Author: Bob O’Connor, with Leo Picone and Jerry Preston
On a Monday in mid- September 1964, after arriving in Iceland late the day before for a NATO exercise, Crew Eight was tasked with a search and rescue mission to find one of three small aircraft being ferried to Europe and now overdue. That flight turned out to be one of the most memorable, yet confusing experiences of our time in the squadron.
It was hurricane season in the North Atlantic, so we were surprised to learn that after Canadian Authorities had temporarily denied the trio clearance for the leg from Newfoundland to Iceland because Gladys, then a Category One hurricane, was moving erratically in the Gulf of Maine,i they’d defiantly hopped over to the French island of St. Pierre, just fifteen miles off the coast, and departed there early on Sunday, the twentieth.
Press coverage of hurricanes usually ceased after they cleared the U.S. east coast, on the expectation that they’d quietly exhaust themselves in the cold Atlantic waters below Iceland, far from civilization. But that fall, those waters were packed with remnants of Cleo, Dora, Ethel, and Florence.i Weakened, yet alive, their winds were merging, creating another low pressure system that only those of us unlucky enough to later find ourselves deep inside of it, ever knew existed.
Qualifications for being a ferry pilot at the time aren’t clear, but in that era, well before GPS or even Loran in small aircraft, we might expect them to have a commercial license, instrument rating, several thousand pilot hours, training in the aircraft they were flying, and be expert in open ocean/dead reckoning navigation and sea survival.i You might think of them as specialty service providers, deeply skilled in North Atlantic air travel - but you’d be wrong.
Their plan, apparently, was to head northeast (045 degrees magnetic) for ten-plus hours, direct to Iceland, contacting overflying airliners on VHF Guard to pass along estimated position reports. Max range for their Mooney M20Es was 600 nautical miles,i but this leg was over 1,500 nm, so they had to pack in extra fuel – probably an aux tank in place of the second row seats, and another in the baggage area. That would boost endurance from 4 to over 13 hours,ii but the safety margin was tight, and favorable winds critical for success.
Concerns about the trio surfaced at 0930 when one of the Mooneys contacted an overflying airliner, Speedbird 065 (a BOAC 707) to pass along its situation report, which was: “One hour east of Keflavik, heading 125 ̊, endurance 3+30 minutes.”i,ii East of KEF? Didn’t look right, so, on his own initiative, Speedbird’s Pilot/Nav compared the Mooney’s estimate to his own position, created a circle of probability for where the aircraft might really be - based on the range of VHF communications - and concluded that the Mooney was seriously off track.iii When he told that to the pilot, the latter admitted he was lost and had been thinking about maybe having to ditch. Speedbird relayed all that to Gander, who passed it to KEF, where extra resources were on hand to assist: VP-7 was already there on a split deployment with six P2V-5s; VP-8 was up from JAX for the NATO exercise with several new P-3As, and VP-21 was arriving that day with three P2V-7s.
COMFAIRKEF immediately dispatched a VP-8 P-3 to find the errant Mooney. A crew from VP-7 was already airborne and in the area, so they joined the search. Both finally made radio contact and located the aircraft by getting the pilot to tune in the KEF VOR, head inbound, and report what radial he was on. When they finally laid eyes on him, he was 60 miles south of Iceland. Whoa! The supposed ’expert’ was a full degree of latitude below his destination, on an easterly course that would shortly take him past it and out into the empty North Atlantic. He now reported one hour and thirty minutes of fuel remaining, so they got him turned around, and – just in case - asked KEF to send out its helo. A short while later, with the station helo shadowing him, but still thirty-six miles from land, the Mooney’s engine quit - out of fuel. The pilot ditched successfully, got clear of the aircraft, VP-7 dropped him a raft and survival gear, and twenty minutes later he was safely aboard the helo, heading for sickbay at KEF.i
Chalk up one aircraft lost, plus a life-saving rescue of its pilot, coordinated masterfully and carried out by upwards of thirty individuals, including Speedbird 065’s navigator, two VP crews, and a helo crew, who collectively and stubbornly refused to leave this character to a cold and untimely end. Failing nav and headwork grades to the pseudo ‘ferry’ pilot; kudos to everyone else!
As Sunday wore on, and without fanfare, another Mooney landed safely at Reykjavik.i Hmm!
Our crew flew to Iceland from Argentia that same day, Sunday, the 20,th encountering no significant weather issues enroute. We heard nothing on the radio about the Mooneys, and even after landing, weren’t told anything about #2’s rescue, just that one member of the trio was still missing, so “rest up and get ready to launch in the morning to find him.” (“To Be Continued. . .“)
[1] “HF Intercepts,” article, published 24 November 2022: https://banterops-aerohflog.blogspot.com/2011/11/20th-september-1964.html, & NY Times article, published 21 September 1964: https://www.nytimes.com/1964/09/21/archives/plane-missing-off-iceland-another-ditches-3d-is-safe.html
[2] https://hurricane.com/hurricane-season/hurricane-season-1964.php
[3] https://rotatepilot.com/guides/ferry-flight-guide#requirements
[4] https://www.globalair.com/aircraft-specifications/mooney/mooney-m20e-specifications/58
[5] https://www.airmodsflightcenter.com/ferry-tank-installations
[6] https://banterops-aerohflog.blogspot.com/2011/11/20th-september-1964.html
[7] By the mid-‘60s, transatlantic BOAC flights all required navigation duties to be carried out by a pilot who also held a Flight
Navigator license. Loran was the primary nav aid, augmented with celestial observations https://www.pprune.org/aviation- history-nostalgia/551133-boac-b707-ops-1960s.html
[8] See footnote #1
[9] NY Times Article, plus story in The White Falcon Newspaper, USNS Keflavik, 9 Oct ’64
[10] Ibid