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AT THE AIRPORT, the baffled passengers were unloaded. Soon a fleet of taxicabs arrived to transport them the 12 or so highway miles to PDX. The DC-8’s pilot, Capt. S.R. Whipple, told airport manager Meyer the plane broke from cloud cover and the runway was directly in front of him. The Portland tower having cleared him for landing, he just lined up and landed on it, only realizing it was the wrong airport after it was too late to abort. Capt. Whipple, not surprisingly, hastened to catch the first flight back to Chicago and arranged to keep himself unavailable for questioning when the newspapers started to call. Meanwhile, United Air Lines had a bit of a problem. Landing a DC-8 on a 4,600-foot airstrip had been barely do-able. What were the chances they’d be able to take off again? Pretty good, they figured; but they sent a ringer in to do the job. Bartlett Stephens, a pilot from Seattle, arrived later in the morning to take it on. In the meantime, the big jet was pumped almost dry of fuel — after all, it only had to fly 10 miles — and everything that could be removed without unbolting stuff was hauled off the airplane. The newspapers do not specify whether they removed any seats, but there were rumors that this was done as well. A fence was removed at one end, and the grass burned to extend the runway as much as possible. The plane was positioned as far back on the east end of the runway as possible, its huge tail hanging out over the middle of Graham Road. Nervous families living in houses under the plane’s anticipated takeoff path called their insurance agents to make sure they were covered and hurried to find someplace else to be when the big jet made its attempt to get off the ground. Soon, all was in readiness, and at 12:15 Stephens gave the big jet full power and it started rolling forward over the charred grass. All the preparation paid off, as the big jet rotated a little over halfway down the tiny runway and climbed rapidly and uneventfully into the sky. A few minutes later it was touching down at PDX, where it belonged. So … what happened? Since no one was hurt and several people were severely embarrassed, details were kept close to the vest. A follow-up article in the Oregonian quoted a United Air Lines spokesman saying the company was conducting an investigation and “might” hold a hearing later on. The article added that Capt. Whipple had been grounded pending the investigation. A few days later, the Federal Aviation Administration pulled Whipple’s ticket for a 30-day suspension, and suspended his co-pilot for two weeks. How this embarrassing mistake affected the two pilots’ employment prospects at United Air Lines was never disclosed; but it’s likely both survived the episode with their jobs intact. Whipple was a senior pilot, meaning he’d been flying for United for more than 25 years, and was highly respected by his fellow pilots there. But, at the very least, those fellow pilots must have enjoyed having something this juicy to razz him about at future company events.
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