OPERATION MAGIC CARPET LICENSE
"I lost my pilot's license a year and a half after I returned because of health reasons," he said. While the operation was successful it took a toll on Maguire. We would fill up there with enough to go pick up our passengers in Aden, fly them to Israel and then return." Israel didn't have enough, we had to buy it from the British in Asmara. "I wouldn't have been able to fly more than 90 hours a month back home and fuel was a big problem. "I was flying between 270 and 300 hours a month," Maguire said. "But remember, the environment was tense and time was of the essence." Maintenance was difficult and planes flew well beyond their scheduled service intervals” Maguire said.
“In addition, pilots flew much longer than would have been allowed in the U.S. "People from our government came over and saw that this was an emergency situation and allowed us to set up an operation that would move the people," Maguire said. The DC-4s, licensed to carry 60 passengers, were instead flying with 150 Yemenite Jews. aviation rules."Įpstein noted that C-46 aircraft were carrying 76 passengers per trip - nearly 30 more than licensed for based on the average passenger weight and the number of aircraft exits. "Moving that many people under those conditions required an operation that would have been illegal under U.S. "There were high death tolls in the refugee camps and they were having trouble with the Arabic population" Maguire said in a recent phone interview from his home in Ventura, California. But because the demand was so great, additional pilots (such as Epstein) and planes were brought on. Originally, the operation used only Alaska Airlines planes and crews. The combination of business and flying experience was the reason I was asked to start Operation Magic Carpet."
"I had worked with Jim and had business experience that the other pilots didn't. "I had just come back from Asia where we had started a charter operation with the government to take civilians into Japan," Maguire said. Maguire, an Alaska Airlines pilot with management experience, was sent to the Middle East near the end of 1948 by company President James Wooten to start-up Alaska's participation in Operation Magic Carpet. The British-who controlled Aden as a colony-were putting pressure on us to get the airplanes turned around and get the refugees out of there." "There was rioting in Yemen over the concentration of Jews. "There was an overpowering humanitarian need," Epstein said.
The threat was that Jewish refugees and maybe even crew members would be killed if they landed in Arab territory. They wanted him out of there right away so he got some fuel and left." They asked why and he told them the passengers had smallpox. The pilot (Bob Maguire) told the airport officials he needed ambulances right away to take his sick passengers to the hospital. We had a few bullet holes, but only one airplane had to land in hostile territory when it ran out of fuel and landed in Port Sudan (Egypt). "One airplane undershot the runway in Asmara, but it didn't burn, even though it was loaded with gasoline barrels. "We flew almost continuously from Christmas Eve 1948 to nearly a year later and never lost a life or had an injury from an accident," Epstein said. They were living their legend and Alaska Airlines helped fulfill that legend," Epstein said in a phone interview from his home in Los Angeles. Alaska Airlines painted an eagle with outstretched wings over the door of each airplane and it reassured people when they got on the plane. "Their legend said they would be returned to Israel on the wings of an eagle. The humanitarian airlift operation brought more than 40,000 Yemenite Jews to Israel between late 1948 and early 1950. When that operation ended, he contracted with Alaska Airlines to help with Operation Magic Carpet. Stanley Epstein says he is not a religious man, but Operation Magic Carpet "had to have been blessed by God because the possibility of any of these airplanes being successful was pretty remote."Įpstein, a pilot and maintenance specialist, was airlifting supplies from Czechoslovakia to Israel.
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