P.O. Box 53055    
Los Angeles, CA 90053   

THE HIGHEST FLIGHT EVER

He was the pilot of the most important airplane in the world: a Boeing 707 with the tail number: 26000. The Secret Service called it “Angel,” but most of the world knew it simply as Air Force One. John F. Kennedy actually had official access to a fleet of four planes, but 26000 was the flagship. And it was a gorgeous airship, with monogrammed pillowcases, china, presidential seals on the telephones. It was wired for communications, of course: phones, television, radio, military signals. Two million dollars’ worth of high-tech hardware. There were offices, electric typewriters — remember, this was 1963, before computers. The plane was like its own small, airborne city; it actually subscribed to 15 magazines and five daily newspapers.

There were private quarters as well, with a presidential bedroom for when the Chief Executive had to cross many time zones all at once, and a special bed with a mattress designed for Kennedy’s bad back.

The captain of this unique plane was Colonel Jim Swindal, who had already logged some 75,000 miles on Air Force One in just over a year now since its commissioning. He was dedicated and loyal, both to the presidency and to this 35th president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

But now, on this worst of Friday afternoons, Swindal had to take off from Love Field for the worst two-hour-and-eighteen-minute flight of his life. The last hour on the ground had been pure agony for Swindal and everybody else: a hot, perspiring delay while Lyndon Johnson waited for Texas judge Sarah Hughes to drive out to the airport and swear in the new Chief Executive. There in the tail area of Air Force One was a large coffin, a Britannia model, solid bronze. Kennedy’s bullet-riddled remains were in it. And the plane was filled with both Kennedy loyalists, who had worked for him for the past 1,036 days, and Johnson staffers. Everyone on board felt ill, but there was a wrenching emotional tug-of-war already going on, as one administration ended, and the other one began, right there in the sticky humidity of the 707 with the disconnected air-conditioning.

There was a painful point of conflict right at the moment of the administering of the oath of office. Who should participate? Who should be in the picture? LBJ had already expressed in a general announcement to the whole plane: “If anybody wants to join in in the swearing-in ceremony, I would be happy and proud to have you.” But many of the Kennedy people just couldn’t bring themselves to join in; they were simply too grief-stricken. Godfrey McHugh, head of Kennedy’s White House Communications Agency, cried out when invited: “I have only one President, and he’s lying back in that Cabin.” Colonel Swindal felt the same way. “I just didn’t want to be in that picture,” he confessed later. “I didn’t belong to the Lyndon Johnson team. My President was in that box.” Jackie Kennedy was one of the few who did participate. As William Manchester writes in his book, The Death of a President, after lengthy interviews with the former First Lady:

“Three years in the White House had given [Jackie] an abiding respect for her husband’s office. She understood the symbols of authority, the need for some semblance of national majesty after the disaster, and so she came.”

You’ve probably seen that famous black-and-white photo where Johnson is sworn in, with the widow of John Kennedy standing right there next to him.

But finally, at 2:47 in the afternoon, Central Standard Time, Air Force One lifted off from Love Field. Just three hours and nine minutes earlier, the plane had touched down for a victorious parade. Spirits had been high; celebration and sunshine and confetti were in the air. Now nothing but darkness and tears. William Manchester uncovers a bit of poetic imagery as Air Force One and the three backup planes took off now from Dallas and headed east:

“In the turbulence,” he writes, “a half-dozen discarded signs, remnants of the morning’s jubilant reception, struggled to rise.” You know how a passing truck or a 707 thundering by creates a whirlpool of wind. Manchester continues: “One [sign] made it. It stood erect for a fraction of a second, long enough for [Kennedy assistant Jack] McNally to copy the neat hand lettering. ‘WELCOME JFK,’ it read. Then the gust passed, the four jets passed, and the placard slid back into slime.”

Air Force One, of course, is the most secure plane in the world. Every trip is exceptionally guarded in terms of its flight path. The plane zigs and zags, taking unorthodox routes for utmost secrecy. On the ground Secret Service agents track its every move; in fact, there are people stationed in unmarked cars along the route to visually confirm its passage overhead. Remember, this plane carried the dead body of the former President and also the new President. There was no backup, no VICE Vice President. And 26000 didn’t have a military escort for this trip, which meant that on the ground below, the Pentagon had Air Force bases on stand-by alert; “pilots were actually belted in and ready to go,” Manchester writes.

And then there’s a quiet bit of unrevealed information which is our closing lesson for this week. Captain Swindal, as I mentioned, had a great loyalty to Kennedy, enormous affection. And he now had to fly that plane which carried the dead body of his hero. This being November, with early sundowns, and with the plane taking a west-to-east route to Washington, Air Force One was quickly immersed in shadows and then in darkness. And this Colonel Swindal was immersed in grief; it was like there was a huge stone in his chest. It was more suffering than he had ever imagined possible. Others in the plane felt it too; Mac Kilduff, Kennedy advisor, told people later, “It was the sickest plane I’ve ever been on.” But no one seemed to feel it like the captain. Manchester writes:

“No aircraft commander had ever been charged with so grave a responsibility, yet he wondered whether he could make it to Andrews. He was near collapse. ‘It became,’ in his words, ‘a struggle to continue.’”

And now the small detail. Maybe you’ve never heard this before. Colonel Swindal was slated to take Air Force One up to a cruising altitude of 29,000 feet. And that’s pretty standard; even today, when you get on a plane, they seem to climb up to maybe 31 or 32,000 feet, maybe 34 or 35 to avoid turbulence. But Swindal had clearance to take his beloved President home at 29,000 feet.

Well, he didn’t do that. Somehow, with that ache in his heart, and with the skyline of Dallas just behind him, with all the hatred of people, and cities, and angry civilizations just below him, spreading out in all directions, Swindal wanted to take the President away from it all. He wanted to lift him higher than he’d ever been before, remove him from the pain of earth, the danger of bullets and snipers and angry posters and cruel editorials. And so Colonel Jim Swindal took Air Force One higher and higher and higher. Kennedy had never been so far above earth before; the 707 roared toward the stars, climbing at the incredible rate of 4,000 feet per minute. The presidential plane didn’t level off until they were way up there at 41,000 feet, eight miles above the scars of this world in its sad Friday.
Of course, the plane finally had to come down again . . . to a collection of mourners. Bobby Kennedy was there to greet his sister-in-law, Jackie. Hundreds were quietly gathered to welcome home the fallen hero. But I think about that climb above the stars, the escape to 41,000 feet . . . and I find a beautiful picture for us to close with today.

Because friend, this planet continues to be a mess. There are still assassins out there. Everywhere you look, out every window and on every channel, people are hurting badly. There’s hate everywhere. Presidents and leaders are struck down, either by bullets or by scandals. And all of us are attending more funerals, visiting more cemeteries, than we ever wanted to. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to leave it all behind?

And you know, that’s where the Word of God steps in, and tells us about a flight. Not Dallas to Washington, D.C., not a Boeing 707, not a short journey of two hours and eighteen minutes. But a trip that lifts us away from every trace of this world’s ugliness and hate, a trip that takes us beyond the stars.

“In My Father’s house are many mansions,” Jesus promises us. “I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”

Take a moment and read for yourself First Thessalonians chapter four. Paul knew about assassinations; in fact, his own life ended tragically. But he writes about how we’ll soon be lifted up, caught up in the clouds. And then, friend, we’ll head out for a celestial journey that takes us far beyond the clouds, to a city that’s the capital of the universe. To a city that’s Home. It’s a long, long ways away, and frankly, I want it to be a long, long ways away from earth and sin and death and the endless rows of tombstones at Arlington National Cemetery.

“Angels ‘gather together,’” writes one author, “‘the elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.’ Little children are borne by holy angels to their mothers’ arms. Friends long separated by death are united, nevermore to part, and with songs of gladness ascend together to the city of God. . . . And the redeemed shout ‘Hallelujah!’ as the chariot moves onward toward the New Jerusalem.”

Yes, friend. Hallelujah, indeed. What a flight that’s going to be.