Bluie called and advised that extreme conditions were building up in the fjord. Approach control wanted to know how much fuel he had remaining. Miller read the gauge as best he could and reported back that he had enough for another five hours. That was an understatement, but he was playing it safe — it still gave Bluie the option of ordering him on to Iceland if it was deemed necessary.
Approach control advised him to begin a climb immediately on a northeast heading and to report weather conditions being encountered at five minute intervals.
Ryan gathered himself together and after a nod from his captain he advanced the throttles as much as was feasible under the turbulent conditions. Miller pulled the nose up and set a rapid climb; the bucking of the aircraft was getting his crew sick and while he still felt all right, he knew that he had his own limitations as well. One element of airsickness was fear; that emotion he blocked completely.
The Penguin climbed up through 7,000 feet without any improvement in the conditions she was encountering. Two minutes later she should have crossed the coast of Greenland, but there was no way to tell; visibility was drastically reduced and flying by hand required Miller’s complete attention. As a means of keeping Ryan in responsive condition, he passed the actual flying over to him. The youthful copilot took over his task and overcontrolled somewhat as he fought to minimize the constant heavy turbulence.
It was bad and Miller knew it. He had been briefed about Arctic ice storms and had been told how they could come virtually without warning. He had no doubt that he was flying in one and what was more, it was steadily getting worse.
At 9,000 feet he came on the controls along with Ryan to help do what he could. He reported to Bluie, but he could not hear any response.
At 10,000 feet he breathed a quick sigh of partial relief; they would soon be above the ice cap and he had been worrying about that. If it had suddenly loomed up before him, with the poor visibility he had, it would have been impossible to turn in time. It would have been finis for the Penguin and all aboard her.
At 11,000 feet he had major difficulty in controlling his aircraft. He was flying her now with Ryan pretending to follow through on the controls. Bluie called with a message, but he could not hear anything more than a background voice shattered into distorted fragments. To spare his suffering ears, he cut off the radio. He glanced back and saw that both the radio operator and the navigator were so airsick they could not function. He did not blame them; they had to ride blindly while he, at least, could make the pretense of doing something to ease the strain.
As the Penguin climbed, it seemed to him that the turbulence was growing even worse; in response he leveled off and pulled the throttles back to minimum cruising speed. That, at least, would relieve some of the strains on the airframe. A moment later a fearful updraft seized the Penguin and flung her almost onto her side, as though she had been a toy; Miller got control, but as he held hard aileron to return her to an even keel, the number four engine began to lose power. He did not detect it at once, but as soon as he was able to scan the engine instruments once more, he knew the fresh problem he was facing. Ryan should have been taking care of it, but his copilot had turned visibly white and his face was covered with a fine sweat.
Miller applied full carburetor heat and enriched the mixture. That should have produced a fairly fast response, but as the continuing gusts pounded against the aircraft’s structure, the power output steadily dropped. He reached for the throttles and tried to coax more life out of the power plant, but while he was still making adjustments, a sharp, quick shuddering told him that it was too late. The engine was quitting and there was nothing he could do to save it. He pushed the feathering button to streamline the propeller and cut the ignition. Then grasping the throttles once more, he pulled back on engines one and two and fed a little more fuel to number three to help maintain the trim.
He glanced again at Ryan; his stomach knotted when he saw the trace of blood that tinged his lower lip and the hard stare in his eyes.
Miller made a decision; they could not remain in these conditions on three engines, he had to find something better. He dropped the port wing and turned until he estimated that he was headed more or less true north. If he could break out of the worst of the turbulence, then the Penguin would be able to hold at reduced speed until the killer storm had cleared Bluie West 8. There were no emergency strips available anywhere and he knew that northern Greenland was almost utter desolation. Thank God he had started out with full tanks!
Ryan reached out a hand and managed to use the intercom. “It’s getting worse,” he said. It was a plea for help, combined with a hope that Miller could perform some sort of miracle. As if in answer, the heaviest gust that she had as yet encountered seized the Penguin and flung her nose up into a position that could lead to a complete stall within a few seconds. Miller rammed the yoke forward with all his strength and with locked elbows held it hard against the firewall. The Penguin rose as though she were on the crest of a mighty wave, climbed, and then plunged downward as the gust let go. Miller pulled back and steadied her, then read the engine instruments once more during the second or two of respite granted him. They told him that number three had fallen off more than twenty-five percent.
Almost frantically he fought to clear the vital engine and get it running properly once more, but in a matter of a few more seconds he knew that it was a no go. That left him only one possible decision; he rammed the yoke forward once more and yelled, “I’m setting her down!”
If the rest of his crew heard him, he got no reaction. Only Ryan was still in communication and he looked as though he would have sold his soul for three minutes of smooth air.
The depressed elevators fought to raise the tail at the same moment that another savage blast hit the underside of the wings. For a horrible few seconds it seemed that the Penguin was doomed to be flung into a whipstall or possibly a spin; then, fighting for her own life, she escaped from the murderous gust, sharply tilted on her side, but with her nose safely down once more.
With the carburetor heat on full, Miller pulled the throttles back to an estimated eighteen inches — he was no longer attempting to read the gauges. Then he pushed the nose hard down and prayed to God that the atmospheric pressure setting he had on his altimeter was somewhere near the truth. If it wasn’t, it could mean their lives.
He brought the Penguin down quickly, as fast as he dared, until the altimeter read 10,500 feet. He was pushing his luck desperately to go that far, but he had not deemed that he had any choice. He slowed her descent and she responded as he had prayed that she would; now he knew that she was a living thing like himself and that they had formed an inseparable bond between themselves; they would live or die together.
The turbulence was still merciless, but possibly it was slightly diminished. Holding onto the yoke with fingers that were locked like steel, he flew at the utmost limit of his skill. He took one second to look at Ryan; his copilot was staring dead ahead with his mouth partway open.
As the number three engine quit, Miller made an instantaneous decision. “Gear down!” he ordered.