Brave New World

For most of the 52 aboard American Airlines' DC-6 "Arizona," the big speedy plane was less a means of travel than of transition; a kind of big cabinet through which they could pass--with a pleasantly uneventful interval of waiting in the seats inside--from one aspect of the humdrum world to another. At 2:29 in the morning most of them were dozing. The plane, bound from Los Angeles to Chicago and New York, rode 21,000 ft. over the earth at 300 miles an hour, and the dimly lighted cabin was quiet except for the muffled drone of the engines and the sigh of ventilating air.

But at 2:30 the plane and all in it assumed a wild new relationship. The propeller of the right inboard engine burst from its hub, tore through the upper fuselage with a thunderous bang. The lights went out. The passengers, half deafened as the air rushed from the cabin, were assailed by a sub-zero gale which flung back hot oil and clattering chunks of metal. The wounded, overspeeded engine howled and shook off its mount. The right wing dipped suddenly.

The plane straightened out in the darkness, as Captain Robert Baker and his copilot, Robert Reinicke, worked the controls, headed for the Denver Airport 100 miles away. But as it sank steadily toward the earth the passengers had but one thought. "Do we have a chance?" The two stewardesses, one staggering groggily with a bleeding head, could only answer: "Please fasten your seat belts. We will be in Denver in 20 minutes."

A woman fainted. A man slumped, dead of a heart attack. The rest, some bleeding or bruised, sat quietly. Many prayed, as the brilliant lights of Denver crept closer. The landing gear was cranked slowly down (the hydraulic and electrical systems were all but wrecked) and the crippled plane flew through the last, perilous seconds of its flight. Then, suddenly, the agony was over, the plane was safe on the solid ground. As the passengers climbed out, a salesman named Francis Thomas said with reverence: "That landing was like being born all over again."

Said the captain: "In a situation like that you just move over a little bit and let God take over."

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