AMERICAN AND THE VIRGIN

This is a tale of an accident that happened in (on?) St. Thomas, the U.S. Virgin Islands. In the 70's the the airport was one of the smallest to be served by scheduled airline Boeing 727 service- runway length was 4,658 feet.

There was only one way in to this American Paradise, and that was over the incredibly blue waters of the Caribbean, landing runway 9. The other end of the runway had a mountain looming over it. Oh, it wasn't a mountain by European Alps or American Rocky standards, but it was a very tall hill.

One fine day, American Airlines came whistling along over the water in their approach to the field that was named after Charles Lindbergh. The Boeing 727 was a little hot, and touched down a little long. Once on the ground, maximum braking was applied along with reverse thrust, but the end of the runway was coming up rapidly. The captain decided to abort the landing, so he got off of the brakes and applied full takeoff power for a go-around. This was a decision he soon regretted, as he realized that there was insufficient runway left to takeoff. The go-around was aborted, brakes were reapplied along with reverse thrust again.

Here's where it gets ugly folks. You knew this wasn't going to work out. The 727 slid into the Shell gasoline station, just beyond the airport fence with a heavy loss of life and property.

American quit flying into St. Thomas after that and instead operated into the island of St. Croix, which is a little flatter and has a much longer runway. American Eagle would then ferry passengers over to St. Thomas on propeller-driven aircraft.

However Eastern Airlines decided that they would continue 727 operations into St. Thomas. They had three 727's that had nose-wheel brakes in addition to the main brakes. Crews were specially certified for the island operation and for years they were the operators of the largest scheduled aircraft into the island.

I stayed several times during that period at a resort that was on a bay adjacent to the airport. When Eastern came in with their 727 I would go down to the boundary fence at the "mountain" end of the runway and wait for the departure. With just enough fuel to meet regulations for a 40 mile hop over to St. Croix the 727 would taxi out for a runway 9 departure and hold at the far end of the runway, tail to the Caribbean and nose to the mountain.

With brakes held, full power was applied until the engines were fully spooled up. That sucker would just sit there smoking and shaking. Brake release, rumble down the runway, rotate, gear up and immediately roll into a 20 degree or so bank to the right to go down the valley between the "mountains".

I was able to both observe, and participate as a passenger in this operation. It was magnificent!

Now, things have come up to date on the island. The runway was extended out into the blue waters of the Caribbean, the mountain/hill was removed to be fill for the runway, they changed the name from Lindbergh to the name of a local politician, and a fancy modern terminal was built to replace the WWII Navy hangar that was the old terminal.

Sadly, Eastern Airlines is also gone.

"The Great Silver Fleet" of Captain Eddie Rickenbacker.

© 1997 Hal Stoen

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