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During World War II, Captain Dooley, a commercial airline
pilot serving in the Army Air Transport, experiences bad weather
conditions during a flight. Unable to get his bearings, he crash
lands the four-engine Corsair on a frozen lake in an uncharted area of
Labrador. Dooley takes stock during the night, as the temperature
drops to seventy below, noting that he and his crew have thirty gallons
of gas left to run the generator and six days of rations.
Realizing that panic and brutal temperatures may diminish their mental
clarity, Dooley prepares to keep up his men’s morale.
Miles away, on Presque Island, Maine, Army Col. Fuller
calls in all available pilots for a search and rescue operation, and
news of Dooley’s predicament brings many volunteers from the close-knit
fraternity of pilots, including Dooley’s friend Moon. However, bad
weather conditions and poor visibility hinder the team’s efforts.
In the days that pass, temperatures at the crash site
rise no higher than forty below zero. D’Annunzia, Dooley’s
radioman, nurses the Corsair’s dying generator. After he reports
that the generator has little power left to transmit messages for help,
the young navigator, Murray, and engineer Stankowski take turns cranking
a hand-operated generator, which provides only a weak signal.
Although the rescue team receives a transmission from Dooley’s crew,
they are unable to make out the stranded crew’s bearings.
On the ground, Dooley and his men prepare for a brutal
storm, and not until evening does Dooley realize that co-pilot Lovatt
has slipped away alone, against direct orders, to hunt for game.
Dooley and the men search for Lovatt, but find it difficult to maintain
a sense of direction in the falling snow and darkness. They call
out and shoot into the air to give him a sound to follow, but Lovatt has
already succumbed to the bitter cold, hallucinating that he is riding a
carousel with his girlfriend, which is across a fairway from a shooting
gallery. In reality, Lovatt is wandering circles through the snow
and finally drops; the next day Dooley and the crew find his body
several yards from the aircraft.
As they bury Lovatt, rescue planes pass over, but fail to
see them. However, Moon, who is piloting one of the planes, senses
that the downed crewmen are near and has his radioman telegraph a
message in Morse code, suggesting that Dooley build a large fire to mark
his location. Dooley’s men get the message and prepare a bonfire
with what they can find, but their attempts to radio Moon fail.
As night approaches and an ice storm makes flying
hazardous, the rescue team returns reluctantly to Presque Island, again
passing over the stranded men below. Aware that a low pressure
weather system is forming and will soon halt the search for several
days, Fuller and the flyers debate whether to use the time they have
left to search in a new area or return to areas they have already flown
over. After Moon convinces them to re-comb previously explored
areas, Fuller orders a night search and the pilots return to the skies
for a last-ditch effort to save their colleagues.
In the air, they retrieve a weak radio message from
Dooley, asking the planes to "return to the same place," and they
attempt to retrace their previous search flights. Unaware that his
message has been received, Dooley, who hides the panic he feels, has the
men crank the generator to transmit radio signals and shoots flares and
pistols. Eventually, his activities are spotted by the searchers,
who are nearly out of gas after flying all night. After dropping
off emergency supplies and a note promising that ski planes will be sent
to rescue them, the search planes return to Presque Isle. |
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