Chance Encounter With 1960 Life Magazine Connects Past With Present And Makes Me Wonder...

By ANN Associate Editor Juan Jimenez

Several years ago, I was walking the streets of New York on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, when I ran into a flea market near 89th and Columbus. Having nothing better to do than enjoy the day, I rummaged through the various stalls, displays and tables, until I saw something that captured my attention. One of the many vendors was selling magazines, but this one was different. He had boxes and boxes of old Life magazines, and the challenge was to find the one from the week you were born. I found two, one for myself and one for my wife, and paid the $20 for the pair.

The cover of mine talked about the Moscow Fair and Richard Nixon's trip to Russia. The picture on the cover featured Mmes. Mikoyan (wife of A.I. Mikoyan, founder of the Russian aerospace design bureau that carries his name, photo below, far right), Nixon, Kruschev and Kozlov. On the cover of my wife's copy was a picture of a beautiful young Italian actress by the name of Sofia Loren who had become the fantasy of virtually of every red-blooded male on the planet.

Yesterday I was organizing some of my files and found both copies, so I took a break and sat down to read them. As I was leafing through the Sofia Loren issue, I ran into a story about the 1960 Mustangs, the football team of the California State Polytechnic University, or Cal Poly, for short.

The team had just played a game in Ohio prior to the Homecoming celebrations. They took a beating in the game, 50-6, and were not exactly in good spirits for their return trip. Like many other small colleges, Cal Poly had decided to hire an unscheduled carrier to fly them back to San Luis Obispo, Arctic Pacific Airline. The aircraft they chartered for the flight was a 1945 C-46, which at the time was barely 15 years old and had probably been one of the surplus aircraft converted for civilian work after the end of World War II.

The pilot of the aircraft was Mr. Donald Chesher. As it turned out, no one had told the Cal Poly folks that Mr. Chesher had had his license revoked for an accumulation of violations. Unfortunately for the team, Mr. Chesher was still flying while he appealed the revocation. It was at this point that all sorts of bells went off in my mind... does the story sound familiar? "Deja vu" just doesn't seem sufficiently appropriate.

It doesn't stop there. Arctic Pacific Airline also had a shady record with the FAA. It had been investigated and charged by the FAA for an irregular record of maintenance and flight procedures. Do shady pilot records always lead to shady carrier records, or is it the other way around?

As the team boarded the aircraft, the airport in Ohio was sitting in the middle of the worst fog seen in ten months. The control tower, concerned about the flight, asked Chesher about his visibility, and he replied that he could see about 500 feet in front of him, nowhere near the minimums for airlines in 1960. Unfortunately, the control tower could not interfere with the flight if the flight plan was "in order," and Chesher said he was departing.

The aircraft just barely made it off the ground. According to the Life magazine article, it "rose uncertainly, heeled sickeningly to the left and crashed." A subsequent investigation revealed the C-46 was loaded 1,000 lbs over max gross weight. Sixteen players were killed, along with four passengers and both pilots. Nearly everyone else on the aircraft suffered some type of injury. One of the few pax to survive unscathed was assistant coach Sheldon Harden. His efforts to save team members and other pax were described as "heroic," and he was hired as head coach the next year. He passed away just a few days ago, on January 24.

Just a few months ago, another pilot flying on a suspended license while on appeal killed himself and a family with children, and plowed his aircraft into a home in Texas. Turns out that the pilot also had a long and notorious record at the FAA. A while back, a beautiful singer and actress by the name of Aaliyah boarded a C402, along with a bunch of luggage, equipment and her entourage, to return to the US after a shoot. On the way out, the company that took them there refused to do so in one aircraft because of the weights. The 402 crashed on takeoff, killing everyone. The autopsy on the pilot uncovered illegal drugs and alcohol in his bloodstream.

Want to know what truly bothers me about all of this? The fact that the pilots made decisions that killed people is tragic, but even worse is the fact that someone had to know that these people were endangering the lives of their passengers as well as their own. Pilots don't get their licenses suspended and continue to fly on appeal overnight. It's a process, and in that process there are people -- fellow pilots -- who come in contact with those pilots and realize that these people are dangerous.

What is keeping these people from taking action to prevent yet another tragedy? What does it take for someone to speak up? Are they so afraid to be labeled a "snitch" that we will allow these people to put innocent lives in danger? Or are these people so terrified of lawsuits that they are willing to gamble on the terms of their final judgement just so they can avoid facing a judge?

This also makes me wonder why the FAA continues to go well out of its way to make life impossible for people who want to enjoy flying as Sport Pilots, while others are allowed to fly without ever having set foot in an AME's office, and yet others are out there, license suspension and letter of appeal in their pockets, doing their best to make themselves and their pax the stars of the next NTSB accident report. It's as if the agency's collective memory were permanently and inversely attached to its sense of proportion.

FMI: Comments? Fire away!