‘Unsolved Histories’: Episode 5, The Ditching

When Flight 293 crashed into the Gulf of Alaska in June 1963, it wasn’t the first time a Northwest Airlines DC-7C serving as a military charter between McChord and Elmendorf Air Force bases had gone down in the water. In October 1962, the same thing happened to another Flight 293, but with a completely different ending.

“I don’t remember the exact words, but they told us we had a runaway propeller and we kind of knew what that was,” retired Air Force fighter pilot Richard Pouliot said. Pouliot was a passenger on the Flight 293 of October 1962, on his way to a new assignment in Alaska. He passed away at age 90 in May 2024.

Runaway Prop

“It was on the left inboard engine,” Pouliot said, describing how the DC-7C he was aboard began experiencing a major mechanical failure known as a “runaway prop” or “overspeeding propeller.”
“The propeller really winds up and it gets quite hot and it can either tear off, and hopefully tear off free, and get out of there without doing anything,” Pouliot continued. “Or, it could chop into the good engine on the left […] or it could chop into the fuselage, which means your controls to the rear are all taken care of.”

In this case, the phrase “all taken care of” – in the words of a seasoned civilian flyer and longtime military aviator – means the controls would be completely wiped out, and the plane would spin out of control and crash. The Flight 293 Richard Pouliot was aboard had to get down and land as quickly as possible before that happened.

With no controls “you kind of fly like a rock,” Pouliot said. With this imminent threat from the runaway propeller – spinning out of control and getting dangerously hot – the pilot of the Flight 293 of October 1962 took fast action.

The plane “immediately started to descend, to get right down close to the water. I’d say maybe 500 feet, something like that,” Pouliot continued.

Aiming for a Safe Place to Land

At this point, the plane was north of Annette Island, where the other Flight 293 would later come down, and reaching the nearest airport would require flying over mountains. The decision was made by the pilots to fly only over water in order to reach Sitka, which had seaplane facilities but no runway, or Gustavus, which did have a runway.

The pilots had radioed for help as soon as the problem emerged, and the steward and two stewardesses, that’s what flight attendants were called in those days, prepped the passengers for a water landing. They gave everyone inflatable “Mae West” life vests, and told them how to brace for impact. They moved passengers out of the danger zone where the propeller might tear through the cabin. This meant that Richard Pouliot, sitting near the back of the plane, had another passenger sitting on the floor between his feet.

For the next 45 minutes or so, the Northwest Airlines DC-7C headed north over the water, aiming for Sitka or Gustavus.

They didn’t make it to either.

“The prop never did tear off, but the engine just completely burst into flames,” Pouliot said. “And the movement through the air brings those flames back over the wing, and the wing is where the fuel tanks are.”

“As soon as we caught fire,” Pouliot continued, “we were down there close enough to the water that [the pilot] just pulled the throttles back, I think made about a 45-degree turn to the left, and set it down.”

One Heck of a Big Jolt

The landing consisted of two thumps: initial contact with the choppy water, and then one more less intense impact.

“We did have one heck of a big jolt,” Pouliot said. “And then the airplane actually bounced and we had a second big jolt and then came to a stop.”

Remarkably, within about five minutes, even as water began filling the cabin, the passengers and crew all evacuated and climbed into five inflatable life rafts. Not long after that, they had transferred first to a small radio navigation maintenance boat operated by the FAA, and then to a Coast Guard cutter.

While similar in so many ways to the Flight 293 that disappeared in June 1963, everyone aboard this Flight 293 survived.

On Episode Five of Unsolved Histories: What Happened to Flight 293?,, we examine the amazing story of survival of the passengers and crew of the other Flight 293, and glean what we can from that near-disaster to understand what happened when the other flight went down.