Tiger in the Sea

September 1962: On a moonless night over the raging Atlantic Ocean, a thousand miles from land, the engines of Flying Tiger flight 923 to Germany burst into flames, one by one. Pilot John Murray didn't have long before the plane crashed headlong into the twenty-foot waves at 120 mph.

As the four flight attendants donned life vests, collected sharp objects, and explained how to brace for the ferocious impact, sixty-eight passengers clung to their seats. They all expected to die.

Murray radioed out "Mayday" as he attempted to fly down through gale-force winds into the rough water, hoping the plane didn't break apart when it hit the sea.

Only a handful of ships could pick up the distress call so far from land. Dozens of other ships and planes from nine countries abruptly changed course or scrambled from Canada, Iceland, Ireland, Scotland, and Cornwall, all racing to the rescue—but they would take hours, or days, to arrive.

Could Murray do what no pilot had ever done—"land" a commercial airliner at night in a violent sea without everyone dying? And if he did, would rescuers find any survivors before they drowned or died from hypothermia in the icy water?