Emergency Landing At LaGuardia Airport
August 28, 1965
When I accepted Mal's marriage proposal, I was well aware that he had a mistress-his Cessna 170A airplane-and that flying would be a part of our life.
Our honeymoon was a four-week trip in this plane around the United States, and to the Canadian Rockies. I started out married life knowing full well that an airplane would be an important part of our life together. It has been.
Realism, of course, requires adjustments when conditions dictate, and so Mal sold this airplane shortly after our marriage to get the down payment for our first home. In early 1963 Mal got airplane fever again, and we felt we could manage owning a small two-seat training plane, an Aeronca Champ. I think we paid all of eight hundred dollars for this plane, although we invested another five hundred dollars in an overhauled sixty-five horsepower engine. I then started taking flying lessons, and on June 28, 1963-which happened to be our fifth wedding anniversary-I made my first solo flight.
My memories of “airplanes flying in the sky and dropping bombs on us,” as well as “houses looking as small as match boxes” came back to me vividly during some of my flying lessons. A few months later, and partway to getting my pilot's license, we had a chance to buy a Luscombe 8A which had been lovingly reconditioned. It was also a two-seat aircraft, and I earned my private pilot's license in it. I loved flying the Luscombe and had many hours of fun and good memories with it. In fact, I considered it to be my airplane. Frequently I would go to the airport after work and fly around for half an hour or longer, to look at the fall colors or whatever else was going on. Flying was a feeling of freedom for me, and I loved it.
One of my memories is landing at La Guardia Airport one Saturday evening, something that few private pilots ever do. I had flown from Morristown, New Jersey to a private airport on Shelter Island, near the eastern end of Long Island, to attend a fly-in of women pilots, the Ninety-Nines. It was about one hundred and twenty miles from Morristown, and with a tailwind I made the trip in just an hour. By late afternoon when it came time to return to Morristown, the winds had increased, and I now had a headwind of close to forty miles per hour. Instead of returning home quickly, as I had come, I found that I was just crawling along. The Luscombe held only thirteen gallons of fuel, and as I got near New York City, I became concerned that I would not have enough fuel to get back to Morristown, which was forty miles west of New York. To compound my anxiety, it was getting dusk and I had never flown or landed at night.
Well, I did the only sensible thing I could do. I was getting fairly close to La Guardia Airport, and I called them. The conversation went something like this:
N71497: La Guardia Tower this is Luscombe 71497 (my plane number).
Tower: 71497 Go ahead.
N71497: La Guardia tower I am a sixty-five horsepower Luscombe airplane about five miles east of you-I am getting low on fuel and need to land-I don't think I can make Morristown because of headwinds.
Tower: Roger 497-Winds are two-nine zero at twenty-five knots-Plan straight-in for Runway 31.
N71497: Tower, I am a new pilot and have never landed at night-I would like to overfly the airport to get oriented.
Tower: 497-Understand this is your first night landing-what is your altitude?-Turn on your landing light.
N71497: I am at 2,000 feet but I do not have a landing light.
Tower: Roger 497 proceed directly to the airport and enter downwind for Runway 31
A few minutes pass.
Tower: 497 we see you over the field-you can turn downwind now-remember you will have a tailwind and will be going much faster-do you see the runway?
N71497: Affirmative-do you want me to land on the first part of the runway?
Tower: 497 you can land anywhere on the runway-the airport is all yours.
Needless to say I was nervous, but I made a perfect landing in that I gently rolled onto the big numbers at the beginning of the runway. The wind was so strong that I came to a complete stop almost immediately. My airplane was still on the big numbers.
Tower: That was a good landing 497-Now just taxi straight ahead and turn left at Taxiway Joliet.
I had to taxi slowly in this strong wind, and it seemed to take a long time before I came to the first taxiway to get off the runway. The tower then directed me to an area where I could park the plane. All of this probably took about fifteen minutes, and I learned later that the tower officials effectively closed the airport to everyone else while I landed. I am sure I was one of the most inexperienced pilots to have ever landed at La Guardia, but the tower personnel could not have been more considerate and helpful. They were obviously concerned about my safety and recognized that my decision to land was exactly the right decision on my part.
Once I got parked, I called Mal who drove to La Guardia. He then had the plane refueled, and flew it back to Morristown while I drove home. That was my one and only landing at La Guardia Airport.