Word: pilote
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Queen's captain-a boyish-looking, 33-year-old ex-U.S. Navy pilot named Charles Martin-decided what to do. While he still had gasoline for almost three hours' flight, he doubled back toward the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Bibb, which" was on station as a weather ship about 900 miles northeast of Newfoundland. He found her, with fuel to spare. But as the plane settled lower, the tense and silent passengers saw a fearsome sight. The gale-driven waves were rolling 35 feet high and 100 feet from crest to foaming crest...
...became evident that rescue operations, no matter how desperate, had to begin-the plane had begun to leak and many passengers were approaching the point of hysteria. Captain Cronk signaled a suggestion that the chief pilot call for volunteers. Three of the seamen got calmly into a rubber raft, were let down toward the cutter on a line and were safely picked up by coast guardsmen...
...perpetrator was the plane's veteran chief pilot, Captain Charles R. Sisto, of Los Angeles. Captain Sisto was riding as a check pilot while another pilot, Captain John Beck, familiarized himself with the route. As the plane snored west at 8,000 feet, Sisto reached down from a jump seat behind Beck and fastened the gust lock-a device used to lock the rudder, elevator and ailerons while the plane is on the ground...
...plane began a steady climb. Puzzled, Pilot Beck adjusted trim tabs on the plane's control surfaces to bring the nose down. Then, still undetected, Sisto released the gust lock. The plane immediately went into an outside loop. Both Sisto and Beck, neither of whom had fastened his safety belt, were thrown from their seats. Two things saved the plane. Sisto struck buttons which feathered the prp-pellors of three engines. Copilot Melvin Logan, who was securely belted in, was able to roll the ship right side up, a bare 300 to 400 feet from the ground...
...level, as she was intended to do. She wobbled and rolled, then steadied, still gliding, and popped into a cloud at 10,000 ft. That was the last seen of Vicky except for a mass of information radioed to the ground by instruments crowding her insides. Apparently her gyro-pilot went haywire, and could not hold her in level flight...