In the early morning hours of Valentine’s Day 1978 our mystery aviator somehow managed to land a 20-year-old DC-7 airplane in the middle of the night at the Thomson-McDuffie County Airport.
Our pilot also landed the plane – which was later said to be low on fuel and leaking oil – quietly in a heavy mist.
No one in the manned Georgia State Patrol post in front of the landing strip heard a thing, and no one in the adjoining Georgia Bureau of Investigation regional office was around.
It wasn’t until around 7 a.m. that someone discovered the minimally equipped airport had its largest ever visitor.
Closer inspection found its cargo hold contained 13 (later reduced to 11) tons of tightly packed bales of high-grade marijuana from Colombia. At the time, it was called the largest marijuana confiscation in Georgia history.
The pilot was not only skillful, but prepared, somehow knowing there was a 5,000-foot landing strip at the small airport off U.S. Highway 78 in Georgia.
There were more discoveries. While the small airport had gained a large plane, it had lost a smaller one. A Cessna on site was missing and would turn up abandoned at a small airfield south of Atlanta. It was also found with marijuana residue inside and it appeared someone had managed to pack its tiny cabin and cargo space with as much contraband as it could hold.
The news media swarmed to the scene that Valentine’s Tuesday. National TV networks sent in their crews. Time magazine flew in a correspondent. The cops came, too. The GBI sent experts from Atlanta; U.S. Customs sent agents from Miami.
It was soon determined the plane was one of four that had flown into the U.S. from South America in a 24-hour period. One had been captured near Waycross in southeast Georgia.
It was unclear why the Thomson plane made its emergency landing. Still it was called a remarkable achievement, landing on the airfield, which was lighted overnight, but not manned.
The plane was processed. Its illegal cargo – minus some small samples for evidence purposes – was taken away for incineration to a lumber mill in Wilkes County.
The pilot was never identified and no arrests appeared forthcoming. However, the DC-7’s history began to emerge.