Hero pilot who created Star T rek franchise
ALTHOUGH listed as Third Officer, the young pilot, on the Pan Am flight from Karachi to Istanbul in June 1947 was not meant to take command. He was merely hitching a ride, or “deadheading” as it is known in airline parlance, flying as a passenger to his next job on the crew of another flight.
But Eugene ’Gene’ Roddenberry got behind the controls when the captain, Joseph Hart, needed to take a break mid-flight.
While Hart was away, Roddenberry experienced a problem in one of the engines, so he shut it down.
When Hart returned he made the decision to keep flying on to Istanbul, hoping the other engines would hold out. But the extra strain caused them to overheat. Fire erupted from one of the engines, so Hart made an emergency landing in a Syrian desert.
Roddenberry left the cockpit to reassure the passengers and was still there when the plane went down, breaking in two and killing the captain and his first officer.
He had broken two ribs in the crash, but Roddenberry found himself the ranking officer and had to take charge. He helped pull people from the burning wreckage, one of whom died in his arms.
Commended for his actions, Roddenberry stayed in Syria for a time for an inquiry into the crash. Within a year he had decided enough was enough. He resigned from Pan Am in May 1948.
He got a job as a police officer, but later turned to writing for radio and TV.
Although he wrote for a wide range of shows, not surprisingly he became best known for his action adventure series, creating the popular and influential science fiction franchise Star Trek.
He was born Eugene Wesley Roddenberry in 1921 in El Paso, Texas. In 1923, his family moved to California where his father, formerly a linesman, became a police officer.
Roddenberry became interested in writing at an early age, particularly science fiction.
He believed that sci-fi had
limitless potential and would allow him to write about meaningful topics, like racism, war, and politics, disguised as futuristic entertainment.,
Roddenberry worked on other projects but Star Trek consumed much of the rest of his life. He died in 1991.