Word: bahrein
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...Lonely Bahrein Island, off the east coast of Saudi Arabia in the Persian Gulf, is a hot, humid desert, inhabited mostly by Arabian pearl divers and British and American oil drillers. Its airport on nearby Muharrak Island is a stopover for Air France planes on the Saigon-Paris run, and French pilots don't particularly like it: the weather in the Gulf is treacherous, and within minutes fine flying weather can become a horror of sandstorms, torrential rains or typhoons...
...night last week, the weather around Bahrein was in one of its ugliest moods. A sandstorm scoured the airdrome and blotted visibility down to three-quarters of a mile as an Air France DC-4, carrying 43 passengers and a crew of eight on the regular Saigon-Paris run, called the field for landing instructions. At 1:15 a.m. the man in the tower signaled his O.K., waited for his first glimpse of the DC-4's landing lights. Forty minutes later, still waiting, he called for the rescue teams. Toward dawn, searchers in boats and aircraft found...
Within hours of the first crash, a French government commission was on the way to Bahrein to investigate. It was headed by Maurice Bellonte, of the famed Coste-Bellonte team which flew nonstop from Paris to New York in 1930. There were rumors that in each crash the altimeter was faulty, but an early report from Airman Bellonte said that in the second plane at least, the instruments were "in good working order...
While the investigation continued, Air France discontinued all night landings at Bahrein...
Noel Sherry, assistant circulation manager of TIME-LIFE International, has just returned from a 16,000-mile business trip to Hawaii, Siam, Indo-China, Indonesia, the Bahrein Islands, Iran, Turkey, Israel, and way places around the world. His account of his six-month journey seems to offer an interesting supplement to the daily reports of trained journalists in these areas. It contains much evidence that U.S. influence is truly global and touches the lives of the people everywhere...