A Story of Two Isles - the Falklands - part 9 - A rogue flight

This the 9th part of a very interesting story check out the previous parts when you have the time to set yourselves on the timeline:
Part 1: https://steemit.com/history/@wolfenlord/a-story-of-two-isles

Part 2: https://steemit.com/history/@wolfenlord/a-story-of-two-isles-part-2

Part 3: https://steemit.com/history/@wolfenlord/a-story-of-two-isles-the-falklands-part-3

Part 4: https://steemit.com/history/@wolfenlord/a-story-of-two-isles-the-falklands-part-4-the-rebellion

Part 5: https://steemit.com/history/@wolfenlord/a-story-of-two-isles-the-falklands-part-5-british-expansionism-before-the-war

Part 6: https://steemit.com/history/@wolfenlord/a-story-of-two-isles-the-falklands-part-6-battle-of-the-falklands-world-war-1

Part 7: https://steemit.com/history/@wolfenlord/a-story-of-two-isles-the-falklands-part-7-world-war-2

Part 8: https://steemit.com/history/@wolfenlord/a-story-of-two-isles-the-falklands-part-8-united-nations-first-claims

In this part of the story, an Argentinian aviator steals the spotlight. Miguel Lawler Fitzgerald was an Argentinian civilian pilot who in the 60´s did not one but two rogue flights to the Falklands, occupied by the British but claimed by Argentina with the purpose of reclaiming Argentinian sovereignty over the archipelago.

During the 60´s several Argentinian aviators had the idea to fly to the Falklands to wave the Argentinian flag. Back then, and with all the military maneuvers described in the last part of this story, tensions were high and they were considered to be inside enemy territory, and the British considered anything coming from the mainland as hostile.

Miguel Fitzgerald always wanted to be a pilot. Ever since he was 6 years old has had that vocation. At 16 years old, when most people aren´t mature enough to get the car keys from their parents, he was already flying gliders and at 20 years old, propelled airplanes. Its common for pilots to work a lot but whats uncommon in him, is the sheer variety of jobs he took. He was a pilot for an airline, did aereal photography, aereal taxiing, towing of signs. In his words "except fumigation and contraband, I did everything". He did also break a few records, because in 1962 he successfully did a non stop flight of 8521 km from Buenos Aires to New York in a Cessna airplane filled to the brim with additional fuel tanks.

This was a man of bold dreams who often lacked the means but not the will to make them reality. His dreams included a non stop flight over all of the pacific ocean, a roundtrip to the earth accross the southern hemisphere, but this lonely condor couldn´t materialize them. The recordman always had his feet on the ground even if his head was in the sky. There were a lot of factors that had to be in conjunction for a feat to be doable. "In the south(ern hemisphere), everything is harder, especially funding".

During that flight to New York, his Cessna 210 plane was so heavy with the added fuel tanks that an additional back wheel had to be added to the landing gear because of all the weight added to the fuselage. He also had to improvise a lot, since at the end of his 8521 km flight, he had the bad luck of arriving to the airport during a millitary excercise(or maybe they just wanted to check his papers). Anyhow, he was made to circle around for more than an hour before doing an emergency landing on his last drops of fuel. The next day, after refuelling and having a few pictures taken with the reporters, his "flying fuel tank" was escorted by the firemen and the police accross the runway during his takeoff.

He was delayed a few times during his crossing back of the United States airspace, and he now had 2 less hours of fuel than planned. The original plan for the return trip was to fly to Antofagasta, Chile and cross the Andes mountain range during the day at 20.000 feet, visually identifying the highest hilltops. Now however, he would have to do it during the night. There were several volcanoes that were taller than his plane´s maximum service altitude and he didn´t even have a full moon, but a quarter of it. Fitzgerald however decided to carry on. During his longest flights, he always carried an alarm clock, which he set for ten minutes to get a quick rest before it chirped him back to life. He arrived safely to his destination, as you probably guess by know, but I´m not gonna overextend on his New York trip, or his several other trips, because this is about to his trip to the Falklands.

Fitzgerald made his decision to travel to the Falklands in secret, because if the Argentinian government caught wind of what he was about to do, they would certainly dissuade him by force or even incarcerate him. Several times he had to desist from his intentions for several reasons, but this was the one, he could feel it. Days before, he had contacted the Argentinian paper "La Razón" to get his feat published, but the reporter told him that the paper could be fined severely for condoning the act(knowing about it and not doing anything to stop it), so he contacted a new, less reputable paper, called "Cronica" and he finally got his news coverage. Not only that but he was offered to use a plane belonging to the newspaper, have all expenses covered and even the fuel if a reporter could travel alongside with him. He was not sure about the English reaction once he landed on the Falklands, there was a possibility that he could be arrested by the island´s authorities, so he didn´t want to bring any more additional potential prisoners with him. He respectfully declined. The plane was finally provided by Siro Comi, the president of Monte Grande´s aeroclub. The proclaim saying that the Falklands are Argentinian was written up, and the same day of his 38th birthday, on September 8th 1964, he kissed his wife and sons goodbye and he got on the "Cessna 185" airplane. The seats had been removed to accommodate additional fuel tanks again and a radio was his only companion. With chocolate and coffee provisions, he took off from Rio Gallegos, capital of the Santa Cruz province and set a course for the Falklands Archipelago. He used the aeroclub´s landing strip, which was barely a dirt runway with no landing tower, and more importantly, it was not monitored by the Argentinian Airforce. Three hours and fifteen minutes later, he saw the archipelago. From the air it is seen as a rough box of a hundred islands and islets. His last comm over the radio is "operation is nominal", which was a secret message to the people of the aeroclub in Santa Cruz to let them know he´s ok. A dense cloud covering prevents him from seeing. He does not dive into the cloud because he knows that somewhere inside the treacherous clouds, there is a 600 meters(about 2000 feet) hill hiding. He stays there, circling the clouds for almost half an hour, and when a clearing in the clouds form he dives through it and immediately identifies Port Stanley. He visually looks for a runway and lands there, without any permit. A stocky hangar helper rushes off to meet him. To the sides of the landing runway a small crowd forms, apparently drawn by the novely of an unscheduled flight. This was not what Fitzgerald expected: no military, no police, and apparently the islanders were friendlier than he imagined, even though that stocky kelper was clueless about his identity. He decided to go full rebel on them and got the Argentinian flag out of the airplane and started waving it as the hangar helper slowly approached. The stocky kelper´s face changed, however he remained british-polite and asked him if he needed a fuel refill. Fizgerald got out the proclaim and told the stocky fellow to give it to the governor, as he did not want to be there for when the police arrived. He had more than enough fuel for the back trip in those additional tanks, so fifteen minutes later after he landed, he was waving goodbye to the startled and slightly pissed off kelper who greeted him and taking off again.
On his flight back, he saw a huge crowd waiting for him at the aerodrome. Once he landed, that crowd lauded him as a hero and took him on several trips around the city. The airforce was there, they now knew about what he did, but they dared not arrest him on that day. Even though Fitzgerald declined the help from the Cronica newspaper, he gave them the note and that day Cronica tripled his competing newspaper "La Razón" sales. After the fact, Fitzgerald would be later threatened to have his flying license revoked, but after a week local newspapers were making so much a hero of him that the Argentinian president Arturo Illia intervened and he got out of that situation with only a warning.
His trip caused a huge incident with the british, who decided to protest at the UN, but since the argentinian government had no official involvement, the UN decided to drop the protest. The british then issued a permanent detachment of Royal Marines to the islands and the colonial government of the falklands decided to block the runway for unscheduled arrivals and arrest any trespassers on the spot.

However, Fitzgerald would have none of it since he did a SECOND rogue trip to the Falklands in 1968, which I will cover in due time, but on the next part of the saga, a hijacked airliner clandestinely lands on the Falklands. Stay tuned

Btw, I will upvote any minnow who UPVOTES and COMMENTS on this post. Cheers!