I would like to share the following with you. It is from a friend of mine, who is also a pilot. As previously mentioned, I consulted him when I had an issue with the way the new media was reporting the Airbus in the Hudson incident. Enjoy!
The recent US Air Airbus 320 that ditched in the Hudson River was the first commercial jet to successfully ditch without any fatalities. The news media continues to say that it was the first successful ditching without any fatalities. As Pan Amers, we know that is not true! If you read the account of Captain Dick Ogg's ditching, as I remember a Chinese lady twisted her ankle getting in a raft but there were no fatalities. Also, a Boeing - 314 ditched in mid Pacific November 1945. Even though it was a seaplane, it had two engines shut down and was forced to land and had no fatalities.
Monday, Oct. 29, 1956
The Ditching
Pan American Stratocruiser Flight 943 winged smoothly through the night sky, confident in its aloneness, all but oblivious to the black Pacific four miles below. It was 3:20 a.m., and inside the cabin, each of the 31 passengers sought sleep according to his station-first-class passengers in berths, tourist passengers scrunched up in reclining seats. Suddenly a shrieking squeal drowned the silence, and the airplane swooped roughly. The passengers bolted awake. "Ladies and gentlemen," crackled the cabin loudspeaker, "this is Captain Ogg. We have an emergency. Our No.1 engine is uncontrolled. A ditching at sea is likely. We have a Coast Guard cutter nearby that is able to render assistance. There is no cause for alarm."
Quietly, two stewardesses and a purser went to work, pointed out the escape hatches, explained the ditching procedure (fasten safety belts securely, rest head on pillow on the knees, cross wrists behind legs, grasp each ankle from the front). Passengers discarded their shoes (the women took off stockings so they would not slip if they had to walk on a wing), got rid of sharp objects (e.g., fountain pens, tie clasps), shouldered their way into life jackets. One woman tore the crucifix from her rosary, kept the beads.
In the cockpit, too, there was calm. Then six minutes after the trouble began, another engine-No. 4-choked to a stop. With both outboard engines out of commission, Captain Ogg knew for certain now that he could not make the 1,000 miles to San Francisco -that he would have to ditch. Rather than dump gas and risk a night landing, he decided to wait till daylight and let the plane exhaust its heavy fuel load. He so notified the Coast Guard weather-watch cutter, Pontchartrain, some comfortable ten miles to the west. Pontchartrain's skipper, Commander William K. Earle, radioed the best course (330°) for ditching into the running swell, and the time of sunrise (7:22 a.m.). Captain Ogg easily homed on the Pontchartrain, managed to hold his altitude at 2,000 ft. while he circled her.
During the long wait for daylight, he switched the seat-belt sign off, told his passengers to light their cigarettes, relax. The conditions for ditching, he assured them, were "ideal." The water temperature was 74°, the sea calm.
They waited in silence. Three passengers dozed. A stewardess jokingly offered to pass out the magazines. A passenger wanted to know when breakfast would be served. Everybody laughed.
Now it was daylight. At 8:04 a.m. Ogg announced: ten minutes. Then, one minute. The passengers braced. Ogg carefully aimed the big Boeing Stratocruiser for a strip of white fire-fighting foam that Pontchartrain had laid to aid the pilot's depth perception. He kissed the plane onto the hard waves, touching gently at first. Then it bounced hard, whipped around violently as an engine tore loose, snapped in two. Quickly the crew discharged and inflated the life rafts. The passengers waded cautiously through the cabin rubble, hopped into the rafts. Within ten minutes after the Stratocruiser struck water Pontchar train's small boats had picked up all survivors-only five were slightly injured-and deposited them, snuggled into blankets, aboard the cutter. Eleven minutes later, what was left of the Stratocruiser disappeared in the foam.
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