The perfect precedent for the recent Hudson River ditching of a US Airways jet occurred on 16 October, 1956, when a Pan American World Airways Stratocruiser ended up in the Pacific Ocean halfway between Honolulu and San Francisco.
The story behind these images appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle. It was a different era in flight. Very privileged. Very slow. And very comfortable unless you ended up finishing the trip to America in a Coast Guard cutter. Stratocruisers were frequent visitors to Sydney until the mid-50s.
There is a corny but entertaining YouTube video of the crash of the Clipper Sovereign of the Skies and the rescue taken from the US Coast Guard public archives here.
One Comment
Ahh the memories! Reminds me of the days PANAM was dominant.