SAMUEL G. TOOMA, AUTHOR
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NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCES, CONT'D11/17/2020 CHAPTER 3, CONTINUED THE FLYING BOMB (1970). During my arctic research days, we often operated from Thule Air Base located in Thule, Greenland. It provided us a close proximity to the sea ice cap in the Arctic Ocean. This was necessary because our research flights usually lasted between 12 and 15 hours. Believe me, these were long, tiring days. To get to Thule, we usually left from Patuxent River Naval Air Station located in Patuxent River, Maryland. This also was a long flight with nothing for the scientific civilians to do. As I normally did during these transits to Greenland, I found a “comfortable” seat and read a book. About 2 hours from landing, I noticed a strange, sweet-smelling odor. Then I heard the following announcement from the cockpit, “The smoking lamp is out and secure all unnecessary electronic equipment.” Although this was an unusual announcement to hear, what really caught my attention was that crew members were scurrying around, lifting up floor boards, and descending into the bowels of the aircraft. They seemed greatly concerned. There was not much I could do at this time, and I did not want to get in their way. So, I continued to read my book. Figure 3. Location of Thule Airbase. SEE FIGURE 3 BELOW About 2 hours later, we landed in Thule. As I sat in my seat awaiting the announcement that we could deplane, I saw 2 members of the crew get off the plane, get on their knees, and kiss the ground. I thought this highly unusual, and I began wondering what had just happened? I also noticed a team of aircraft mechanics waiting to board the plane. In Thule, we always stayed in the Bachelor Officer’s Quarters (BOQ). The rooms were spartan to say the least. They offered a single bed (read that a cot with a mattress), a desk with a chair, and an easy chair. There was no phone in the room. The only phone in this one-story BOQ building was located in the central hallway to which our individual rooms entered. This phone just so happened to be outside my room door. I heard the plane captain call the commanding officer of his squadron in Patuxent River. The words that really caught my attention were, “I can’t understand why we didn’t explode into a million pieces.” It turned out that a hydraulic line had ruptured, and the hydraulic fluid had somehow gotten into the cabin’s air circulation system (hence, the sweet small I had detected). The fluid had been atomized into a highly volatile gas that was circulating throughout the plane’s cabin. And as the captain had said, the smallest spark could have ignited the gas blowing the plane to bits. If this had occurred where we were, somewhere over the North Atlantic Ocean, it is not likely that any of the wreckage or bodies would have been recovered. In the shark story above, I actually thought that I was about to die. During the time that we were a flying bomb, the thought of imminent death did not occur to me. But in reality, I now realize how close to death I was during that flight to Thule. However, my next story, “Falling Out of the Sky” has them both beat as far as personal terror is concerned. FALLING OUT OF THE SKY (1971). This event also occurred during my arctic research days. On this particular mission, we were operating out of Eielson Air Force Base in Fairbanks, Alaska. Again, the reason for using these far north staging areas was to maximize our “on station” time of the aircraft. Still, Eielson AFB was about 2 hours of flying time from the ice pack, and we had to fly over the rugged, but beautiful Brooks Range, the northernmost extension of the Rocky Mountains. As you fly over this mountain range, you look down and you can say with almost certainty that no human being has ever set foot on what you are looking at. In 1972, Hale Boggs, the House of Representative majority leader from Louisiana was flying with Alaskan congressman Nick Begich in a twin-engine aircraft from Anchorage to Juneau. The plane went down somewhere in the Brooks Range. To my knowledge, the wreckage of the airplane was never found. This is how foreboding this part of the world is. You will see below why I am including this information in my narrative. On this particular mission, we were flying somewhere over the Arctic Ocean collecting sea ice property data (See our aircraft in Figure 4). We were flying at an altitude of about 1,000 feet above the ice. This was the altitude that usually optimized the performance of our sensors. About midway through our mission, I heard a loud bang, and the aircraft shook rather violently. In panic, looked out the window, and I saw our outboard starboard engine’s propeller slowly coming to a halt. We were told that we had lost this engine but not to worry because the aircraft flew very well on three engines. In fact, we often “feathered” an engine (shut it down) to conserve fuel. Not too long afterwards, I heard another sound like a gunshot. I looked out the port-side window, and I saw black smoke billowing out a hole from the cowling of a port-side engine. Its propeller was also coming to a stop. Things were now getting serious. Although our aircraft could still fly on two engines, we knew it would not fly on one. We had to abort our scientific mission and fly back to Eielson. Once we had secured our scientific equipment, I sat down for the ride back. We soon learned that on two engines we were not able to attain an altitude sufficient to climb over the Brooks Range which has mountain elevations approaching 9,000 feet. Options were being considered to lighten the aircraft. One option was for us to be prepared to jettison our expensive scientific equipment and all our personal belongings. The second option was to dump fuel. The crew had called Eielson and were told that the weather was clear. Several times in the past, we had to fly to our alternate base of Anchorage, Alaska because the weather had gone below minimum requirements for us to land at Eielson. Because of the good weather report, the decision was made to dump fuel and leave enough to get to Anchorage if we absolutely needed to. This approach still depended on whether we could lighten the aircraft enough so that it could attain an altitude high enough to fly over the mountains in front of us. We began to jettison fuel. Figure 4. The Arctic Fox Oceanographic Research Aircraft SEE FIGURE 4 BELOW I was scared then, but my fear paled to what it would become. When it came time to secure the valves allowing the fuel to be dumped, something terrible happened. The valves would not close, and our precious fuel continued to leave the aircraft. Crew members were running to and fro like ants looking out the windows at the wingtips as a black, smoke-like column of fuel escaped from them. This was probably the most scared I have ever been in my life. Anchorage, our alternate, was out. The closest airfield to us was Eielson Air Force Base. We had no choice but to head straight there. At this point, we still did not know if we could achieve the necessary altitude. The turboprop engines on these aircraft fly better at the lower altitudes where the air is denser. With increasing altitudes, the air is thinner, and the engines have to work harder to perform. My thoughts were that we were gaining altitude, but was it enough? When the fuel leaving the aircraft finally stopped, how much did we have left? And was it enough to get us to Eielson? Was I going to die as Hale Boggs had? If we did go down in the Brooks Range, would they find my body? Would we lose another engine leaving us only with one? I thought of never seeing my wife, Sylvia, again. Yes, I was scared; very scared. Fortunately, we did reach an altitude of near 10,000 feet. But as we flew over the mountain range, their tops looked perilously close to us. In fact, we were actually flying between some of the peaks. I know the plane’s captain was trying to stay as low as possible to conserve whatever fuel we had left. When we left the mountains, we began descending as we got closer to Eielson. I prayed that the 2 engines would not stop. Finally, from my window seat, I could see the landing strip in the distance. As we got closer, I saw that the runway was flanked by rescue vehicles and that the runway had been sprayed with foam in case we had to crash land. I could not believe that the 2 engines continued to function. I fully expected them to stop. I prayed that they would continue to run for 2 more minutes. When the wheels finally touched the ground on the runway, an overwhelming feeling of relief swept over me. I wasn’t going to die on this day. Later that day, I was told that after measuring the fuel left in the tanks, they were essentially dry and we had, at most, 15 minutes of flying time left. LATER THIS WEEK, I WILL POST 2 MORE DEATH EXPERIENCES. I CALL THEM DROWNING AT SEA AND RAMMING OF THE USS BANNER ![]() FIGURE 3. LOCATION OF THULE AIR BASE FIGURE 4. ARCTIC FOX OCEANOGRAPHIC RESEARCH AIRCRAFT
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