By George Brosky
This is a true-life experience I had while on a business trip to Kalaupapa, Molokai, 50 years ago. I worked as a drug detailman calling upon doctors to inform them how to use the latest company drug. To go to Kalaupapa, you had to fly on a small two-engine Beechcraft plane since the airstrip in Kalaupapa was so small.
That day in Honolulu, we loaded three adults, one was the medical secretary for the lone doctor, her cat and her large harp. The pilot, the late Emmet Kay, invited me to take the co-pilot seat. The lady, cat, harp, eggs, mail, etc. were behind us.
In my earphones, the control tower gave us the cleared to take off and fly at 5,000 feet. The pilot gunned the engines and we started climbing. After 10 minutes, the woman started screaming, “We are going to crash.” The cat sensed the fear and started screaming and jumping all over the cockpit. The pilot yelled at me, “Brosky, grab that darn cat!” The woman began screaming louder, “We are going to crash.” The cat squealed louder. We finally leveled off at 5,000 feet.
What happened next was terrifying. The cat bit the pilot and he released his grip on the controls. We started to go into a nose dive. Now she screamed more. The pilot yelled at me, “Brosky, do something.” I reached in my drug sample case and pulled out the syringe loaded with a tranquilizer. I caught the cat and gave it a shot in the rear end.
The pilot regained control at around 100 feet and we glided the rest of the way into Kalaupapa. Upon landing, the pilot told the lady, “Don’t you ever fly with me again.” With my knees still shaking, I looked up and said, “Thank you Jesus, for this miracle.”
Brosky is a parishioner at St. Ann, Kaneohe.
