TRANSPORT: Sending Blind

It was broad, bright daylight—no time for alarm, let alone tragedy. Yet radio receivers in United Air Lines offices at Salt Lake City, Denver and San Francisco crackled out a message pregnant with fear: "United 608 sending blind [i.e., calling any station because of emergency]. We have baggage afire aboard this airplane. We are going into Bryce. Don't know if the fire is out yet. We have a smoke-filled airplane."

Flight 608 was a giant four-motored DC-6 which had taken off from Los Angeles at 9:23 a.m., two hours before, bound for New...

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