Word: tigner
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Under the high overcast the air was sharp and clear; from the control tower at Washington National Airport, swarthy, earnest 21-year-old Glen T. Tigner could see for miles out over the Virginia countryside. Traffic was light. A war surplus P-38, owned by the Bolivian government, took off for a practice flight at 11:37. It snarled off out of sight. Then there was a lull before Eastern Air Lines flight 537, a four-engine DC-4 inbound from New York, asked for landing instructions...
...Tigner directed Eastern's pilot to enter a left-hand traffic pattern, go counterclockwise around the airport and land on runway No. 3 into the northeast wind. The transport snored steadily in on the prescribed course. Then the Bolivian pilot in the P-38 called in on another frequency and also asked the tower for landing instructions...
...Tigner began calling: "Bolivia 927 . . . Bolivia . . . Bolivia . . . turn left . . . turn left . . . Traffic, Eastern DC-4 on final approach and below!" The P-38 barreled on toward destruction. Not until the last seconds did Tigner switch back to the DC-4's channel (its pilot could not hear his talk to the fighter, had no means of knowing a plane was bearing down on him from above) and order: "Turn left! P-38 is traffic!" The big plane began to turn...