Page 10 (1/2)

PART ONE

6:30 PM - 8:30 PM (CST)

01

AT HALF-PAST SIX on a Friday evening in January, Lincoln International Airport, Illinois, was functioning, though with difficulty

The airport was reeling–as was the entire Midwestern United States–frohest winter storm in half a dozen years The storm had lasted three days Now, like pustules on a battered, weakened body, trouble spots were erupting steadily

A United Air Lines food truck, loaded with two hundred dinners, was lost and presumably snowbound somewhere on the airport peri snow and darkness–had so far failed to locate either thevehicle or its driver

United’s Flight 111–a non-stop DC-8 for Los Angeles, which the food truck was to service–was already several hours behind schedule The food snafu wouldreasons, were affecting at least a hundred flights of twenty other airlines using Lincoln International

Out on the airfield, runway three zero was out of use, blocked by an Aéreo-Mexican jet–a Boeing 707–its wheels deeply round beneath snow, near the runway’s edge Two hours of intensive effort had failed to get the big jetexhausted its own local resources, had appealed to TWA for help

Air Traffic Control, hampered by the loss of runway three zero, had instituted flow control procedures, li air route centers at Minneapolis, Cleveland, Kansas City, Indianapolis, and Denver Despite this, twenty inco, soround, twice that nuhts in the air could be reduced, ATC had ordered further delays of outbound traffic Meanwhile, ter areas were increasingly cra

Air freight warehouses–of all airlines–were stacked to their palletized lih speed transit iht supervisors were nervously watching perishables–hothouse flowers froland; a ton of Pennsylvania cheese for Anchorage, Alaska; frozen peas for Iceland; live lobsters–trans-shipped froht–destination Europe The lobsters were for toh and Paris where they would be billed as “fresh local seafood,” and Aly Storht perishables must arrive at destination fresh, and swiftly

Causing special anxiety in Aht was a shipment of several thousand turkey poults, hatched in incubators only hours earlier The precise hatching-shipping schedule–like a coo, before the turkey eggs were laid It called for delivery of the live birds on the West Coast within forty-eight hours of birth, the limit of the tiny creatures’ existence without their first food or water Norenificant also–if the poults were fed en route, they would stink, and so would the airplane conveying them, for days afterward Already the poults’ schedule was out of joint by several hours But an airplane had been diverted fro turkeys would have priority over everything else traveling, human VIPs included

In theareas were jaers froe, in piles, was everywhere The vast main concourse had the coe and Christmas Eve at Macy’s

High on the teran, LINCOLN INTERNATIONAL - AVIATION CROSSROADS OF THE WORLD, was entirely obscured by drifting snow

The wonder was, Mel Bakersfeld reflected, that anything was continuing to operate at all

Mel, airport general y–was standing by the Snow Control Desk, high in the control tower He peered out into the darkness Norlass-walled room, the entire airport coround and air–was visible like neatly aligned building blocks and ht their shapes and hts Only one loftier view existed–that of Air Traffic Control which occupied the two floors above

But tonight only a faint blur of a few nearer lights penetrated the almost-opaque curtain of wind-driven snow Mel suspected this would be a winter to be discussed at ists’ conventions for years to come

The present storo in the lee of the Colorado er than a foothills homestead, and most forecasters on their air route weather charts had either failed to notice, or ignored it As if in resentiantfirst southeast, then north

It crossed Kansas and Oklaho assorted nastiness Next day, fat and monstrous, it rumbled up the Mississippi Valley Finally, over Illinois the stor the state with blizzard winds, freezing temperatures, and a ten-inch snowfall in twenty-four hours

At the airport, the ten-inch snow had been preceded by a continuous, if so followed by more snohipped by vicious winds which piled new drifts–at the sa the old Maintenance snoere nearing exhaustion Within the past few hours several ued despite their inter quarters provided at the airport for just this kind of eency