The nation was enthralled in mid-January of this year after seeing television coverage of the remarkable ditching of a passenger plane in the frigid Hudson River off Manhattan. Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger was pilot of the U.S. Airways Airbus 320. He skillfully brought the plane to safety after its jet engines swallowed birds and lost power. All 155 people on board were saved, thanks to quick response by Coast Guard, police, and commercial craft on the river. With his background as an Air Force pilot and safety expert, Captain Sullenberger was the right man in the right place at the right time.
News reports hailed the feat as "unprecedented." Perhaps that is true in a narrow sense, but this was not a new experience for the Coast Guard. Its men were also in the right places when needed years earlier. With the advent of commercial aircraft able to span the world's oceans, the Coast Guard set up a series of ocean stations. It was not pleasant duty, for it required steaming around for weeks at a time-often in cold, rough weather. The cutters' duties included determining winds aloft, serving as navigation beacons, and relaying radio communications. It was a mission that beat up both men and ships.
On 13 October 1947, the Bermuda Sky Queen of American-International Airways embarked on a flight headed from Foynes, Ireland, to Gander, Newfoundland, Canada. On board the Boeing 314 clipper were 62 passengers and a crew of seven. The chief pilot was Charles Martin, who had been an aviator in the Navy. While en route to North America, the aircraft ran into gale-force headwinds. Fortunately, the Coast Guard cutter Bibb (WPG-31), commanded by Captain Paul Cronk, was patrolling on Ocean Station Charlie. When the plane was more than 18 hours into a flight that should have taken 17 overall, Martin concluded that he didn't have enough fuel to reach his destination. Nor did he have enough to make it back to Ireland.
Knowing the Bibb's position, he flew 300-some miles back east, to the vicinity of the cutter. The aircraft was a flying boat, designed to take off and land in protected waters, but not to ditch in the open ocean. When Martin put it down near the Bibb, the seas were high, 30 feet by some estimates. He taxied to the lee side of the ship, which tried to pass a line to the aircraft. With both ship and plane rolling heavily, they were thrown together, inflicting damage on both.
Initial rescue efforts were unsuccessful because of sea conditions. Later a combination of rubber rafts and ship's boats began the transfer process. Moving them in stages, the water craft took 37 people from the plane to the cutter, but high seas and impending darkness prevented further rescue that day. Imagine the thoughts of the passengers and crew still on board the Bermuda Sky Queen as they passed a stormy night. They reached the safety of the Bibb the following day. The Coast Guard ship then sank the abandoned airplane with gunfire. When the cutter reached port in Boston four days later, she had a broom tied to her mast-sign of a clean sweep.
Almost precisely nine years later, there was another ditching-and another Coast Guard rescue. On the evening of 14 October 1956, a Pan American Stratocruiser dubbed Clipper Sovereign of the Skies took off from Honolulu, headed for San Francisco. A few hours after midnight, one of its four piston engines stopped operating, and then so did another. Captain Richard Ogg, lead pilot, was able to keep the aircraft aloft with two engines, but at increased fuel consumption and reduced speed.
In a way, this was a case of life imitating art. A 1954 John Wayne film, The High and the Mighty, depicted a Honolulu-San Francisco plane that lost two engines after passing the "point of no return." In the movie, the plane reached its destination on fumes and landed safely. In real life, Captain Ogg determined there was too much risk involved either in turning around or seeing if he could make it to the West Coast. Headwinds would hamper the plane if he tried to go back to Hawaii. He was in radio contact with the cutter Ponchartrain (WPG-70), which was on Ocean Station November.
The pilot flew the aircraft to the ship's position, dumped fuel, and circled until daylight. The cutter put out a blanket of white foam to help the pilot's depth perception. After Ogg made a few dry runs near the ship, he ditched in the sea shortly after 0800, just under 12 hours since takeoff. Unlike the Bermuda Sky Queen, this plane was not designed to land on water. The impact broke off both the nose and tail. The passengers and crew evacuated to the wings and then into rafts. Commander William K. Earle, skipper of the cutter, dispatched boats that rescued all 31 people on board-24 passengers and seven crew members. The plane sank a little more than 20 minutes after it hit the water. Injuries were few and minor. The passengers' joy on reaching San Francisco was palpable.
In 1956, as in 1947, the combination of a heady pilot and a Coast Guard cutter on ocean station had made the difference. Captain Sullenberger had able predecessors in the saving of lives.