Number One Engine

CLXXIX

He sensed it before he felt it. And he felt it before he heard it. 

Ed Musick did a quick scan of his engine temperature gauges. As he had done so many times already on this flight, he swore violently.

They were several hours out of Kingman* and the nearest mechanic was in Honolulu.  He said something about someone’s mother.

With the wind blowing through the open windows to clear the gas fumes and the roaring of all four big Pratt & Whitney engines only Frank Briggs in the right chair could hear him.

“What is it?” Briggs half-hollered. 

Rather than shout over the racket, Ed tapped the Number One Engine temperature gauge, half-hoping that the needle would drop back down to a safer, cooler temperature. It didn’t. 

“Shit,” Briggs said. 

“Is any goddamn thing going to go right on this flight?” Ed complained. “We can’t even turn around and go back to that [obscenity obscenity] rock. You’d think they might have thought of that when they planned this little %&#@ joyride.”

“What are you going to do?” Briggs asked.

“I’m going to shut it down.”

“That’s going to slow us down. And with all the extra fuel weight, it’s going to make handing that much harder.” 

“It can’t be helped. There’s no point in waiting for it to redline. Look, it’s climbing even as we speak,” Ed told him. “Tell the crew.”

“Shit,” Briggs muttered. “Aye, aye, sir.” He slid out of his seat and spoke to each man individually. It was the only way he could make sure they heard him. “Number One’s running rough. The Skipper’s going to shut her off.” 

He returned to his seat in case Musick needed assistance. “Number One prop to feather. Engine off,” Musick announced. 

“Engine off,” Briggs echoed. 

Immediately they felt the loss of power as if the ship had grown an anvil on its tail. A few minutes went by. Ed was listening intently. The remaining three engines weren’t straining, but if they lost another they’d be in serious trouble.

Musick made a decision. “I’m going to lighten the ship. We’re overloaded with fuel anyway. Vic,” he told the flight engineer, “open the fuel dump valves on One.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” The odor of aviation fuel suddenly became overwhelming. 

Musick knew something was wrong. Before he could say anything, Harry Canady bellowed, “Oh, Jesus Christ!”

“What!” 

“My charts are getting soaked with gasoline! The damn stuff’s flowing back into the cabin!” 

“Vic, shut those damned valves! Everyone --- open all cabin vents and windows! And Ray [Runnells, the radio officer], kill the electrical system! No radio, no lights, no instruments, nothing. One errant spark and we’re f----d!”  

A few minutes later, calm having been restored in the silent darkness of the cold, noisy and windy cabin,  Frank Briggs couldn’t help but josh his commander. “You had to ask, didn’t you?”

“What? What did I ask?” Ed quirked an eyebrow.

“You asked if any goddamn thing was going to go right on this flight. I think you got your answer.”

For once, Ed played along. “Don’t say that. It’s a long way to Auckland. Something might go right yet.”  

*The exact location of the events described in this post is unclear to me. Several sources say that Number One engine overheated “in the mid-Pacific” while one specifies that the incident occurred on the Alameda-to-Honolulu leg. I have placed the incident south of Kingman Reef for dramatic effect. I have also invented the dialogue, which I assume reasonably echoes what was said at the time. For Number One Engine did overheat, it was shut down, and the fuel dump did cause aviation fuel to spray into the cabin. The ship flew through the darkness for hours without any electrical systems turned on.