Buzz's Bedtime Stories: God and Midway Island

After flying through Johnston (which is a US chemical weapons dump — you have to wear gas masks the entire time you’re on the island — it’s really weird), we headed to Midway with a bunch of Navy dudes rotating into their service on the island. We departed Johnston at night and headed north. We were scheduled to spend the night once we got there, and we were excited to get to Midway. It was to be my first time, but I never got there. 

It was my approach, so I was flying. On approach to Midway at midnight, we hit severe turbulence at about 500 feet and, while we’re still in the clouds, I start seeing goony birds everywhere. I saw a few pass right in front of the cockpit! We ingested birds into two engines. We lost one completely, and the other was degraded but still operating at about 50 percent. 

We were getting our ass kicked in the turbulence. I called for a go around, we climbed out, and entered holding to run checklists and assess our damage. We ran checklists and talked about our next steps. Two-and-a-half engines remaining, and the weather folks in Midway radioed that it was only going to get worse. We couldn’t get in. We’re going to have to go to our divert base, which was Honolulu. 

“OK, we have the gas, let’s go to HNL,” I said. I looked over at my copilot. To compound matters, she was so freaked out that she became “inoperable.” She was silent and white as a ghost. So, I took over the radios, too. I was soloing. 

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Unfortunately, because of the severe turbulence, I quickly realized that we’d lost our dual navigation systems (INS). This was pre-GPS days. There were no radio aids along the way either. Initially, I asked for a “DF steer” on the HF radios. That’s basically a WWII means of picking up a radio signal on our long-range radios. I told Honolulu Center that we needed a steer and an initial vector. We’d be flying for about three hours. It’s an emergency situation, definitely. I’d never done it before. 

In what I can only surmise as a God thing, my flight engineer “Smitty” (who happened to be an avid fisherman and just happened to have an original Garmin GPS in his helmet bag) piped up on the interphone. He said, “Hey, boss, will this work?” I said, “Hell, yeah, plug in HNL and give me a heading!” It worked. I got the “magenta line.” We taped Smitty’s little fishing GPS to the cockpit dash so I could see the course and navigate accordingly. We followed it like our lives depended on it. Because they did. We also discussed a possible ditching in the sea if it came down to that. Not a great thought. So, we’re flying. Hoping to find land or, otherwise, we’re ditching in the Pacific. 

Approximately three hours later, we picked up the lights of the Hawaiian Island. Again, a God thing. Honolulu Center finally picked us up on radar and put us on vectors. Pheww! We landed safely in Honolulu. Sometimes you feel God’s hand on your shoulder. 

I made my copilot fly the approach to bring her around. Much like driving a car after an accident. She wasn’t happy about it, but she cowboyed up. She nailed the landing, and we taxied back to the ramp at about 4 AM. Fire trucks met us and followed us to the ramp, where several maintenance trucks were waiting for us. 

We sighed deeply, deplaned, and walked around our jet looking at the damage. Our Navy passengers were pretty shaken but very happy to be on the ground. There were bird feathers and blood everywhere. Both of the engines were hit and pockmarked with bird carcasses. There were two that hit just underneath the cockpit. By God’s grace, we dragged our bags, crawled onto the crew van, and headed to our hotel. It was a very quiet ride. I was praying. I’m sure my crew was too.