AERONAUTICS: Pick-Ups

"Looking back I was stunned to see the rear engine enveloped in flames, which even as I looked, stretched out like a giant blowlamp rearwards over the seat occupied by Elwood Hosmer and beyond the rudder and tail. In the darkness the whole machine must have appeared like a grotesque red comet. The whole situation seemed like a nightmare and quite unreal. Even now I find it difficult to realize we were in a blazing airplane over mid-Atlantic at midnight . . . seemed impossible to put down safely in the dark on a...

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