Northwest Hero

Flying the mail one night nearly two years ago, Pilot Mai B. Freeburg of Northwest Airways spied a flaming trestle on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy R. R. Remembering that he had just passed a crack passenger train thundering down from Minneapolis, Pilot Freeburg put about, flagged the express with his emergency landing flares before it could plunge into the Chippewa River. Because Robert Tyre ("Bobby") Jones Jr. was aboard the train, Pilot Freeburg had made national news.

Pilot Freeburg again made national news last week when he was awarded the Post Office Department's first Air Mail Flyer's Medal of Honor. It will be presented by President Hoover, but not for saving Bobby Jones's life. For that the Burlington gave Pilot Freeburg a gold watch, the Chicago Daily News $100. The medal was for a feat unique in the history of air transport. The St. Paul radio operator of Northwest Airways one afternoon last month pressed his headset hard against his ears to hear again a laconic message: "Freeburg speaking. Just broke starboard propeller. Flying near Wabasha." Officials scowled apprehensively for the trimotored Ford carried eight passengers. "Freeburg talking. Motor vibrating badly." Cool, Pilot Freeburg continued to describe to headquarters how the terrific vibration of the unbalanced propeller jerked the motor from its mountings, how it lodged in a wing strut, damaged the landing gear. Lest the 500 Ib. of dead metal drop and injure some one on the ground, he swung his crippled ship out over the Mississippi River, banked steeply, shook the engine off, watched it fall down, down, down safely into the water. After requesting a relief ship, he maneuvered 25 mi. on two motors to an emergency landing field. When the relief ship arrived, some of the passengers said they enjoyed the experience, all of them flew on to Chicago, less than one hour late.

Pilot Freeburg not only saved his and the passengers' lives, but also the six-year record of Northwest Airways for never killing a passenger. In 1928, Northwest Airways' Pilot E. H. Middagh brought down a flaming plane, saved the passengers, was burned to death.

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