Vintage Boeing plane fished from bay

Associated Press

SEATTLE — A historic Boeing airplane that spent 24 hours dunked in Puget Sound was rinsed off Saturday, examined by federal investigators and was expected to be returned to a hangar near Boeing Field where it was originally restored.

The Boeing 307 Stratoliner was drenched in fresh water — followed by a preservative solution — Friday night and early Saturday to stop saltwater corrosion, Boeing spokeswoman Liz Verdier said.

The work was done at a commercial pier on Seattle’s Duwamish River a few miles from where a test pilot ditched the plane in Elliott Bay Thursday in front of a lunchtime crowd at a waterfront restaurant. On Friday, the plane was hoisted out of the water and loaded onto a barge.

Crews expected to transfer the plane late Saturday to a Boeing hangar nearby, Verdier said.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether the 1940s-era plane, meticulously restored by a small group of Boeing employees and retirees in the 1990s, would be returned to its former glory.

Damage to one propeller could be seen from shore on Friday, as the plane sat atop a barge awaiting transport. Verdier said she did not know the extent of damage.

"We need to get it recovered and then assess the damage and see what we can do," Verdier said.

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board examined the plane as they probed Thursday’s crash landing. Although the NTSB had legal control of the plane, it allowed the aircraft to be rinsed to prevent further damage, Verdier said.

Craig O’Neill, a spokesman for the Museum of Flight in Seattle, said the cold-water plunge does not necessarily spell doom for the historic plane, as long as someone is willing to spend the money and time to restore it again.

"Obviously, it’s going to take thousands of man-hours and lots and lots of money to get it back in shape," O’Neill told The News Tribune of Tacoma.

"A couple of days in the bay is not a good thing by any means. But it’s not as disastrous as it might appear," he said.

Still, because the plane is made of aluminum, just pulling it out of the water could do some damage, O’Neill said.

Owned by the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, the plane was destined to be placed on display in December 2003 at a new museum at Washington Dulles Airport.

While pleased to hear the plane had not suffered extensive structural damage, Smithsonian spokesman Peter Golkin said the museum might not expect the plane to be mechanically restored for flight.

"We have no plans, once it gets here, for it to ever fly anywhere again," Golkin told a Seattle newspaper.

Others have voiced hope that it will, indeed, fly again someday.

The Clipper Flying Cloud was the last of the S-307 Stratoliners and once served as the presidential aircraft of the late Haitian dictator Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, Smithsonian spokeswoman Claire Brown said.

The Stratoliner was the first commercial plane with a pressurized cabin, allowing it to fly at 20,000 feet, higher than its competitors. This plane was first delivered to Pan American Airways in 1940. The U.S. Air Transport Command flew it in South America during World War II, returning it to Pan Am in 1946. A Smithsonian curator spotted it in 1969 in Arizona and saved it for posterity.

Before Thursday’s accident, the restored plane had flown most recently last summer, Debra Eckrote of the National Transportation Safety Board said Friday.

Eckrote said the plane lost all four engines somewhere between 1,200 and 1,500 feet as it approached Boeing Field in Seattle. She praised the crew for "an excellent job" of ditching the plane. All four people on board escaped unharmed.

The plane was piloted by veteran Boeing test pilot Richard "Buzz" Nelson, 60, of Seattle. Also on board were Boeing test pilot Mike Carriker and Boeing flight test manager Mark Kempton. Kempton headed the plane restoration effort.