Flight 377: Lost In The Skies Poem by Paula Glynn

Boeing 377: an airplane lost
No matter the years spent searching
Its location undiscovered
Thinking it lost over the Pacific Ocean
In spite of the pilot's intelligence and devotion
Disappearing from its radar
A commercial flight
Gone to the unknown in the night

For the official search terminated
The wreckage never found
The 20th century private
Commercial to cargo aircraft
Not up to the standard of today
Knowing to rely on the technology
Rather than to hope, wish and pray
For it isn't luck needed:
It is competence and integrity

The Boeing 377 Stratocruiser
November 8 1957
Last contact with aircraft
To be routine radio transmission
Between the pilot and a US coast guard
Performing radar surveillance duty
At Ocean Station November
Between the locations
Of mainland and the island of Oahu
The type of incident unknown
An airplane lost in the skies

Many theories about:
Due to the fact there were
Hull-loss accidents
Between 1951 and 1970
An aircraft unreliable and dangerous
Even though it most advanced
And capable of propeller driven transports
And also the having been of the most luxurious
But yet troubled by reliability
And maintenance costs
Because of such errors lives to be lost

Pan Am flight, a Stratocruiser 10-29
Named Clipper Romance Of The Skies
To leave San Francisco for Hawaii
There having been 38 passengers and 6 crew
Looking out that window view
No awareness of what shall happen
To the passengers and crew
The 377 to crash in the Pacific Ocean
There having been no survivors
The entire wreckage never found

Theories being two passengers
Reason to bring down the airplane:
One man- Eugene Crosthwaite
A 46 year old purser
Cutting his step daughter from his will
And having shown blasting powder
To a relative prior to the flight
Perhaps he the one that did kill
By taking down the airplane
Maybe the only one to blame

The other suspect William Payne
An ex navy demolitions expert
With large insurance policies on himself
And a $10,000 debt
Desperate to pay off
His wife receiving $125,000 in payouts
Another suspect in sight

These theories circling the globe
Every aircraft facing the unknown
The future that was the sky
Air disasters with many theories
As to what happened and why
But those old planes that did fly
Put everyone in danger
The technology poor
Compared to our advanced aviation
To our computers and experts
That monitor and track the sky
And protect all who board the planes that fly.