BELOW THE FOG by Chuck Nunes

A thick fog is creeping in over the land, and I’m reminded of a time many years ago. I was just twenty years old, in the Air Force, and assigned to flight testing at Edwards Air Force base in the California desert.

We were flight testing a production model of the B-57 Canberra, a light bomber.  Other new and experimental aircraft were also being tested there by civilian test pilots.  One of these aircraft test pilots would later become a nationally known astronaut.

A small transport plane was provided to fly the pilots and engineers from Edwards AFB down to the Los Angeles airport (LAX) so they could spend the weekend with their wives or girlfriends. I took advantage of that opportunity to catch a ride with them so I could meet my girlfriend, Betty Blair. We had tickets that weekend for a big dance at the Palladium in Hollywood.

The flight from the desert to LAX lasted less than an hour, but the coastal weather was very different. The airport happened to be under a thick layer of dense fog. I thought we would make an instrument landing, guided in by radar.  Our pilot informed us that for some unknown reason the plane was not insured for an Instrument (GCA) landing, and we would have to go to the Burbank airport where the weather was clear enough for a visual landing.

Of course, that was totally unacceptable to everyone. We all had someone waiting for us down below. As an uninvited passenger, I didn’t say anything. I knew I was just a little airman, and no one would even hear me. But there was a loud protest from everyone on the flight, especially the test pilots. They were telling our pilot to fly down into the soup. “Maybe it is not as thick further down into it.” 

I accepted the situation and hoped my girlfriend, who had promised to pick me up, would understand. But not the test pilots, they are by definition extreme risk takers, or they wouldn’t be taking untested aircraft up and putting it through all kinds of stress maneuvers, or flying a little delta winged craft up to break the all-time altitude record.

We were all standing in the cockpit, behind the pilot, watching the flight instruments and pleading with him to get us down. “Come on, put this baby down,” said one. “My wife will be mad if she is waiting there and then must drive to Burbank.”

Everyone wanted to try. “Just get us down.” 

“We can’t go to Burbank.”

“Drop in there, put this old turkey on the ground. At least, let’s just see how low the fog is.”

Our pilot didn’t say anything, but we circled again and must have entered the same landing path without communicating with the tower. Down into the soup we went. When we broke out below the fog, we could see the runway markings. But we were only about 100 feet above the ground. We were not positioned right and had to pull up.

“Let’s give it one more try,” someone said. “But try to keep a better heading.”

I was standing right behind the pilot. I could see he was sweating because he was being asked to go against his better judgement and the Air Safety Laws. But we circled one more time and again dropped down below the fog, This time, we were properly lined up. All of a sudden a bright yellow little plane was taking off and coming directly at us. Very fast. Our pilot’s reactions were swift. He rolled the plane hard to the right. We just barely avoided a deadly head-on collision.

The pilot skillfully recovered the proper landing position, and we made a perfect landing. Some cheered loudly and praised the pilot for his great composure and reactions. I just sat down on the floor, happy to be alive.

We will never know how many, if any, would have survived the crash, but most of us probably would have been either killed or maimed in the collision. Our loved ones would have heard the explosion, and they would have known we would not be meeting them as planned.

This is a true story that has not, to my knowledge, ever been told. I have kept it to myself all these years, because I did not want to take a chance someone would get in trouble for violating the Air Safety Laws.  But now, 70 years later, most of us on that flight are very old or have passed on.