35 Year Old Mystery Solved

For 35 years, Edwin Sisam has wanted to know just one thing: The name of the men who saved his life in October, 1969.

Sisam, a 58-year old lawyer now, was a pretty green 22-year old pilot then. Piloting his newly-bought Cessna 172 from Iowa to Atlanta (GA), Sisam was flying at night by himself. He stopped to refuel in Nashville, took off again and soon found himself over a wide, thick patch of black fog. There was nowhere for the novice pilot to land.

He called Flight Service in Chattanooga and was advised to fly west -- all the way to Texas, where he might find a place to land. Could he make it? Not likely.

The further west he flew, the more panicked he became. But suddenly, over Fort Payne (AL), he saw lights through a break in the fog.

Sisam circled lower -- as low as he dared, hoping to see a road sign that might lead him to the airport.

No luck. To make matters worse, his directional gyro failed. He couldn't read his compass. The break in the fog that he had exploited was closing in again.

As his hopes were fading, Sisam saw a flashing light, seemingly pointed at him. The light blinked. Sisam flashed his landing light on and off. The light blinked in response. As Sisam got closer, he could see a man shrouded in darkness, using his flashlight as a beacon. Sisam realized the man was in the back of a pick-up truck and the truck was moving.

He followed the truck for a short time as it raced through the black night. Suddenly, it turned and the headlights shown upon the one thing Sisam most wanted to see: a runway.

After landing, roll-out and taxi, Sisam climbed down from the 172, knelt and kissed the ground. He was utterly amazed that he was still alive. When he looked up, he saw emergency workers and a reporter for the Fort Payne Times-Journal coming toward him. But where was the man in the pick-up?

The two finally had a chance to talk. The good samaritan explained that he, too, was a pilot and that pranksters had shot out the runway lights and the airport beacon. Sisam gave the man his card and said he wanted to pay to replace the lights. He turned away for a moment...

...and never saw his savior again. The man vanished silently into the night.

More than 35-years later, Sisam and his wife, Dorothy, still wonder about the mysterious samaritan.

The Story Below

Mack Cooper, a Fort Payne business icon, was standing in the yard behind the home of his friend, Herbert Clark.

"Herbert and I were just standing there talking," Cooper recalls. "It was very foggy. We heard an airplane in the distance and it seemed to be getting closer and closer."

Pretty soon, the two men, both volunteer firefighters, spotted a Cessna 172, flying at about 1,000 AGL. "He came straight down Sanders Avenue," Cooper remembered in an interview with the Fort Payne paper. "The plane came down the avenue, went on down around the W.B. Davis Mill, circled and came right back up over us."

That's when Cooper turned to Clark and said, "That man’s in trouble. He can’t find the airport." In fact, Cooper, who was indeed a pilot, knew just how much trouble the 172 was in.

"I grabbed the spotlight and jumped in the back of [Clark’s] truck," he said. "He drove. I told him to go up Sanders Avenue until it ends, then go around by the old drive-in and we would lead him to the airport."

That's just what the two men did. The 172 followed them until they reached the airport, then circled and landed.

The young pilot taxied to a stop, got out and kissed the ground. Cooper said he heard the man asked if he was okay. "I’m fine," he remember the young man saying. "Just let me find that man with the light."

"He came over and shook my hand," Cooper said, "and I honestly thought that would be the end of it. I never expected to hear from him after all these years. It’s just really one of those miraculous things."

Cooper's friend, Herbert Clark, died in 1984. But Cooper himself read an article about Sisam's quest to find his rescuer in the Times-Journal and stepped forward to identify himself. After 35-years, Edwin Sisam found the man who saved his life.

FMI: www.times-journal.com