If you read in the newspapers every five days or so that a clean-cut chap, with whom you had been doing dips and spirals at a county fair the week before, had been carried lifeless or dying from the field while a morbid crowd tried to tear off his blood-stained collar and tie as “souvenirs” would you want to chuck it all and let a new crop of youngsters develop the art of flying?

I think you would.

The appalling and ever-growing death-list is making even the daredevils think—they are not laughing the specter off and talking about fatalism as they used to. Poor Eugene Ely’s recent death at Macon, Georgia, drove it home that even the most cautious fliers are not immune; and the fellows I have seen are wondering whether their turn will come next.

It might have been the death of Ely that prompted Elser to reassess the risks of flying the fragile, underpowered airplane of 1911. In his Post article, “The Wings of Icarus,” he said Ely had the reputation of being a cautious pilot who shunned risky maneuvers and stunts.  Not long before his death, another pilot, Lincoln Beachey had suggested it was possible to fly a “loop the loop,” i.e., a complete, vertical circle. This maneuver was nearly impossible for the limited engine power and lift of early biplanes, yet performing a loop was the goal of many young pilots, like Arch Hoxsey and Ralph Johnstone.

Both had stated that some day they would loop-the-loop in an aeroplane; and it is the opinion of one well-known authority… that Johnstone was actually attempting this when he smashed a wing and fell to his death at Denver.

To the cautious Ely, the idea was ridiculous.  He told Beachey, “You can try it. I won’t.” Yet it was only a short later that Ely was killed while making a short dip in his plane, a maneuver he had performed hundreds of times.

This talk of dying, anyway, when your time comes sounds very well in the abstract, but it doesn’t go very far when you stop to think that you are twenty-five and healthy—and perhaps have a wife and baby. Just naturally you prefer a farm in Iowa or a cottage on Long Island to a place in that new department of the newspaper morgue—that list of now more than one hundred under the heading “Killed in Aviation,” which had its beginning when young Lieutenant Selfridge met death at Fort Myer, Virginia, on September 17, 1908.

The news of Ely’s death came shortly after the crash of 19-year-old Cromwell Dixon. Badly shaken by the news, Elser now realized his future lay not behind rudder control but a desk. It was the choice any pilot would make if he lived long enough.

Lt. Thomas Selfridge, the first man to die in an airplane crash.

The men already in the game may improve it by executive ability and scientific experiments; but most of them will degenerate as fliers. Frequency of flight does not necessarily create a feeling of confidence and safety; rather it brings fuller appreciation of its dangers. The men… ears no longer tingle when the crowd waves its hats and cheers are ready to [make way for] the uninitiated, whose nerve is ignorance.

Down the veteran’s spine, when he risks his life and craft in a devil-may-care swoop, the plaudits of the crowd no longer send a thrill.

The wild exhilaration of flight of which we read so much is apt to be tempered with the sober thought of a young woman in the stand, looking upward with troubled eyes as she breathes a prayer that a cranky lever or missing engine may not widow her. How many times have you read “His young wife was in the crowd and saw him fall”?

Elser also recognized that the flying business had changed. Pilots were no longer the celebrities they’d been just two years earlier.

Now that the newness has worn off, [a flier] is treated just like an ordinary human being, and crowds don’t always follow him right to the door of his room in the hotel. Chambermaids, seeking sentimental souvenirs, used to snitch the pajamas of Willard, of the Curtiss staff, when he was out West. It bothered him greatly at the time. Now he laments that, no matter where he goes, his pajamas are quite as safe as a case of beer at a temperance convention.

Even worse, the public had grown tired of the familiar stunts. They wanted to see bigger, more deadly tricks.

Crowds… are becoming more critical and exacting every day, even to the extent of [taunting] a man into the air to his death during a storm. J. J. Frisbie… was jeered at by a crowd until he ventured into the air during a treacherous wind and was killed.

Yet even with the risks, there was no shortage of applicants. As soon as Ely’s death hit the newspapers, his employer was besieged by applicants, most of whom had never been near an airplane. Both men and women saw flying as a quick and glamorous route to fame. One woman saw it as an personal challenge; when John B. Moisant, a famous pilot and air-race champion, was killed while landing his Bleriot monoplane, his sister, Mathilde Moisant, picked up his career. Becoming the second women in the U.S. to get a pilot license, she continued the fame of the Moisant name, racing competitively until her plane crashed on April 14, 1912, the same day the Titanic sank.

The smooth, uneventful air travel we enjoy today is the product of countless flying lessons taught the hardest way possible to early fliers.

At this writing there have been in this country and in Europe, since 1908, one hundred and two deaths due to aviation accidents. Sixty-four of these occurred during the first ten months of 1911—or at the rate of approximately one every five days

Elser’s article listed many of the pilots who’d already been killed.

What he didn’t know in 1911, however, was how many of other pilots would live far beyond their piloting days.

A Pilot Reflects, Then Grounds Himself: 1911 The Saturday Evening Post

Like most Americans born early in the century, he was born on a farm.

Like thousands of farm boys, he was fascinated with technology. He longed to leave the farm and pursue his interest in motorcycles, automobiles, and airplanes.

In the 1920s, he was a young pilot and entrepreneur, barnstorming and flying airmail to scrape up the money to buy his own airplane.

On May 20, 1927, he was the unknown, inexperienced flyer, a brash American challenger who proposed to fly the Atlantic — a feat that had already killed six experienced aviators.

In the 1930s, he was the brightest star in a celebrity culture. He was also the victim of this decades exceptional lawlessness.

When war arrived in the 1940s, he served in combat. And when peace returned, he continued his work in building up America’s air industry.

In 1953, he won the Pulitzer Price for his book, “The Spirit of St. Louis,” which was serialized in the Post as “33 Hours to Paris.” In this excerpt, he uses his characteristic, stream-of-consciousness style to describe the moment of his triumph.

“It begins as a scarcely perceptible glow… Paris is rising over the edge of the earth. It’s almost thirty-three hours from my take-off on Long Island. As minutes pass, myriad pin-points of light emerge, a patch of starlit earth under a starlit sky —the lamps of Paris — straight lines of lights, curving lines of lights, squares of lights. Avenues, parks and buildings take outline form; and there, far below, is a column of lights pointing upward —the Eiffel Tower. I circle once above it and turn northeastward toward Le Bourget.

“I’ll overshoot if I keep on — stick back — trim the stabilizer —close the throttle. I can hardly hear the engine idling. Is it too slow? It mustn’t stop now — the silence is like a vacuum —

“It’s better to come in fast, even if I roll into that black area. And it’s better to come in high — there may be poles or chimneys at the field’s edge — never depend on obstruction lights — especially when you don’t see any. It’s only a hundred yards to the hangars now. I’m too high —too fast.  Left rudder —side slip— careful — sod coming up to meet me — still too fast — tail too high —hold off —

“The wheels touch gently—off again —ease the stick forward —back on the ground —not a bad landing, but I can’t see anything ahead —jolting into blackness —slower now — The Spirit of St. Louis swings around and stops rolling, resting on the solidness of earth in the center of Le Bourget. I start to taxi back toward the floodlights and hangars—but the entire field ahead is covered with running figures!”

He was completely unprepared for the welcome awaiting him. He was also unprepared for the juggernaut of publicity. Post writer Donald E. Keyhoe interviewed him four years after his triumph and observed that newspapers and the celebrity addicts were still pursuing Lindbergh, besieging him with—

“One hundred letters a day—more than thirty-five thousand a year…  from all over the country, from foreign countries—sometimes the most out-of-the-way places in the world. Many are begging letters—requests couched in every style from an illiterate scrawl to phrases of educated men and women. They ask for anything from a million dollars to a five-dollar bill; though most of them do not get that low.  Then there are freak letters; though there has always been an almost complete absence of threats in the colonel’s mail.”

Reporters and gawkers had become particularly intrusive since Lindbergh’s son had been born.

“After the colonel’s son was born there was an insistent demand for photographs of the child. After some time the colonel took the desired pictures himself, had a number of prints made, and at an appointed hour met representatives of the conservative papers and press services, giving each one a set of the prints. The other journals were all but insane, for this was one of the great picture scoops of the year.

“A man called an editor with an offer. If the editor would just send a reporter out into the street with one of the precious photos in his pocket, the caller would pay him five thousand dollars.

“‘You mean you’ll hijack him?’ demanded the editor.

“Call it what you want. You’ll get your five thousand dollars.”

“‘Nothing doing,’ rapped the editor, and banged down the receiver of his phone.

“But these [excluded] papers did not stop at that. They trailed press-service messengers to trains, and worked clever schemes that gained for some of them the coveted pictures. But their disappointment at not being included with the other papers created enmity for Lindbergh that is still exceedingly active.”

Lindbergh had hoped to escape the rabid fans and photographers by moving far out in the New Jersey countryside. There, Keyhoe reports, for the first time since he had achieved international fame, Lindbergh could say, “We have been happier in the last few months than you can realize, perhaps. It has been so quiet and peaceful down here—even better than we dared hope.”

“In spite of the furor of publicity that has surrounded him, Lindbergh leads a normal and quiet life—so quiet that a visitor might forget for a while that there was a child in the house. When I first saw him he was in his play yard, an attractive, healthy child just then engaged in watching the antics of the Scotch-terrier puppy which frisked around the room.”

Keyhoe’s article is filled with observations that take on a sinister nature in the light of later events.

“‘Have you taken up your boy yet?’ I asked Lindbergh.

“‘No,’ he replied, ‘there wouldn’t be any point to it, except to say that he had flown. It would be safe enough, but he wouldn’t be able to appreciate it so soon.’

“‘I suppose you will be the one to teach him to fly,’ I remarked.

“‘Maybe he will want someone who’s more up-to-date at that time,’ said Lindbergh, laughing.

“But I thought there was a little light in his face that meant otherwise. And when Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr., reaches for the throttle to take off on his first solo flight, I am sure it will be his renowned father who will give him that last bit of advice and that last encouraging pat on the shoulder before he spreads his wings.”

On May 12, 1932, the remains of his son, killed in a kidnapping plot, would be found in a muddy field close to the house.

Lindbergh’s challenges weren’t over. As the Second World War grew closer to the American shores, Lindbergh spoke out often, and perhaps injudiciously, about the need to avoid war and the possibility of negotiating with the Nazis. He had been a pacifist all his life, but he was still a patriot. However his comments were gleefully used by reactionaries, Roosevelt-haters, Nazi-supporters, and the Nazis themselves.

He put aside his pacifism when Japan and Germany declared war on the United States, but many Americans never forgot, or forgave, his pre-war stance.

On May 21, 1942, he flew the first of over 50 combat missions in the Pacific theater. The Post, in 1954, published an excerpt from a book Lindbergh hoped to write about his combat experiences. In this passage, he is still using the stream-of-consciousness style of before, but he’s a long way from peacetime flight across empty skies.

“Guns charged and ring sights glowing, our four Corsairs float like hawks over enemy held land… We are cruising at 8000 feet, on a marine patrol, to cover the morning’s strike, and make sure that Japanese Zeros don’t interfere with American bombing crew. Our planes are from VMF 223, based on a rolled-coral strip in the Green Island—200 miles east of New Guinea —four degrees south of the equator.

“Sixteen hundred rounds I carry, of .50-caliber ammunition, and I can spew them out at the rate of 5000 rounds a minute. Suddenly the grace of flight in gone. I see with war-conditioned eyes — these are wicked-looking planes we fly, manned by ruthless pilots, built to kill, trained to kill, hoping to kill, as we approach the heavily defended fortress of Rabaul.

“Seven thousand feet . . . 5000 feet . . . 4000 feet . . . I wonder how many guns are shooting at us . . . 3000 feet . . . 2000 feet . . . buildings and palms rush up at me . . . 1600 feet… I squeeze the trigger. Six guns clatter in my plane as tracers streak from wings to roof, and walk the building’s length. I level out twenty feet above the treetops at 400 miles an hour.

“[Flying over Duke of York island] I climb to locate my position . . . dive to evade enemy machine guns . . . center a building m my sight . . . squeeze the trigger . . . no . . . a steeple! . . . a church! . . . hold fire . . . ease back on the stick . . . pick out another target… dive . . . fire . . . ammunition almost gone . . . only one machine gun answers . . . Corsairs are rendezvousing out at sea. I join them.”

Lindbergh couldn’t shirk his duty any more than he could discard his life-long pacifism. He still embodied the American ideals of courage, strength, and the willingness to face death in the line of duty. But he also displayed the American spirit that never places complete trust in war, and never delights in killing.

” ‘I almost shot up a church today,’ I told a young marine captain after we landed. ‘I just recognized what it was in time.’

“‘Oh, you mean that little church on the Duke of York?’ He laughed. ‘We strafe it on every mission. The Nips used to use it for their troops.’

“I suppose our enemies say the same about churches they destroy.

“An engine coughs and roars through night. Some crew chief is readying his fighter for tomorrow’s strike. I get up from the grenade box and begin walking toward my tent. Where, in life and space and matter, is the place for war? How can one justify a church in a gun sight? How can one merge concepts of religion and of slaughter? Is strife an essential part of the universal plan or will man, evolving, find a path which leads to world-wide peace?”

Read “Lindbergh, Four Years Later,” by Donald E. Keyhoe. 1927 [PDF]

Read “Thoughts of a Combat Pilot,” by Charles Lindburgh. 1954 [PDF]

The Troubles of an American Ideal The Saturday Evening Post

This photograph, by Gus Pasquarella, freezes the catastrophe that took place 295 feet above Lakehurst Air Station, amid the piney flatlands near the Jersey shore.

The time is 7:25 PM, daylight savings time, May 6, 1937. By 7:26, the Hindenburg was lying on the ground, a sagging framework of glowing steel. This single minute was crowded with tragedy, luck, and instinctive heroism.

The explosion was muffled under the mass of the dirigible so that several seconds passed before passenger realized what had happened. Several leapt to their deaths. Others waited while the dirigible slowly lost altitude, then jumped. Many of these survived the fall and began running to safety before the dirigible frame could land on top of them. Others were crushed. And others, too close to the descending inferno, were vaporized by the intense heat. Yet 62 of the 97 people aboard managed to survive the fall and the fire.

The photograph has become an icon of tragedy. Instantly recognizable, it speaks to us of the imminence and awful majesty of unimaginable disaster. It shocked Americans when it was released the following day. The horror it evoked effectively ended commercial travel by dirigible in the US and other nations. (It helped that international airplane service had begun. It was noisy and crowded, but faster and, Americans assumed, safer.)

Images of the flaming airship also had political implications. Hitler had been proud of this massive symbol of German might. The Hindenburg was a valuable tool for propaganda. In its previous ten trips to the United States, it had enabled the German Reich to fly the swastika in stately elegance in the skies over New York, and to defy the American government. Roosevelt had banned the sale of Helium to Germany out of fear it would be used for military purposes. But the German engineers had constructed an airship that used Hydrogen.

But hydrogen is extremely flammable. In a Post article, historian John Toland described how careful the German crew had been:

“The Germans were proud of their precautions.   All matches and lighters had been confiscated when passengers boarded at Frankfort.  As a further safety measure, the three catwalks, including the main one, which ran along the very bottom of the ship from bow to stern, were covered with rubber.  Those treading the narrow ‘sidewalks’ wore sneakers or felt boots to prevent static or sparks.  Crewmen who went topside between the billowing gas cells wore asbestos suits free of buttons or metal.
“And the four 1100-horsepower Diesel engines that drove the ship at a dead air speed of 84 miles an hour required no ignition.  They used a crude oil with a flash point so low that it wouldn’t burn even if a flaming match was tossed into the tank.”

But all the precautions and all the efficiency couldn’t protect the Hindenburg, or its passengers.

While the crash ended any hope for dirigible travel, the photograph produced an even greater effect; it introduced America to modern journalism. They recognized that this photograph conveyed the tragedy better than the best journalists’ efforts.  It was dreadful but it was fascinating, and it raised Americans’ expectations for greater detail and objectivity.

In addition to this photograph there was the recording of radio announcer Herbert Morrison, who was covering the event for radio station WLS in Chicago. His frantic, anguished reporting is often played in synch with motion picture footage shot at the time. However, he was recording the event onto a phonograph record, which the station intended to play the next day for an evening news program.

Toland describes Morrison’s preparations for the Hindenburg’s arrival.

“Inside a little building attached to the west side of the dirigible hanger, Herbert Morrison, an announcer from Station WLS, Chicago, checked over last minute adjustments with his engineer, Charlie Nehlsen.  They were to make a recording of the year’s first transatlantic-flight landing… and Nehlsen had just finished setting up his portable recorder.

“As the Hindenburg floated [into sight], Morrison, a small, lantern-jawed man of about 120 pounds, called out, ‘Charlie, I’m going out for the recording.’  He left the building, which also housed the Navy’s radio station, walked onto the field and began talking into his hand microphone.

“Morrison had just announced that this was Captain Pruss’ first command – though actually it was the tenth time Pruss had captained the Hindenburg on a transatlantic flight.  ‘Passengers are looking out the windows, waving.’  Morrison went on.  ‘The ship is standing still now.’

“There was now a strange quiet.  The Hindenburg’s engines were turning over slowly, silently.  ‘The vast motors,’ Morrison said, ‘are just holding it, just enough to keep it from —’

“He stopped short.  It was exactly 7:25 p.m.

The noise of the explosion was muffled to those directly beneath it, but it was strong enough to knock the whitewash from the ceiling of the room where the engineer was recording Morrison’s report. Nehlsen wiped off the record without stopping it and signaled Morrison to keep talking.

“To Morrison, it looked as though everyone on the ship and most of the ground crew would be killed instantly.  ‘It’s bursting into flames and falling on the mooring mast!’ he shouted desperately.  Tiny figures seemed to be catapulted from the dirigible, and fell.  ‘This is terrible!’  Morrison cried,  ‘This is one of the worst catastrophes in the world!’  His agonized voice trailed off into incoherence.  He turned desperately toward Nehlsen, who was watching from the window.
“The engineer gave the OK signal, ‘Keep going,’ he said in pantomime.
“’Oh, the humanity and all the passengers!’  Morrison broke into sobs.  ‘I told you —- It’s a mass of smoking wreckage!  Honest, I can hardly breathe!’  Again, he looked at Nehlsen; again Nehlsen nodded encouragement.”
“’I’m going to step inside where I can’t see it!’  Morrison said, ‘It’s terrible!  I—I—folks, I’m going to have to stop for a moment because I’ve lost my voice!  This is the worst thing I’ve ever witnessed!’

“Never had a disaster hit with the impact of the Hindenburg explosion.  Never before had photographers and newsreelmen been present to record a major tragedy, and within hours shocking pictures of the fire were wired all over the world.  By noon the next day, newsreel extras of the catastrophe were being shown in theaters along Broadway.  It was a rare showing which wasn’t punctuated by screams from the audience.

In a more ordered world, the public was protected from the direct impact of news. There were hours of intervening calm, as well as banks of editors who removed  the shock and hysteria from a reporter’s copy. The story would appear the next morning, set in cold type and couched in serious, thoughtful tones.

But Morrison’s report gave America a taste of what modern media — with its immediate and detailed reporting— would bring. It introduced the sound of emotional turmoil, the hysterical frustration of impotently watching a disaster. It was a feeling most Americans experienced on September 11, 2001.

As newspapers, then motion pictures, then television brought viewers closer to the instant and location of catastrophes, we sometimes feel the need, as did Morrison, to “step inside where I cannot see it.”

Read “Terror in the Twilight”[PDF].

“I’m Going To Step Inside Where I Cannot See It” The Saturday Evening Post

But you have flown so very far
That morning here is afternoon
Across the ocean where you are,
And night will follow far too soon.

And still I watch, as evening dies,
The cloudracks in the afterglow.
I, at nightfall, where they rise;
You, at dawning, where they go.

Jet-Age Reverie The Saturday Evening Post

I had been traveling to New York on business almost every week for the past few months. The week of January 11th, however, I was not scheduled to go. On Wednesday the 14th, right after a conference call about a project that was coming to a close, I felt it was important for me to finish the task in person. I discussed it with my manager and informed him I would take a mid-afternoon flight and be there for the meetings that evening.

My assistant quickly reviewed the flight options with me as I multi-tasked, replying to e-mails and gathering materials for the trip. On most trips to New York, I returned on an evening or night flight. When my assistant walked into my office and asked me my preference, I said to book me on the afternoon flight and I could always push it back, if needed.

As I did not have a change of clothes, I hurried home to pack. I pulled into my driveway, ran up the stairs from our garage, rushed to fold an extra suit and change of clothes, threw my dopp kit into my briefcase, and shot out the door. Strangely, I felt slightly uneasy about the trip, probably due to the concern of whether the meetings would go well or not.

The weather was clear and sunny, but cold. I arrived in New York and made my way into Manhattan. I usually took time in the morning to commit to 15 or 20 minutes of meditation and prayer, in keeping with my New Year’s resolution. That day I had skipped it and decided to make up for it while waiting for the time to leave the hotel for my meetings. I did not have much time, but enough to say some kind of prayer. As I looked at my briefcase, it occurred to me that it was also a good time to clean it out.

As I removed paperwork and emptied all the contents of my briefcase, I found two old prayer booklets. I had forgotten about them and glanced over each. One was called the Pieta, which contained a variety of devotional prayers, some of which were many centuries old. The other was a small booklet on the Divine Mercy Chaplet. On the cover was a picture of Christ from a painting with two rays of light shining out from his chest; one red, the other pale white. The booklet contained excerpts from a diary kept by a Polish nun in the 1930s. She claimed to have had visions of Jesus and even dialogue with him. There were several quotations from her diary, but one in particular struck me. It was regarding the 3 o’clock hour, the hour in which Christ died on the cross: “In this hour,” Christ told her, “I will refuse nothing to the soul that makes a request of Me in virtue of My Passion.” As it happened to be the 3 o’clock hour, I reflected on that and began to pray the chaplet. I prayed slowly and with devotion, in a way that was unusual for me.

By 11:45 the next day, after an attempt to connect with a fellow associate for lunch whom I could not reach, I decided to go ahead and make my way to the airport.

I headed to the corner of Fifth and hailed a cab. By the time I finished a call, I arrived at LaGuardia. I checked in at the computer kiosk and examined the available seats to see if I could move farther up, as I was reserved in seat 16A, a window seat on the left side of the plane just behind the wing.

I sat down in the waiting area and continued reading and periodically checking e-mails. Zone 1 was called to board, so I took my place in line and boarded. I had been hoping I might be called to take an open first class seat, but the flight was completely full.

The wheels lifted off runway four, and I heard the familiar sound of the landing gear retracting, followed by the slight feel of them tucking themselves into the wings. The takeoff felt smooth and perfect, and I reclined my seat just slightly to make a little more room to adjust to the confinement of a coach window seat.

Then, I heard a noise I had never experienced before on a plane. It was like a thud of something impacting the fuselage somewhere, but exactly what it was or where it hit, I could not discern. Within an instant, I was jolted out of my quiet, personal sojourn by a loud explosion. I heard it come from the left, but it also seemed to be everywhere at the same time. The plane shook violently from side to side and then settled back to normal.

3:27:32 New York TRACON: “Cactus 1549, turn left heading two seven zero.”

3:27:36 Captain Sullenberger: “Ah, this is … Cactus 1549 hit birds. We lost thrust in both engines. We’re turning back towards LaGuardia.”

3:27:42 New York TRACON: “OK yeah, you need to return to LaGuardia. Turn left, heading of, uh, two two zero.”

The pilot began to level off and make a left turn, gradually at first, then more pronounced. I continued looking at the engine, hoping it would not set the wing on fire or explode. I could hear passengers asking each other what was going on, not frantically, but with intensity and raised voices. I looked at the man to my right and indicated that we had lost the left engine. He was trying to look at it from his vantage point as well. I turned back and just kept staring at it, knowing any second the Captain would tell us what had happened, that we had lost the left engine and were making our way back to LaGuardia.

3:28:05 New York TRACON: “Cactus 1549, if we can get it to you, do you want to try to land runway one three?”

3:28:11 Captain Sullenberger: “We’re unable. We may end up in the Hudson.”

As we continued to bank to the left, then level off, I heard the second sound that I had never heard on a plane before: silence. There was no sound, just the faint hint of the wind passing by outside and a very slight puffing noise, ever so soft, still coming from the left engine.

At that moment, I felt a surge of something in my blood, perhaps adrenaline, perhaps fear, but nothing that made me feel good. I looked again out my window and then at the man to my right. We were just stunned, sitting there in an eerily quiet atmosphere that we knew conveyed some kind of doom.

3:28:55 New York TRACON: “OK yeah, off to your right side is Teterboro airport.”

3:29:02 “Do you want to try and go to Teterboro?”

3:29:03 Captain Sullenberger: “Yes.”

3:29:21 New York TRACON: “Cactus 1549, turn right two eight zero. You can land runway one at Teterboro.”

3:29:25 Captain Sullenberger: “We can’t do it.”

3:29:26 New York TRACON: “OK, which runway would you like at Teterboro?”

3:29:28 Captain Sullenberger: “We’re gonna be in the Hudson.”

3:29:33 New York TRACON: “I’m sorry, say again, Cactus.”

I knew we could not be far from LaGuardia, but we were descending toward the city skyline, and I still could not make out anything that resembled an airport. Just then the plane made what I recall to be a simultaneously descending right turn, and we were squarely over the Hudson River. I heard the distinctive sound of the flaps being extended a notch. The captain had still not said anything to us, and it seemed like an eternity had passed, even though it was only a few minutes, perhaps no more than three.

As the river approached, the voice we were all anticipating with every fiber of our beings, the one we would cling to for every answer to our frantic minds, finally came over the intercom. Commanding but calm, intense but in control, it uttered only three words: “Brace for impact.”

As the reality of those three words and our situation began to fully sink in, I knew then we were not headed for any airport. I could see the water approaching, and the Captain had said, “impact” and not “landing.” I looked at the man to my right, and I knew where we were going. I shook my head and said, “We’re going in the water.” He glanced out the window and then stared straight ahead. I saw the same look in his eyes I knew had been in mine. The full range of emotions, captured in an instant, like a mirror into the soul, the soul of a man facing death.

I glanced back at the men in my row, made eye contact, and thought I should say something, but what? We just looked at each other, with shocking stares, and then went into our own worlds, for whatever time we had left.

At those moments, the atmosphere on board the plane, the serene view of Manhattan, and the deep blue of the clear sky made it all seem peaceful in a strange way. I thought about my family, my wife and four children, and my eyes started to water. I thought about how hard it would be for them, and I felt so sad about leaving them, halfway through my life. I just shook my head and closed my eyes.

While I cannot say I witnessed my life flash before my eyes, I suppose I did experience a hybrid version of that. I thought about my life holistically for a few seconds, as a boy, an adolescent, and as a man. I knew I had tried to do my best and had made mistakes. Having been to confession the weekend before and having just received the Eucharist, I felt I could meet God as I was, but desperately wanted more time.

As we continued to descend, I thought I should try to find my BlackBerry and call home. I had forgotten it was in my pocket, thinking I had stowed it in my briefcase. There wasn’t time, I thought.

Then a small epiphany occurred in my mind. I thought about the Chaplet of Mercy I had prayed the day before, and I recalled the words of Jesus to Sister Faustina. Nothing would be refused if prayed in the 3 o’clock hour. I could see the image of Jesus, smiling, on the front of the cover, and I wanted to retrieve that booklet too, but I knew we had just seconds left until we hit the water. I just didn’t have time, so I just thought about the image.

In my mind, and with all the devotion and intensity I could muster, I said, “God, please be merciful to us, for the sake of your Son. Please spare us. I trust in you. Jesus, I trust in you. Mother of God, help us.” I then said the Lord’s Prayer and a Hail Mary, or maybe two. I looked out the window again, and we were below the skyline rooftops, the river approaching fast.

Then, I knew I needed to accept the outcome, whatever it may be. I needed to reconcile to the fact that I was not in control, and I had to make a decision. I did not want to go into that river in anger or denial, and my conscience was being moved to make a decision. Like the Captain who had to decide in a few seconds where to glide a 73-ton jetliner to minimize loss of life, I had to make a decision on where to point my soul. I closed my eyes, trying to envision the image of Jesus I had seen the day before on the Mercy booklet, and said again, “Please be merciful to us. … But it’s OK, it’s OK.”

“Ten seconds!” a man shouted. I bowed my head, clutching the left armrest and placing my right hand over my chest. With my right hand I felt the smooth side of the prayer booklet in my pocket, and then I closed my eyes.

The sleek plane finally met the water, which felt like concrete, with landing gear up and no wheels to absorb the impact, and it felt tremendous. My head smashed into something twice, but I kept my eyes shut. The jolt of the crash landing and the sound of the explosion of water seemed surreal. The plane shook back and forth, and at any second I thought death would come. Would it be from splitting apart and water hitting us at over a 120 miles per hour? Would we cartwheel across the river and all be thrown out of the plane, dying instantly or drowning within seconds? My senses strained to feel it coming, as if I could somehow prepare for it and defend myself.

Then, midst the sound of a rushing waterfall, I felt gravity pulling us hard to the right as the back of the plane moved counterclockwise. The centrifugal force was similar to some twisting and turning amusement ride, though it lacked the surety of a positive ending. As we slid, I felt this was it at last. These were finally the culminating moments. We were about to roll over and break up.

Suddenly, the turning stopped, and the splashing sound of water slowly subsided. The plane rocked a little, and I looked up, and I was simply astonished at what I saw. I could tell we were floating, with the nose pointing out of the water slightly, and the fuselage was fully intact!

Once the shock of still being alive and seeing the plane floating, seemingly in one piece, wore off, I said to the man on my right, “We can do this! We can get through this!”

As I slid down the shoot into the raft, I could feel the cold penetrate me, and my right hand in particular was trembling. The raft was crowded, and I worried that some passengers might panic, and we would tip over.

I glanced back at the open door, and then it struck me. As I looked down into the water, two tether cords connected the raft to the plane. I sort of froze as I looked at them. Not having any idea how long the rescue would take for the passengers on the wing and seeing the plane continue to sink, the wave of fear came over me once again. If we could not be rescued in time, the plane would sink, dragging the lifeboat with it, and we would all be in the river, fighting for our lives in the frigid waters.

I shouted to the few men who stood on the deck of the bow, as they began throwing life preservers to us, some making the raft, others going into the water. “We need a knife! We need a knife! Can you find a knife or something to cut?”

Finally, one of them realized our predicament, and there was a discussion among them. One approached the rail of the bow and looked at me, holding a pocketknife in his hand. I knelt down in the raft and looked right at him. He slowly made the pitch, and I prayed with all my might to not miss the catch. The knife met my hands, and I clutched it. Quite cold and numb, I could not make my fingers work to open the knife. I gave it to another passenger, and he opened it and handed it back. I cut the tether, and we were free of the plane.

I looked up, and a man on the deck of the ferryboat several feet above me must have read my mind. He lowered the loop end of a very thick rope. I would hold one end, and he would hold the other, stabilizing the raft and keeping it as close as possible to the ferryboat.

The women exited one by one, and we made a makeshift stairway out of the seat cushions so the step onto the edge of the raft was less precarious. We worried that someone might fall, just as they left the raft and leapt forward to the ladder.

Finally a tall man, the last one on the raft except myself, looked at me and gestured to go ahead. I nodded and just said, “I’m fine, wanna keep the raft tight.” I was worried if I let go of the rope, we might push back from the ferryboat. He went up the ladder and disappeared.
I slid the looped rope off my right arm and grabbed onto the rails quickly. Not wanting to be too hasty and risk slipping, I made sure my footing was secure on each rung. Step by step I climbed, shivering to the bone.

As my eyesight cleared the top rung, I looked up and saw two men, like sentinels of mercy, each with an arm outstretched toward me. I looked down at my feet to see if they were making their way squarely on the steps. As I reached the top of the ladder and moved forward onto the deck, the men half hugged me, patting me on the back as I walked by them. My eyes welled up for the first time, and I fought off the tears. They said, “Great job! You’re OK, you made it, you made it, you’ve all made it!”

Frederick Berretta works in the asset management and financial services industry and holds a private pilot’s license. He is a survivor of the crash landing of Flight 1549 in the Hudson River on January 15, 2009. His book, Miracle on the Hudson, about the crash and how it affected his life and faith can be purchased through the BookSurge program on Amazon.com.

Miracle on the Hudson The Saturday Evening Post