Warbird Information Exchange

I was doing some research on the Coast Guard side of this rescue. The video is a CG video and they filmed the actual aircraft setting down in the ocean between Hawaii and San Fran near the Coast Guard Cutter Pontchartrain. The aircraft lost two engines while over the Pacific and had to set down. All POB's were rescued. I thought some who may not be aware of it may find it interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkR4F3_fEUQ

I am amazed no one was lost in that ditching.Cool video and thanks for posting.

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Hang The Expense

Yup....it was amazing no one was killed in that situation.

multi person life rafts?? no floatable cushions or life jackets?? they must have really had to scramble to get those rafts inflated & the passengers / crew safely onboard them!!

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

I remember the incident as my dad was flying between SFO and HNL in DC-4s and the B-377 for Pan Am then. I learned years later that he didn't think much of the R-4360 engine and even less of that type of propellor as they gave a lot of trouble to crews and mechanics.
The airplane did offer a fast cruise and degree of roominess. He was co-pilot on 1-3/4-53 when 948 set a record of 4000 statute miles in 10:14 for an average G.S of 390mph (wind aided).

Dad last flew that particular aircraft (943) just 3 months prior to the ditching, on July 8. His notes in his log book reflect that it was his 400th crossing between HNL and West Coast.

Dick Ogg was the pilot of that flight that ditched. Some reports mistakenly list the flight number as 943, but the thread owner here called it right, 943 was the last 3 digits of the tail number

Very interesting indeed. Thanks for sharing

#1 was seized. #4 feathered. It was just not their day.

oh how attorneys & life insurance agents would feed on that disaster today!! what skill & professionalism by the crew!!!...... capt. sully's incredibly successful ditch in the Hudson of a few years ago will have class action lawsuits against his employer out the ying yang & will languish for years in red tape.

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

Tom wrote:multi person life rafts?? no floatable cushions or life jackets?? they must have really had to scramble to get those rafts inflated & the passengers / crew safely onboard them!!

25 man lift rafts were the standard in those days and the people do have life jackets. Some procedures called for the rafts to be taken out of there racks before the ditching. And yes, they were scrambling right along.

Capt'n Sully and his Airbus have nothing on this PAA crew and the Boeing.

And as a passenger (in that period) of a DC-6 across the Pacific, yes, Tom, they did have life jackets...

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Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.
Note political free signature.
I figure if you wanted my opinion on items unrelated to this forum, you'd ask for it.

Amazing footage - a good thing the Pacific was......pacific that day!

My dad was a flight engineer for Pan Am. He passed away last year and I got ahold of all his old log books. He started out in the Stratocruiser, and it seemed like on every page of the logbook there was at least one flight involving an engine shut down. He was flying out of Idlewild airport back then. Awhile later he switched to DC-6's, and I couldn't find any more log entries with a shut down. By the time I came along (1959) he was flying out of SFO, and as a kid I remember him and his colleagues talking about that ditching.
bret

Thanks for relating what you did. I wish I had been more attentive in earlier years about PanAm. I continue to learn a little more though with each passing year. Notes in my dad's log books are right in line with your dads, the big Boeings regularly had failures on the R-4360 and had to return back to point of departure, coded in the log book as R.E.M. He said you could count on this about every 3 months.

He had no time at all on the DC-6, but a close friend who flew PanAm out of Seattle flew them frequently and liked them. Said they had an honest 200 mph cruise. My dad flew the DC-7 exclusively all of 1958 and '59. They were fast, but noisy. Starting January of 1960, it was the 707 and his days on recips were over.

Glad that you have your dad's log books.

The identifier for the VOR on Maui is OGG in tribute to Capt. Ogg.