled the air. With the tiny Cessna just 30 feet above the ground, in rain so heavy I couldn’t hear the passenger behind me screaming at the top of his lungs, we gyrated wildly. As we did, I struggled with the controls, blinded, unable to climb and unsure of what lay ahead. It was lucky I suppose that we hadn’t been blown out of the sky by the lightning itself, but the heat and energy somehow missed the explosive charges in the drilling pipe. Nonetheless, I needed help and I needed it fast if we were going to survive.
“Please, God! Don’t let this happen!” I cried out, bracing for what I now believed was an inevitable crash. It was then I felt another pair of hands on the control wheel and heard a strangely familiar voice.
“You’re okay. You’re okay. Just hold on. You need to turn slightly left. Keep the nose up. That’s it. Keep turning to the left.” the voice implored as I felt strong hands guide mine through the turn. “Everything’s going to be fine.” the voice insisted as my shattered vision began returning slowly.
As I followed the instructions, my eyes eventually focused on the arms holding the control wheel with me. At first, I thought it was the arms of the passenger behind me, but as we flew on, I could see unusual symbols on the sleeves - sergeant’s stripes. As I stared at them, the arms kept guiding me at the controls.
“Nothing’s going to harm you. Just do as I do.” Buster implored as I nodded and let him guide me. “You’ll be out of this weather soon.”
“Buster? Is it really you?” I asked as he held the controls like an autopilot.
“I’m here.” he whispered, as I gazed at the small Eighth Air Force symbol on his left sleeve.
Almost as suddenly, the rain ceased, and I could hear the passenger behind me screaming again. Turning instinctively, the strong arms that had been holding the controls with mine suddenly disappeared and I found myself alone again in the cockpit.
“It’s going to be alright.” I managed to shout as I eased the tiny Cessna back up to 500 feet and glanced around repeatedly for the strong arms with the sergeant stripes.
“How … how did you do that? I thought we were going to crash.” my distraught passenger cried out, quivering badly.
“We were.” I uttered, holding the control wheel tightly to keep my hands from trembling.
August 3, 1987, Piedmont Airlines flight #335, Boston to Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina
Several years after that dramatic encounter, I was finally a jet pilot, flying captain on a Boeing 737. I hadn’t felt Buster’s presence in some time and had become engrossed in the day to day routine of airline flying. The pattern was mind-numbing, and this day was no different than dozens of others, except for what was about to happen as we started rolling down the runway.
The sun was a blinding fireball on the end of the runway that evening as I taxied into position for takeoff at sunset. Boston was departing to the West and there was a lot of radio confusion at the time. Several flights jammed the tower frequency with transmissions. The Boston airport was also using intersecting runways for takeoffs and landings, further adding to the confusion and potential for conflict.
Nonetheless, my first officer and I heard our takeoff clearance very distinctly, acknowledged it and began rolling down the long Western runway. The juncture where the intersecting runways met was invisible ahead in the blinding sunlight as was the Boston downtown area a short distance off the end of the runway. I knew the tall buildings were there, of course. Their towering presence required a left turn shortly after takeoff whenever you departed to the West.
As we accelerated through 100 knots, two thousand feet from the runway intersection and still well below flying speed, I heard a desperate, pleading voice over the loudspeaker that evening above the roar of my engines.
“I can’t stop it, Piedmont! I can’t stop it, Piedmont!” a high pitched, frantic voice declared as a large passenger turboprop suddenly materialized to my left. Appearing out of nowhere in the blinding sun, the huge turboprop was closing