One acclaimed hero of the Bermuda Sky Queen crash was Pilot Charles Martin. When his big Boeing flying boat ran low on gas over the stormy North Atlantic last month (TIME, Oct. 27), he had brought her neatly down off the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Bibb and saved the lives of 69 passengers and crewmen. But as Civil Aeronautics Board hearings began last week, Pilot Martin (and crew) looked a lot less heroic.
Pilot Martin, a 26-year-old ex-Navy flyer, confessed to an almost incredible tale of carelessness and poor judgment. He had taken off from Foynes, Eire, 3,600 lbs. overloaded, with two extra passengers aboard, on his own hook, because some of his fares were babies "and they couldn't weigh very much." As the Sky Queen headed west into wind and ice, he kept no systematic check on his fuel consumption, let his crew stand watches as they saw fit.
Navigator Addison Thompson had decided to catch up on his sleep. The weather was too bad for star shots, and he had never thought of a radio fix. He slept for about eight hours. When he woke, he found the second flight engineer curled up cozily under his navigation table and the Sky Queen past the point of no-return.
Thompson casually admitted that he was no great shakes as a navigator anyhow. He was actually just a pilot-navigator. But he had boned up on the subject and relied on ten years of experience as a yachtsman. He had flown the Atlantic round trip only once before, had never heard of radioed wind and weather broadcasts from New York.
But Pilot Martin and Navigator Thompson were not in the least abashed by their testimony. In reply to the question of one exasperated CAB examiner, Martin replied coolly, "Well, I still think we did all right." '