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Engineers await Stratoliner's fate
National Transportation Safety Board investigates historic plane's crash into bay
Tuesday, April 2, 2002
By GORDY HOLT
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
These are retired aircraft engineers.
So as they await word on the fate of "their" Boeing Model 307 Stratoliner, they are doing what retired aircraft engineers do: They are telling stories.
"Most of us, you know, were disappointed about the crash," Dean Quigley said. "But we're also anxious to get back and do it all over again."
A Mercer Island resident and retired Boeing Co., engineer, Quigley is among the 30 artisans who restored the old airplane to its primal glory -- only to watch it sink into the water off a West Seattle beach last week.
The craft was the first commercial plane in the world to offer a pressurized cabin to fly passengers above 20,000 feet.
Of the 10 ever built, the "Clipper Flying Cloud" is the only survivor. It was bought in 1969 by the Smithsonian Institution and brought to Seattle when Boeing agreed to pay for its restoration -- a six-year process.
It was ultimately bound for the Smithsonian's new National Air and Space Museum at Dulles International Airport.
But on a flight from Boeing Field to Everett and back Thursday, it splashed down into Elliott Bay and sank when its four engines lost power during the return trip.
Over the weekend, the Clipper Flying Cloud was raised by crane, placed aboard mattresses on a barge and floated up the Duwamish Waterway back to Boeing's Plant 2.
That's where it was christened and handed off to Pan American Airlines more than 60 years ago and where it regained its old polished self just a year ago.
It was flown to an air show in Oshkosh, Wis., last summer and was flown last week to qualify it for a trip there again this year.
But if it is to rise yet again, Boeing spokesman Tom Brabant said, that decision won't come any time soon.
The crash is being investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board.
"A lot of questions are yet to be answered," he said, "so right now, we're just sitting tight."
Quigley and his colleagues, meanwhile, are anticipating the call to retool.
As painful as their wait will be, Quigley expects the work to progress with less frustration than the earlier effort.
"For one thing, we ought to be smarter this time," he said. "The first time around a lot was spent digging up old drawings and trying to figure out what they really did back in 1939.
"Nowadays, of course, they use computers with accuracy down to thousandths of a inch. Even with the drawings we had back on the 707, you got it down to those levels.
"But when you look at the drawings they had for the 307, the closest you'd maybe find was down to a quarter-inch," he said. "Then the drawing would say 'adjust on installation.'
"Which meant once you made a part, you never knew it would fit until you took it up and tried it out."
P-I reporter Gordy Holt can be reached at 425-497-0907 or gordyholt@seattlepi.com
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