Word: crafted
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...killed, only because no one was in the lavatories at the rear of the plane or near the gaping hole. Pilot George Gill skillfully edged the crippled craft to a safe landing at Logan, even though he lacked full power in the right engine, apparently because a buckle securing control cables along the fuselage had broken loose...
...searchlights swept menacingly over the heavily guarded border between East and West Germany, a raggedy patchwork balloon, traveling at a leisurely 10 to 15 knots, floated across the wall of fortifications, minefields, self-firing explosives and guard towers. Minutes later, the bizarre craft crash-landed on West German soil. East Germans were aboard: Mechanic Hans Peter Strelczyk, Bricklayer Gunter Wetzel, their wives and four children. Once again, human ingenuity and the will to freedom had prevailed over Communist East Germany's determination to immure its citizens behind the most formidable frontier in history...
...Wetzels made their way under cover of darkness to a meadow 25 miles from the border. That first escape attempt aborted: the winds were wrong, the gas ran out, and they landed undetected, a few hundred yards short of the frontier. Last weekend they tried again. This time the craft lifted off with ease, picking up a breeze that wafted them toward the border. The balloon, which soared as high as 8,000 ft., began to lose altitude as it neared the border. A searchlight picked out the balloon for a terrifying moment as it crossed the border at about...
...June an East Berlin engineer, while piloting a glider, suddenly changed course and rode thermal currents across to the West. In August a Dresden family stole a plane; though none of them had ever flown before, they managed to steer the craft across the border to a safe crash landing. Earlier this month, a driver assigned to U.S. Ambassador to East Germany David Bolen hid his family in the trunk of the envoy's official car, drove uninspected through "Checkpoint Charlie" and got political asylum in West Berlin...
...compressing seven dull years into a coherent, suspenseful story, possibly because he, and Actor Savage, cannot find a way to turn Hettinger into a sympathetic person, or even an articulate one. The Onion Field is a serious and most uncompromising movie. It lacks, however, the sort of disciplined craft that might have made it a powerful and affecting...