Cocaine & Salmon Airways: Sept. 20,2023

Cocaine & Salmon Airways, Sept. 20th, 2023

Back in the 1980s, I was a seaplane mechanic at Kenmore Air Harbor. My foreman, Mac, often took jobs on the side to make extra money.

One Friday at work, Mac asked me if I’d like to drive up to Arlington Airport. He was going to deliver a magneto for a friend who owned a DC-4.

I’d always wanted to see a DC-4 up close. The DC-4 was powered by four Pratt & Whitney 2000 twin-row radial engines of 14 cylinders apiece.

On Saturday I met Mac at KAH and from there we drove up Interstate 5 to the Arlington Airport. Mac drove his truck up to a hangar. The hangar doors were open. It was a beautiful sunny August afternoon.

The DC-4 was in the hangar. All of the engine cowlings were off and two mechanics in very oily white coveralls were on ladders working on the engines. The engines take a lot of maintenance and leak a lot of oil. Just cleaning the spark plugs takes a lot of time. There are 152 spark plugs in all on the engines.

As soon as Mac and I walked into the hangar we heard a shout.

“Mac! How ya been!”

I saw a man about Mac’s height (5’5”) with long black hair on the upper balcony at the back of the hangar.

“I’ll be right down!” He shouted.

Gus, I’ll call him Gus, came down the steps into the hangar with his girlfriend Molly. She also was about 5’5” tall, black hair, and had tattoos. Tattoos weren’t that common in 1985. (I think this was 1985).

Mac handed Gus the rebuilt magneto and Gus sent Molly to go get Mac a check.

Mac asked, “Do you mind if we tour the DC-4?”

Gus, “Help yourself. Just climb the ladder into the tail door.”

So Mac and I climbed the ladder into the tail of the fuselage.

Oh, Lord! The smell hit us like a brick. In the cabin were about 20 white bins full of salmon blood and guts. We walked up the aisle to the cockpit.

The cockpit was cool. The four throttles for the engines and four controls for the fuel mixture in the carburetors. There were decals on the dash. It was a pirate’s cockpit.

On the drive back south on I-5 I asked about Gus and the DC-4.

Mac, “Gus has an interesting business. He flies up to Bristol Bay and lands on the beach. He picks up salmon from the fishermen and flies them back here to Arlington. The fish are then distributed around the Puget Sound area.”

Me, “Flying onto a beach in a DC-4 is crazy! And he must be heavy as hell when he takes off with all that fish and ice.”

Mac, “Oh, Gus is crazy for sure. Of course, it helps that he takes a white powder cargo up north for extra money, and no doubt he samples some of it himself.”

Now, it made sense. The fishermen on Bristol Bay keep crazy hours. They have to. The fishery is only open so long and the boats have to be hauling in fish 24/7 for days in a row. The magic white powder helps the fishermen stay awake.

Mac, “Gus also flies up some Mary Jane but the salmon smell puts off some of the customers.”

…

A month later it was late September and the rains had returned to Puget Sound and the Pacific NW. I lived in a townhouse just over the ridge in eastern Edmonds, WA above Puget Sound. I slept on the second floor.

The rain was pouring down when I went to bed at about Midnight. At 2 a.m. I was awoken by a huge racket. A DC-4 was flying over my townhouse at very low altitude. It sounded like it was coming into my bedroom.

I went out onto the balcony and saw a plane going through the lower cloud cover only 20’ above the treetops. The elevation of the ridge was about 500’. Add in fir trees 250’ high and the DC-4 was flying at about 800’. That’s crazy!

The DC-4 continued east a few miles, found I-5, and followed it north to the Arlington Airport.

The following weekend I read in the paper that a drug dealer and his airplane had been arrested at Arlington Airport. That Monday, I asked Mac about it.
Me, “Mac, was that Gus who got arrested at Arlington Airport?” (I told him about my close encounter on that rainy night with the DC-4).

Mac, “Yeah. When Gus landed the DC-4 in the pouring rain at Arlington, the Feds were waiting for him. The Sheriff was waiting for him. Hell, every cop in the area was there.”

Me, “What happened to the salmon on the plane?”

Mac, “My guess is that the cops took the salmon they wanted home to their freezers. Not sure what they did with the rest. I’m sure the Feds wanted to keep the DC-4.”

I tried to find out what happened to the salmon, the DC-4, and Gus but got nowhere.

TJM