Cessna 188 Pacific rescue
 A Cessna 188 similar to the rescued aircraft | |
| Occurrence | |
|---|---|
| Date | 22 December 1978 |
| Summary | over sea rescue |
| Site | Pacific Ocean |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | Cessna 188 |
| Operator | Jay Prochnow |
| Flight origin | Pago Pago |
| Destination | Norfolk Island |
| Passengers | 0 |
| Crew | 1 |
| Fatalities | 0 |
| Injuries | 0 |
| Survivors | 1 |
On 22 December 1978, a small Cessna 188 aircraft, piloted by Jay Prochnow, became lost in the Pacific Ocean. The only other aircraft in the area that was able to assist was a commercial Air New Zealand flight. After several hours of searching, the crew of the Air New Zealand flight located the lost Cessna and led it to Norfolk Island, where the plane landed safely.
The incident
On 21 December 1978 Jay Prochnow, a retired Navy pilot, was delivering a Cessna 188 from the USA to Australia. Prochnow had a colleague who was flying another Cessna 188 alongside him. The long trip would be completed in four stages. On the morning of the 21st, both pilots took off from Pago Pago. His colleague crashed on take off, but was unharmed. Prochnow landed and set out the following day to Norfolk Island. When Prochnow arrived at the region where he believed Norfolk Island was, he was unable to see the Island. He informed Auckland Air Traffic Control (AATC), but at this point there was no immediate danger. He continued searching; after locating more homing beacons from other islands, he realised his automatic direction finder had malfunctioned and he was now lost somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. The Pacific ocean is almost 168 million km2, and he could have been almost anywhere. He alerted AATC and declared an emergency. There was only one plane in the vicinity, Air New Zealand flight 103, a DC-10 travelling from Fiji to Auckland. The flight had 88 passengers on board. The captain was Gordon Vette, the first officer, Arthur Dovey and the flight engineer was Gordon Brooks. Vette knew that if they did not try and help, Prochnow would almost certainly die. Vette was a navigator, and at the time of the incident he still held his licence. Furthermore, another passenger, Malcome Fortsyth, was also a navigator; when he heard about the situation he volunteered to help. As the DC-10 did not have an onboard radar, the crew had to came up with creative ways to find the lost Cessna. By this time Prochnow had crossed the international date line and the date was now 22 December. Vette was able to use the setting sun to gain an approximate position of the Cessna. Then contact was established over a VHF radio which had a range of 200 nautical miles. It was hoped the DC-10 would be making a vapour trail to make it more visible. After contacting Auckland it was determined that weather conditions were not suitable for a trail. Brooks knew that by dumping fuel they could produce a vapour trail. As the search was getting more and more desperate, they decided to try it. Prochnow did not see the trail, and it was starting to get dark. Vette wanted all the passengers to be involved, so he asked them to look out of the windows and invited small groups to come to the cockpit.
As it got darker and darker Prochnow considered ditching, but Vette did not want to give up. The crew of the DC-10 were able to use the exact moment of sunset to get a better fix on Prochnow's position. They also used a technique known as "aural boxing" to try to pinpoint the small plane; this took over an hour to complete. Once it had been done they had a much better approximation of Prochnow's position. The DC-10 used its strobe lights to try to make itself more visible to the Cessna. It took some time, but eventually Prochnow reported seeing light. However, this was not the DC-10, it was an oil rig, and Prochnow went towards it. This was identified as Penrod, which was being towed from New Zealand to Singapore. This gave Prochnow’s exact position. After some confusion about the exact position of the Penrod, it was finally established that the estimates of the crew of the DC-10 were very accurate. Furthermore, Prochnow was probably able to make it to Norfolk Island with his remaining fuel. He touched down on Norfolk Island after being in the air for twenty-three hours and five minutes.
Unconfirmed RNZAF Involvement
Reported by an unnamed Royal New Zealand Air Force P3 Orion crew member :
I was part of the duty RNZAF SAR crew of an RNZAF P3 Orion that launched well under the 2 hour standard callout period for this mission. The ferry pilot found the oil rig, which he reported to the DC10 and that we also heard.At that stage he told us that he intended to ditch near the rig. We asked him to hold on, as we had seen the rig during a patrol a couple of days earlier, and so I, as the radio operator, contacted Auckland Maritime radio, and almost instantly got a position relay from the rig. We contacted the lost airman on VHF, and gave him a course for Norfolk. The DC10 did not seem to agree, but unlike the civil airliner, we had a navigator with paper charts ( stops airplanes flying into mountains ). We followed him, and watched him land at Norfolk Island.
Events following the incident
McDonnell Douglas awarded the crew a certificate of commendation for "the highest standards of compassion, judgment and airmanship."
Gordon Brooks was killed in the Air New Zealand Flight 901 disaster. He was the flight engineer. Vette published a book about the Flight 901 disaster, called Impact Erebus.
Movie - Mercy Mission, the Rescue of Flight 771
The incident was dramatised in the American 1993 made-for-TV movie Mercy Mission - the Rescue of Flight 771. It starred Scott Bakula as Jay and Robert Loggia as Gordon Vette. Major differences between the movie and actual events include:
- Jay's surname is Perkins, rather than Prochnow. Vette's co-pilot and flight engineer are re-named "Russ Mann" and "Warren Banks" respectively, and rather than passenger Malcome Fortsyth being represented, "Banks" is the second qualified navigator.
- Jay leaves leaves Pago Pago minutes after his colleague crashes, when in reality it was the following morning.
- The Air New Zealand aircraft is a Boeing 767, rather than a DC-10, with the interior set being a Boeing 747.
- The oil rig does not appear, and the ANZ passengers sight the Cessna first, Jay then follows the airliner to Auckland, instead of flying alone to Norfolk Island.
- A rainstorm and Jay running out of fuel shortly before landing are added for dramatic effect.
References
Emergency; Crisis in the Cockpit, Stanley Stewart, pp 1–25
External links
- Mercy Mission, the Rescue of flight 771 at IMDb
- A detailed explanation of the calculations the crew used to find the Cessna
- Article on Captain Gordon Vette discussing his role in the investigation of the Erebus crash