Apollo 13 Getting Home written by: William Broyles Jr. & Al Reinhart |
Television reporter: And I asked him recently if he ever was scared. Jim: Oh well, I've had an engine flame out a few times in an aircraft... and was kind of curious as to whether it was goin' to light up again-- things of that nature-- but uh, they seem to work out. Television reporter: Is there a specific instance in an airplane emergency when you can recall fear? Jim: Uh well, I'll tell ya, I remember this one time-- I'm in a Banshee at night in combat conditions, so there's no running lights on the carrier. It was the Shragri-La, and we were in the Sea of Japan and my radar had jammed, and my homing signal was gone... because somebody in Japan was actually using the same frequency. And so it was-- it was leading me away from where I was supposed to be. And I'm lookin' down at a big, black ocean, so I flip on my map light and then suddenly zap. Everything shorts out right there in my cockpit. All my instruments are gone. My lights are gone. And I can't even tell now what my altitude is. I know I'm running out of fuel, so I'm thinking about ditching the ocean. And I, I look down there, annd then in the darkness there's this uh, there's this green trail. It's like a long carpet that's just laid out right beneath me. And it was the algae right? It was that phosphorescent stuff that gets churned up in the wake of a big ship. And it was, it was, it was leading me home. You know? If my cockpit lights hadn't shorted out, there's no way I'd ever been able to see that. So uh, you, uh never know.... what events are to transpire to get you home. |