You still think I’m lying, huh. Well guess what, you better start calling me a truther and here’s the story to prove it:
Let me familiarize you guys with the passengers aboard the miracle flight. The “59-60” Los Angeles Lakers weren’t actually the Los Angeles Lakers; they were the Minneapolis Lakers. Yea, this is back in the day of the 8-team league, the NBA was shorter, slower, and considerably less racially diverse. The Minneapolis Lakers were a year away from drafting “The Logo”, Mr. Jerry West, and two years removed from going to the NBA Finals. Oh yea, by the way they currently rostered Hall of Famer and 8-time NBA finalists Elgin Baylor. The 59-60 Lakers featured an assortment of the most “sixties styled” names I’ve ever heard. I’m talking guys by the name of Slick Leonard, Boo Ellis, Dick Garmaker, Rudy LaRusso, and this one’s my favorite, HOT ROD HUNDLEY. Oh, it’s so beautiful I’m gonna cry. Now that we’re all friendly and all knowing of our talented pals on the Minneapolis Lakers, it’s time to envision that day on January 18, 1960.
The Minneapolis Lakers had just suffered a loss to the St. Louis Hawks in the early afternoon. Per usual the Lakers were on their way to fly back home to Minneapolis that day in their DC-3 charter airplane. Ten minutes into the flight, BAM, the generator goes down. Just that quick, the heat, radio, navigation and lights are gone. Now pause and think how extremely difficult it is to fly a plane without the ability to see, contact airports, AND SIMPLY NAVIGATE. Here’s another crazy part, with no heat these pilots are opening the cockpit window and scrapping of snow and ice, because oh well of course they encountered their “troubles’ in a January Midwestern blizzard. WOW.
This plane is being flown via light of the moon and stars, with manual defrost and no communication. A normalized two-hour flight had soon turned into a strayed plane in nightmarish flying conditions vying for survival. Before they knew it, they were above Iowa and it’s god-blessed soil with only 30 minutes of gas left. Now by this point, Iowa had been coated in at least four inches of white, powdery freshly placed snow. The pilots decide it’s time to descend and from across the sky they spot a water tower with the print of Carrol, Iowa across the surface. The pilots fly for 2-3 miles attempting to land in a deserted cornfield, but all of the powerlines that stretch across the flat, god-blessed land provided no landing opportunities as of now. Before you knew it, Carrol, Iowa had noticed the low-flying 65-foot charter plane. They had police cars and firetrucks following the airplane along their country roads.
Finally, these amazing pilots land the plane in an open cornfield, upon just enough snow and soil for a safe landing. Not only did these pilots endure every possible diabolical complication a plane could handle, but they landed it without a single one of the 23 passengers suffering an injury.
This Article was written by PeteyT. To contact Pete, email digitalzsports@gmail.com