The 747: A Tumultuous Beginning: Flying Through Turbulence by Marasco Ronald

Author:Marasco, Ronald [Marasco, Ronald]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-02-01T16:00:00+00:00

Detail from painting by John T. McCoy showing Clipper Young America’s arrival at London Heathrow Airport 22 January 1970. Captain Robert M. Weeks and crew flew the Pan American World Airways Boeing 747-121, N736PA New York to London on a 6 hour, 43 minute inaugural passenger-carrying flight of the new wide-body jet. Aboard were a crew of 20 and 335 passengers .

A New York Times reporter on the flight wrote an article, “Substitute 747 Off for London; Engine Trouble Causes Delay” (a fascinating read) in which he quoted Captain Weeks, who was probably putting the best face on the situation, as saying, “Due to gusty winds we were getting no flow of air from the front to the back in the engine. It is like someone put a cover on the top of your chimney and battened your furnace up.” In the same article the reporter wrote:

Representatives of United Aircraft, the parent company of Pratt & Whitney which makes the 747’s giant engines, gave a somewhat different explanation of what they called a ‘serious deficiency’ that they planned to remedy as quickly as possible. The manufacturer said that crosswinds had blocked the engine’s air intake, causing a condition equivalent to the flooding of a car engine. The fuel however continued to burn causing a compressor stall .

It seemed surreal that Pratt & Whitney would admit a “serious deficiency” that they planned to “remedy as quickly as possible.” Obviously Pratt knew the engine had a tendency to stall at idle speed, especially in windy, crosswind conditions, and they were working on a fix. If they had only shared this information with us, the trauma and expense of the certification and inaugural flights could have been avoided.

Another interesting take on all of this was the passenger reaction. You have the captain giving a somewhat odd explanation to the passengers about the engine problem, and the engine manufacturer reporting the engine has a “serious deficiency.” Couple that with the fact that the inaugural aircraft was the only flyable 747 in the world, yet all the passengers simply reboarded, without any trepidation, and flew off over the Atlantic to London. In the context of today’s world, the calm passenger reaction to the delay was clearly unusual. Sort of an undying faith the passengers had in the integrity of a company, in this case Pan American. Surprisingly, the Times article didn’t prompt any further investigation into the matter, and media coverage regarding the aircraft’s reliability problems was almost nonexistent.

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