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For the most part, though, the passengers displayed an amazing presence of mind. Martin Myers, a retired oil-company employee from Media, Pa., who was on a tour with fellow Lions Club members, found himself so impressed by Captain Kimes's calm-voiced announcement that he switched on his portable tape recorder, caught Second Officer Max Webb's emergency-landing instructions to the passengers: ". . . If we use the chutes, please stay calm. Remember, you will sit down to go out the chute. Don't panic . . . When we do land, and if it is a rough landing—which is a possibility—please lean forward in your seats. You grab your ankles and stay down, or put your arms under your knees. Move as far forward as you possibly can. Do not move until we tell you what we're going to do . . ."
"Masterful Feat." In the cockpit, Kimes was nursing the crippled plane closer to Travis. As he approached the airbase, he discovered that the hydraulic system had failed and that the landing gear would not lower automatically. Now down to an altitude of only 700 ft., Kimes made a wide, climbing circle while Engineer Robertson and Second Officer Webb cranked the wheels down manually. Then Robertson crawled down through a hatch in the cockpit floor to insert a pin in the nose wheel to guard against its collapsing—a required procedure when hydraulic pressure fails.
On his final approach, Kimes saw a whirlwind at the end of the runway, right in his glide path and carrying enough turbulence to threaten the crippled jet. With a final burst of power he maneuvered around it, got back on course, and landed smoothly. As the plane rolled to a stop, gasoline seeping from cracks under the right wing, the passengers burst into applause, then scrambled out through emergency escape chutes. Twenty-five minutes had elapsed since takeoff.
Next day, with what could only be described as understatement, the Federal Aviation Agency presented Kimes and his crew with the FAA's Exceptional Service medal for a "masterful feat of airmanship."