Escape in Mid-Air

The evening was clear and crisp. A Universal Airline's DC-3, carrying a score of Puerto Ricans home from New York for Christmas, was sailing smoothly southward over Maryland at its assigned 2,000 ft. Its blinking white, red & green lights were visible for nearly eight miles. There was nothing ahead.

Suddenly there was a bump, then a shudder. The cockpit was stove in; hydraulic lines burst, spewing fluid over the flight deck. The radio went out. Not knowing what had hit them, the DC-3's pilots brought the disabled ship to an emergency landing at the nearby field at Aberdeen. No one was really hurt.

Sixty miles away,, at Washington, fire trucks stood by for an Eastern Air Lines' DC-4 which had radioed that it had been in a collision. It landed with a gaping hole beneath its tail assembly. No one aboard was hurt.

Then the pilots and passengers of the DC-3 found out what had happened. Eastern's big, four-engined plane, flying the same route at the same altitude, but with a 60-m.p.h. edge in speed, had overtaken the DC-3. The Pilot did not see the smaller plane; the copilot did, just in time. He pulled back mightily on the yoke to drive the big plane over the smaller. It was a good try: a few more inches of overlap would have sent 85 people to certain death in aviation's worst disaster. As it was, it was air transport's most incredible escape.

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