On a Wing & a Prayer

The Air Force C46 had been airborne only a few minutes when smoke began to stream from one of the engines. Fire-extinguishing procedure did no good, and Captain Thomas E. Wilson decided to abandon the plane. "MAYDAY," the distress call, went out, "MAYDAY--MAYDAY--MAYDAY."

In the cabin behind were 15 ministers --chaplains of the Civil Air Patrol bound from Burbank, Calif, to a convention in Sacramento. When the word to hit the silk came back to them, Major Bertil Von Norman, pastor of the West Hollywood Presbyterian Church and chaplain of the wing, called for prayer, and the heads bowed in silence. "Thy will be done . . . Thy will be done . . ." prayed Chaplain Von Norman to himself. Two minutes later, while the burning plane banked, he stood at the open door and began sending the sky pilots off into the air, one by one, with a slap on the rear and an occasional shove.

Swinging down and down to a jolting thud on a field of green alfalfa, Parson Von Norman thought of the 23rd Psalm: "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures." Pilot Wilson jumped too, and the empty plane crashed. On the ground the men gathered, bruised and nervous. "Praise God from whom all blessings flow," someone said. Later, reporters asked the shaken clergymen how they had felt, faced by a moment that often brings even the most hardened sinners to repentance. One of them answered for all. "There was plenty of prayer going on," he said.

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