Take-off Trouble

Many a pilot has known the rump-tightening sensation that comes when an engine quits on a takeoff. No pilot ever liked the feeling. For from that point on the lives of pilot and passengers depend on his cool skill and on lots of luck. Unless there is a good open field ahead, the chances are heavy for a bad crash.

Last week, this toughest of take-off troubles happened to a Pennsylvania Central Airlines pilot as he left the hill-bordered Charleston (W.Va.) field, headed for Pittsburgh with six passengers, copilot and stewardess aboard. Pilot Russell Wright had lifted his 10-passenger Boeing 2470 no more than 10 feet off the ground when his starboard motor quit cold. He was past the point where he could plump down on the airport; he had to go on. Quickly he feathered the prop on the dead engine, thus killed its racking rotation, ruinous drag. Co-pilot William Riley snapped up the landing gear. Ahead was the valley of the Kanawha River where the old but still snappy Boeing would have plenty of room to gain some altitude. But also ahead was a high tension line and Russell Wright knew he could not clear it. He eased to the left, squeaked over another power line (they surround too many U.S. fields) and headed up a wide ravine into the hills. The Boeing's best rate of climb on one engine was not quite enough. No more than 100 feet from the top of the rise, Pilot Wright saw he must certainly crash. He eased his ship into a stall close to the trees, let her pancake. Her right wing ripped off and she banged down to the ground, her tail flipping forward over the fuselage.

Bleeding from face cuts, the pilots jumped from their seats, ran back into the cabin, helped their passengers out the front way because the cabin door was jammed by the wing. All the passengers could move under their own power, and only three had to be hospitalized. More seriously injured was Hostess Irene Coates, who had three cracked vertebrae, had to be carried. Flying from a field long criticized as too tight, too thoroughly bordered by obstructions, Russell Wright had come off better than anyone had a right to expect. He had also figured in the first of eight serious U.S. airline crashes (five of them fatal) since last August that could definitely be charged to mechanical failure. Weather was the No. 1 villain in all the rest.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.