1941: Luxury Airliner Becomes Explorer After World War II Breaks Out
On December 7, 1941, Pan American Boeing 314 flying boat Pacific Clipper was two hours out of Auckland, New Zealand, when it received a message about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The crew couldn't fly back to San Francisco, so Captain Robert Ford took the plane westward around the world, becoming the first commercial airliner ever to circle the globe.
The crew had no proper charts or fuel for this route and had to improvise. They filled the tanks with 76-octane automobile petrol in Surabaya and hand-pumped fuel from cans at Darwin. Near Ceylon, they descended through cloud straight over a surfaced Japanese submarine, which fired a shot and missed.
After five weeks of improvisation, the Pacific Clipper landed safely at LaGuardia Airport in New York on January 6, 1942, covering approximately 31,500 miles. Captain Ford radioed to announce their arrival with the calmness of a man arriving late for work: 'Pacific Clipper, inbound from Auckland, New Zealand, Captain Ford reporting. Due arrive Pan American Marine Terminal LaGuardia seven minutes.'