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Lot 113
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Lindbergh 11 page handwritten account of landing in Philippines
Lindbergh 11 page handwritten account of landing in Philippines
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Description:

Lindbergh Charles 1902 - 1974 Rumors of my crash are greatly exaggerated: reading like a very entertaining short story Charles Lindbergh offers an 11 page handwritten account of his supposed 'crash' landing in the Philippines:"How the crash story grew, I do not know; but it is typical of hundreds, if not thousands of newspaper stories I have had part in through the years."



Autograph Letter Signed, "Charles (A. Lindbergh)" 11 pages, 8.5" x 11", "Army & Navy Club," Manila, November 6, 1969 to fellow Harold E. Gray offering a detailed description of a supposed "crash" of Lindbergh's plane in the Philippines. Expected folds and a few creases, lese fine condition.


After news reports circulated that Charles Lindbergh had crashed his plane while travelling in the interior of the island of Luzon in the Philippines, he received a note of sympathy from fellow pilot Harold Gray, then chairman of Pan Am. To clear up the record, Lindbergh offers a full accounting of the "crash" that never really happened, writing in full in a lengthy, detailed and engaging account:

"Many thanks for you message of sympathy in relation to my airplane 'crash.' Stan Burke handed it to me on my return to Manila from Northern Luzon. In addition to being a great pilot and executive, you are really a good friend as such, you will be amused by the facts. In the late twenties and early thirties, the newspapers crashed me on an average of several times a year. Recently, they have been more considerate in this respect, so I was taken somewhat by surprise.

I didn't know anything bout the 'accident' until mid-morning of the day after it took place. I was then on a secondary air-strip in Northern Luzon (Cauayan), getting ready to return to an abandoned logging-company strip on the coast (Pacific), from which I had been operating with the L5 I had rented at Manila International a few days before.

I had noticed a twin-engine executive plane landing on the Cauayan strip, but had paid little attention to it. Suddenly, I heard a remark behind me: 'Same newspaper men are here.' A reporter an a photographer rom the Manila Times came up.

'What about your accident, General?'

'Accident? There was no accident that I know anything about.'

'But what about your airplane crash? The papers are full of it. New York has been telephoning.'

'But there was no airplane crash. There's my airplane.' I pointed to the L5.

Another Twin-engine executive plane was landing. It taxied up, and out jumped a C.A.A. inspector (Philippines), the head of the company from which I had rented the L5, and the Chief Pilot of Panamin, the semi-government organization that has charge of tribal welfare in the Philippines. ( I had been living with one of the tribes, and working with Panamin).

They were perplexed and delighted when they saw my 'crashed' L5, all laughing and smiling. (What a wonderful people these are, in the Philippines, friendly and happy in spite of their problems. I like them better each day.) The Chief Pilot went back to his plane, and brought out a copy of the Manila Times.

I had had a forced landing, bellied into a rice paddy, and been recovered by the local population. My passengers and I had escaped with minor injuries. It was a front-page article. Erroneous as the story was, it told me the origin of the commotion ‰ÛÓ the 'incident' involved. (By that time, the Manila-Times updates had replaced the word accident with incident in his conversation.) The facts are that there was no forced landing, no rice paddy, and no passengers. The local population ('the rescue party') formed the only hazard I encountered.

Since I expected to operate from old logging-company air strips, and probably from open fields, I had selected an L5 for my expedition. (I had been informed that late October began three months of the worst weather o the year for northeastern Luzon, where I was going, and that the worst of this weather lay along the Pacific coast where I intended to operate.)

My L5 could carry one passenger and a hundred-plus pounds of cargo. Flying northward, I carried with me Dr. Robert Fox - probably the leading European anthropologist in the Philippines. On refueling at a private air strip in northern Luzon, we were told we probably could not get across the coastal mountain range to the logging strip where we were going. Clouds were bunched up thickly in the est.

We were fortunate enough to find a pass through the mountains, and the Pacific coast was fairly clear. The abandoned air strip, which northeast ended at a beach, was somewhat weed-grown, and contains some low piles of brush; but there was plenty of clear area in its center for an L5 to land on. After landing, we put the natives to work cleaning the strip - men, women, and children; as many as a hundred at one time. They were cooperative, hard working, and effective, carrying away brush, pulling weeds, throwing off the bigger stones. It was amazing to see how fast they put the strip in shape.

Then the weather closed in - a cloud layer lowering on the mountain range - scattered squalls along the coast. I dug in the L5 wheels, lashed controls, tied down wings and tail, and set up sleeping and eating quarters in the split-bamboo floor of one of the native (Agta) huts between the air strip and the ocean, along with the regularly - occupying family - father, mother, children, and dogs. I was

as cozy as it was interesting. There were about twenty huts - all leaf[?] and thatch - in a line above the beach paralleling the air strip. Leaf and pole lean-to's, on the sand of the (wife) beach itself, housed about another twenty families.

The air strip, having been abandoned, had no facilities of any kind for aircraft. The nearest radio station - far from reliable, I was told, was in a small village, several hours of walking away. There was no road between our air strip and the village.

I had promised Panamin to fly two people from Cauayan across the mountains to the air strip the next morning - weather permitting. A few breaks began showing in [the] clouds above the mountains soon after sunrise; toward noon, the breaks increased in size and number. I decided to try flying across the range.

It was a mistake. I found the passed completely closed, and even to find this out, I had to do more flying over high jungle treetops than I like I used forty-five minutes of fuel, and another fifteen or twenty minutes bringing two sacks of corn to the Agta from a nearby village which was difficult to reach on foot. (The little Agta village where I had spent the night was running out of food.)

All this left me with enough fuel to fly to Cauayan with a reserve for returning to the logging-company strip again; but not with enough fuel to thereafter fly again to Cauayan. With this in mind, I waited fro reasonably clear skies. They came the next morning.

As an added precaution, I waited until close to noon before taking off. They sky along the coast was almost clear. I had been told that weather inside the coastal range averaged much better than that along the coast. I took off, alone, about an hour before noon, and passed over the mountains easily. On the inland side, I encountered low, scattered clouds. Low broken clouds might be a better definition. I flew over them, with plenty of fields below large enough and good enough to land on with an L5. But I could not locate an exact position. I had a road map of the area, which was almost useless to me, and flying map so old that (I found later) big river bends had changed since it was drawn. These were the best maps I had been able to obtain at Manila International. I knew I was in the general area of Cauayan, and I had more than an hour of fuel left in the tank; but since there were good and large fields below, I decided that the best ay to establish my location would be to land and ask. Also, it would be interesting to make contact with the local people.

I landed just astride a small city, near to a farmer working his field. He came over to the plane immediately. The name of the city was Angadanan, he said. It was not listed on my flying map, but I found it on the road map, about ten miles south of the Cauayan air strip. By that time, several other farmers ha arrived. I talked to them for a few minutes, and started my engine.

After taxiing to the leeward end of the field, I switched off the engine and walked over the take-off area in front of me, to make sure of the surface. When I returned to the L5, I had trouble starting the engine. My battery was low. I decided to have it recharged before running it too far down. I arranged with one of the men there to guard the plane, climbed in a tricycle taxi, and drove with the battery to Cauayan.

At Cauayan, I contacted the Panamin people who were waiting [for] me, and the field manager, who ran an air-taxi service of his own. I ate lunch while the battery was put through a two-hour charge. Then a mechanic drove me back to Cauayan [sic, Angadanan] in the field manager's jeep. We installed the battery, and the engine started easily. I took off and flew to Cauayan where I spent the night in one of the cottages the field manger rents, at the edge of the strip.

The manager turned out to be a retired P.A.L. pilot. He had received ward from Manila that I would be landing at Cauayan on occasion, to pick up fuel and supplies. We spent much of the evening talking about aviation in the Philippines. Then I went to bed, with no knowledge of the telephones calls pouring into Manila.

I learned later that about everyone I knew in Manila was roused out of bed at around midnight to one or two o'clock local time. Phone calls came from New York, from Paris, from I don't know how many places. The report that I had cashed and had been injured seems to have spread around the world. the American Ambassador was called, our Stan Banks of Pan American, The Secretary for Tribal Minorities, the President of the Bancan[?] Development Corp. (Head of the Philippine Wildlife Conservation Foundation.) The phone in Dr. Fox's home was ringing from midnight on. (He learned on returning with me to Manila.)

A few minutes after I reached the Army & Navy Club, after flying back to Manila several days after my plane had 'crashed,' I was approached by a man who had just arrived from Tahiti. He was glad to see I had not been badly injured in my accident, he said. He had read about it in a Tahiti paper!

How the crash story grew, I do not know; but it is typical of hundreds, if not thousands of newspaper stories I have had part in through the years. I seldom rad a press article (where I know the facts) that is accurate - even reasonably accurate. Usually, I pay little or no attention to them; but on occasions, such as this, they necessitate some attention and action.

There is apparently a campaign in Manila to find out how the crash story started. So far as I can judge to date, it has simply stirred up more rumors. Why didn't someone phone the field manager at Cauayan? 'The Cauayan radio wasn't working' 'The telephone was out of order.' I think the most probably cause of the story, as usual, lay in the fact that it would raise interest and sell papers. It seems to me that is one of the few facts that appeal to the press.

Harold, when I started I did not expect to write a letter of anything like this length. I am afraid I became too fascinated with my own story; but at least it is an accurate one. I look forward to seeing you at the Board meeting."

The recipient Harold E. Gray was a pioneering aviator who flew trans-Pacific and trans-Atlantic routes for Pan American World Airways on long-range flying boats called "Clippers" in the 1930s, and eventually became Chairman of the Board at Pan Am.

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