Two of us rated first pilots on a B-29, along with two navigators and two engineers were delivering a B-29 to India during the latter part of 1944. The trip there is described in a separate article called, "The Accra Incident". My "Close Call" at Karachi occurred on the same flight. I was the pilot on this particular leg of the flight as we were coming into Karachi, Pakistan for a landing. About a hundred or two hundred miles out, our number 2 engine began to lose its oil pressure. (Engines are numbered #1 ,2,3,and 4 counting from left to right and starting from the pilots far left). I decided to save the engine and shut it down as three engines were sufficient to get us safely to Karachi. The other pilot agreed with me and saw no problem. So I shut down the #2 engine and "feathered" the propeller to minimize propeller drag. Nearing Karachi, I contacted the control tower for landing instructions and they instructed me to land to the east (runway 09). They also advised me that they had a brisk crosswind from the north and that native Indian workers were widening the runway along the north side. I could see them later and there must have been thousands of them looking like a bunch of ants. Some were chipping rocks into smaller pieces capable of passing through a certain size ring and placing them into baskets. Others were carrying the baskets to another group who were spreading the rocks where needed. There was no machinery being used. All you could see was a mass of human bodies lining the left side of the runway. I advised the tower that we had #2 engine out but we did not need any emergency equipment standing by. I knew that all landing aircraft have a tendency to veer or weathervane into the wind upon landing so I took extra precautions. I told the other pilot, "I'm gonna land on the far right side of the runway just to be on the safe side. I sure don't want to plow into a bunch of workers." "That's a good idea", he said. So on final approach I kept normal power on the #1 and #4 outboard engines and reduced power on the #3 engine to equalize my thrust, since my #2 engine was out, and lined up with the right side of the runway. Just before my wheels touched the runway, I removed most of the power from the #4 and #3 engines and kept some power on the #1 engine. But to my surprise and horror, the B-29 veered sharply to the left when the wheels touched the runway and headed straight for the mass of humanity to our left at over 100 miles per hour! I quickly chopped all power from #3 and #4 engines, applied full right rudder, tromped hard on the right brake, and applied full power to the #1 engine! I was thus barely able to straighten out the plane and kept it from plowing into all those workers. My left wheel barely touched the left edge of the runway as my huge #1 engine under fill power roared over the heads of hundreds workers with the spinning propeller missing them by inches! What a close call! If I hadn't been prepared for this eventuality and had landed in the middle of the runway dead bodies would have been everywhere. Discussing this episode later, I said "I've made lots of cross-wind landings before in a B-29 but this is the first time one has behaved like this. I wonder why that dam plane shot to the left like it did when the wheels touched?" "I sure don't know", replied the other pilot. "You did all the right things". "Could it be that since I was in a left crab to counter my right drift that the plane decided to go in that direction? "Could be", he said. "It's a mystery to me." To this day at age 83 I still shudder when I think of what could have happened 57 years ago at Karachi when I almost lost control of a landing B-29. |