P.S. The Salinger story is one I recently came across while browsing through a stack of old magazines.
For some crazy reason Daisy’s gift made him cry. Maybe because it meant somebody did know him, after all.
Elizabeth Daily Post
A FAREWELL TO ELIZABETH
By Henry Ammerman
JUNE 23—It is with some sadness that I write this, my last story for the Daily Post. I have been privileged over the past six months to report for you on the terrible series of airplane tragedies that has brought this city so much pain and unwanted national attention. As I leave the place of my birth for a job in a new one, the editors have invited me to offer some final thoughts.
The investigations of the Civil Aeronautics Board have now been completed. The results will be annoying and maybe disbelieved by those who saw sinister forces conspiring to bring about the three crashes in rapid-fire succession. Each plane failed for a different reason, and none of them indicate any pattern of sabotage or nefarious activity.
Dec. 16—The Miami Airlines non-scheduled C-46 that crashed in the Elizabeth River suffered engine failure, apparently from poor maintenance, which led to a catastrophic fire. The pilots had not been adequately trained to shut off fuel to a damaged engine.
Jan. 22—American Airlines Flight 6780, a Convair 240, was an incoming flight in poor weather conditions. The weather could have caused carburetor ice. While the plane had heaters to preclude this, it is possible the heaters were not activated. But without definite evidence, the CAB was mystified as to the probable cause of the crash.
Feb. 11—National Airlines Flight 101, a four-engine DC-6, suffered a sudden and unexpected reversal of its No. 3 propeller. Attempting to correct this, the pilot mistakenly feathered (shut off and locked) his other right-side propeller. With both the right-hand engines out, the CAB concluded “the aircraft did not maintain altitude and settled rapidly.”
In both crash number one and number three there was a confluence of mechanical problems and mistaken action by the pilot. Perhaps if the Miami Airlines pilot had shut off fuel to the failed engine sooner, or if the pilot of the National plane had feathered the correct engine, they could have recovered altitude and made it back to the airport. Crash number two is more problematic but there remains a possibility that pilot action to overcome icing might have made a difference.
The one lesson we can surely learn from these events is that airplanes are complex machines, operating in a precarious environment—the air—where any emergency, be it from mechanical failure, human error or weather hazard, is fraught with peril. The risk is especially great when it occurs at low altitude, giving pilots little opportunity to take corrective action.
As if to underscore this point, just after midnight on Feb. 11, at almost the same time as the final doomed Elizabeth plane was going down, a Pan American airliner from Idlewild Airport lost an engine just after takeoff. But that pilot was free to maneuver over the Atlantic Ocean, unconcerned with multistory buildings or thousands at risk on the ground, and returned to the field in safety.
Every effort must be taken to safeguard heavily inhabited areas from takeoffs and landings. Let us hope the Port Authority will take this lesson to heart before reopening Newark Airport.
34
Miri
She was sure they would drive. See the U.S.A. in Your Chevrolet, even if their Chevrolet was an Oldsmobile. But she was wrong. They were going to fly. Off we go into the wild blue yonder…she couldn’t keep songs about flying out of her head. And especially the ending of that song—live in fame or go down in flame—not that she’d lived in fame but still…she’d seen what it was like to go down in flame. And she didn’t want any part of it. That was putting it mildly.
“I really don’t want to fly,” she told Rusty.
Rusty said, “I understand.”
“If you understand, why would you make me do it?”
“I don’t want you to spend your life avoiding travel. I want you to see the world.”
“I’ll drive.”
“You can’t drive across the ocean.”
“I’ll take a boat.”
“Everyone will be flying, Miri.”
“That doesn’t mean I have to be like everyone else.”
“No, but you don’t want your fears to limit your possibilities.”
“That sounds like something Dr. O would say, not you.”
“But it makes sense, doesn’t it?”
Miri shrugged. Did it? “Christina and Jack are driving to Las Vegas.”
“Are you saying you want to go with them? Because I don’t think that would be appropriate.”
Before her world fell apart, Miri might have begged to go with them, Mason surely would have been along. She hadn’t seen Christina or Jack since the breakup. She hated that word. Breakup. It reminded her of Henry’s description of the third crash—Like a swollen cream puff that had broken apart. She felt as if she, too, had broken apart.