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aviation history

Miracle on Scituate Reservoir: The Pilgrim Airlines Fiery Emergency Landing

Pilgrim Airlines Flight 458, a regional commuter airline founded in 1962, left LaGuardia airport bound eventually for Boston on what should have been a routine flight. It made three stops in Connecticut: Bridgeport, New Haven and Groton.

It was February 21, 1982. The fight would be routine until the last leg of the trip.

Flight 458 was a de Havilland Twin Otter 10-passenger plane with two pilots. In Groton, a fresh cockpit crew took over, Capt. Thomas N. Prinster, 36, and First Officer Lyle W. Hogg, 27. They took off from Groton at 3:10 p.m. and climbed to 4000 feet.

Twin Otter

Trouble For Pilgrim Airlines 458

Prinster noticed ice forming on the windshield about 15 minutes into the flight. He knew, as all pilots do, that icing can have catastrophic results. Even an eighth of an inch of ice can disrupt the airflow over the wings, making an airplane unflyable.

Prinster routinely activated the de-icing system. Soon thereafter, he and Hogg noticed what seemed like gray smoke coming from under the control panel. They also realized the de-icer also didn’t work because it didn’t clear the windshield. The pilots soon realized they had a fire on board.

Prinster immediately contacted T.F. Green Airport in Warwick, R.I., requesting clearance for an emergency landing. Fire crash crews would await Pilgrim Airlines Flight 458 at the airport.

Tom Prinster in 1983

Now the gray smoke turned black and thick. The pilots could neither see out of the windshield nor see their control panel. They smelled a strong scent of isopropyl alcohol, which operated the de-icing system. The alcohol was spraying into electronics system, setting it ablaze.

The pilots opened their windows to try to vent the smoke, grab a breath of air and get their bearings. By now black smoke was seeping back to the passenger cabin. That caused one of the passengers to come to the cockpit. Seeing open flames under the control panel, he tried to swat them out with his coat — to no avail. Returning to the passenger cabin he tried to break open a window to vent the now-almost-smothering smoke. Again he failed.

Scituate Reservoir

The pilots realized that they had no hope of reaching Green Airport. They had to find someplace for a forced landing if they were to have any chance of survival. Out the side windows their heads went searching for some semi-safe place they could try to land. Their faces froze while their pants and clothing burned. Yes, they were actually on fire, but to abandon the controls was sure death.

Scituate Reservoir. Image courtesy Google Maps.

Flying blind, they desperately searched for someplace to try and set down.

Dropping to 1,400 feet, Prinster spotted what would turn out to be the snow-covered and hopefully frozen Scituate Reservoir. Would it hold them? Did they have any choice?

Prinster set about setting the twin turbo prop down on the reservoir in the midst of a cockpit inferno. As they touched down in the snow on the ice the port main gear collapsed and the starboard wing sheared off. The tail section also went, taking with it a female passenger, later found dead still strapped in her seat.

Survivors of Pilgrim Airlines 458

The fire was so intense it melted the earphones on the pilots heads, and when they went to escape they door was welded shut from the intense heat. Prinster had to make his escape through the side pilot’s window, and that was no mean feat for the 6′ 4″ captain. It was an amazing accomplishment getting the plane down in a fire like that with the loss of only one life.

Despite their extensive burns, the pilots led their surviving passengers to shore. Soon rescue personnel arrived on the scene and took Hogg and Prinster to Rhode Island Hospital. The captain was in critical condition with burns over 50 percent to 70 percent of his body. He lived, though, until passing away in 2018 with, as he said, a 70 percent reupholstered body.

Honors

In recognition of their astounding feat the pilots went to the White House to meet President Reagan. They received awarded the Rhode Island Life Saving Medal by Gov. Joseph Garrahy.

Lyle Hogg in 2015. He became president of Piedmont Airlines. Photo courtesy PR Newswire.

They were inducted into Rhode Island Aviation Hall of Fame and received the Flight Safety Heroism Award. Prinster received the Lt. General Harold L. George Civilian Airmanship Award by the Order of Daedalians.

Today a memorial commemorates their heroism at the Prinster-Hogg Park in Scituate, R.I.

Leo Caisse, the author of this story, passed away in 2020. He published the book, The Civilian Conservation Corps: A Guide to Their Works in Rhode Island. He also published a number of historical articles, including Ears On the World in America in World War II Magazine, October, 2017. Leo earned a B.A. and M.A. in American History from Providence College and he lived in East Providence, R.I. This story was updated in 2024.

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Paul Schill Aims for the Skies in his Gull Wing Aircraft

In 1908, Paul Schill notched a land speed record with his Fiat at the racing strip in Wildwood, N.J. When the time came to defend the record the following year, however, the daredevil driver had abandoned his love of automobiles for a new passion: airplanes.

If travelling at breakneck speeds across the New Jersey shoreline was fun, Schill figured, soaring over the earth in a plane must surely be ecstasy. Once Schill learned of Orville and Wilbur Wright’s successful flight in North Carolina he turned his attention to flying.

Paul Schill

Schill’s first invention to attract attention was an 80-horsepower V-8 engine he designed to be lightweight and powerful for use in airplanes in 1912. He exhibited the plane’s power by racing up and down New York’s Hudson River, circling the Statue of Liberty.

Schill travelled to Europe in search of ever faster planes to fly, including with the early German air force. But then the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I, forced the German government to destroy all its planes. Schill then returned to the United States to promote air travel.

He discovered a level patch of ground in Milton, Vt., With backing from one of Vermont’s leading businessmen, Alfred Heininger, Vermont Air Transport Co. was founded. Its purpose: to develop experimental aircraft, with Schill as its leader.

The Handley Page Gugnunc, another competitor for the Guggenheim air safety prize.

Schill used air shows to promote flying. He flew into Burlington in 1923 to celebrate the city’s 150^th birthday. Following Vermont’s disastrous flood of 1927, Schill and other pilots delivered food from planes to people isolated by the flood. The dramatic food drops underscored the practical importance of airplanes.

Flying High

One of Schill’s techniques was making the most of a plane’s fuel by travelling high aloft and then gliding toward the ground. Then he’d restart and repeat the glide.

In 1927, to promote flying, Schill flew a small wedding party and a Congregational minister aloft. Eight minutes later they returned to the ground. The first midair wedding had been performed.

In 1928, Schill became consumed with winning the Guggenheim Safe Aircraft Competition. The rules were strict. A plane had to lift off using 500 feet of runway, pass over a 35-foot obstacle, demonstrate the ability to fly stably without pilot intervention, glide at a slow, safe speed and land in less than 300 feet.

Schill designed his “Gull Wing” plane to meet the standards laid out by Guggenheim competition. A small, silver plane with dual cockpits, the Gull Wing was highly maneuverable. It could come to a virtual standstill in the air before moving quickly forward. Early trials in New Jersey were promising. You can see a video of the plane here:

Back to Vermont

Schill returned to Vermont and his backers decided another trial was needed. This one in secret, so that the others competing for the prize could not steal the design of the Gull Wing. The $100,000 prize offered by philanthropist Daniel Guggenheim for the safety contest had attracted dozens of fierce competitors who weren’t above ‘borrowing’ ideas from each other.

Eventually, 15 planes would compete for the Guggenheim prize, but Gull Wing was not among them. Schill and his backers took the Gull Wing to St. Albans for a secret test. Schill took the little plane aloft and put it through its paces. However, the linkage in the tail section of the plane malfunctioned, and it was all Schill could do to bring the plane down.

Slamming into the ground, its nose gouging into the soil, the Gull Wing was destroyed. Schill suffered broken ribs and a broken leg. He shipped to the South to recuperate and the dreams of the Guggenheim prize died.

The accident and the Great Depression would end the Vermont Transport Co.’s hopes of becoming a major aircraft company. Burlington became the focal point of aviation in Vermont, and Schill would end his career as a flight instructor.

This story was updated in 2022.

Images: Seagull By Alan D. Wilson, www.naturespicsonline.com – http://www.naturespicsonline.com/ (higher resolution version obtained in correspondence with website owner), CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1214883.

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Charles Keeney Hamilton – Connecticut’s ‘Crazy Man of the Air’

In 1910, two newspapers, one in New York and the other in Philadelphia, put up a prize of $10,000 for the first pilot who could fly from one city to the other and back. Charles Keeney Hamilton, one of the most famous stunt pilots of the day, won it.

Charles K. Hamilton

It was probably the most notable prize of Hamilton’s career, but what he was best known for was crashing.

Hamilton, by some estimates, crashed as many as 60 times over his 11-year flying career. He broke most of his bones and often gave the doctors who put him back together a good challenge.

Yet time and again he would head back to whatever plane was handy and go back to the flying.

Charles Keeney Hamilton

Born in 1885 in New Britain, Conn., Hamilton took to flying at an early age, first in lighter-than-air dirigibles, balloons, kites and blimps. But he soon realized that heavier-than-air flying machines were capturing the public’s fascination. The air shows of Europe offered crowds thrilling races and competitions such as slow-flying or quick take-offs.

Hamilton signed on with early aviator Glenn Curtiss as part of Curtiss’ stunt-flying show, and he leased a plane from Curtiss. The two parted ways over a dispute over the lease payments on the plane and how big a share of his winnings Hamilton should pay Curtiss.

Hamilton replaced the Curtiss with his own custom-made plane, a 110-horsepower crate he called the Hamiltonian. He traveled from one end of the country to the other, sometimes joining in air shows and other times doing solo demonstrations.

Charles K. Hamilton in his Hamiltonian.

In 1909 and 1910, crowds were thrilled by the air shows, but very quickly the novelty of watching a plane fly wore off. The aviators had to add spice to their shows, and Hamilton proved masterful. He would push his plane high into the air and then, giving the appearance that his engine had cut out. The he dove toward the ground while the crowds shrieked.

Then, with polished timing, he would pull the craft out of the dive to everyone’s relief. At least, that’s what was supposed to happen. On occasion, Hamilton would miscalculate or his engine would fail during a show, and his plane would land in a heap.

Hamilton was also known as a heavy drinker (and chain smoker) who sometimes flew under the influence. That added an element of danger to the airshows as planes raced each other or sometimes automobiles.

Charles K. Hamilton racing against an automobile on a beach in Galveston, Texas.

Bird Men

Crashes were not the brutal and explosive events of modern times, but they were no picnic. The pilot was often battered by pieces of the plane’s fuselage, scalded by radiator fluid or just smashed into the ground.

Still, the daring aviators, known as ‘Bird men,’ were the stars of their day. Hamilton was branded “The Crazy Man of the Air” for his fearless flying, which once landed him in a lake in Washington state in front of an awestruck crowd.

He received a hero’s welcome in 1910 when he returned to New Britain, Conn. There he gave New Englanders their first demonstration of an airplane.

In total, Hamilton earned a quarter of a million dollars with his stunt flying by the end of 1913, but he kept very little of it. In January of 1914, the inevitable happened. Charles K. Hamilton died. Not in an airplane, but from tuberculosis.

If you enjoyed this story, you might want to read about Ruth Law here, or New Hampshire’s Bob Fogg here. This story updated in 2022.

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