Aeronautics: Red Parachutes

Soaring over the Urals two years ago in a Russian passenger plane with a Russian pilot, Reporter-at-Large Ellery Walter was jerked from contemplating a beautiful sunrise by a sickening sputter in the motor. Realizing the ship was out of gasoline, the pilot tugged frantically at the fuel pump, got a dying burst of power which enabled him to clear some trees by a breath-taking margin, land in a cornfield. When Reporter Walter got his breath back he asked how the fuel could be exhausted just after leaving an airport where barrels of...

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