Company people met each of us when our flights arrived, and took us to the Remington hospitality suite in a Washington hotel. Remington had invited the usual crowd of gun writers to Washington, DC, for the 1979 new-products seminar and waterfowl shooting at Remington Farms. Elmer and I spent the afternoon of the next day alone together, talking, and he told me more about the incident than he’d told us a day earlier, but recent events overseas made me guess wrong about the source of the “fire” on that American Airlines 727. Not until more than sixteen years later, long after my old friend’s death, would any of us learn the rest of the story. Sooner or later, Elmer would be back to normal under the shade of that familiar and reassuring Stetson brim. Somewhere along the way, someone with American Airlines had told the passengers that their luggage and effects (any that hadn’t burnt, presumably) would be delivered to them as soon as possible, wherever they would be. But Elmer, who could calmly face any number of oncoming lions, buffalo, rhino, or elephant, was scared spitless of doctors, nurses, and hospitals. The captain had rushed aft, telling everyone to forget everything in the overhead compartments and “just get out!” Elmer’s briefcase was in his lap, his big Stetson stashed overhead out of reach.Īirport medics had set up arrangements to take care of passengers who needed attention. When the Boeing 727 stopped rolling, Elmer said, the smoke was so thick that he could barely see the opposite side of the passenger cabin. The captain had announced that there was a problem and that instead of flying on to Washington’s National Airport, he would make an emergency landing at Dulles International Airport. He said that as his flight out of Chicago was climbing to cruise altitude, the passenger cabin had begun to fill with smoke. Clearly, something dramatic and probably catastrophic had occurred.Įlmer’s eyes were still wide with alarm, and his clothes smelled of smoke. But here he was, dressed in a suit and carrying his briefcase, but bareheaded. There were even a few who were convinced that his big Stetson was permanently grafted to his scalp. Not even we who’d known Elmer for a quarter of a century or more had ever seen him away from home without his famous Stetson. “Elmer! Where’s your hat? What happened?”Įlmer Keith bareheaded in public was a rare sight.
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