Tin Baron's Flight

At 3:15 a.m., as Pan American World Airways' El Presidente winged northward across the Brazilian jungles, one of its four engines ran rough. The steward woke the 38 passengers, explaining that their Stratocruiser would have to land for brief repairs at Belem, near the mouth of the

Amazon. A grumbling line formed outside the men's room as passengers hurried to wash and shave. Suddenly, a huge figure in white silk pajamas brushed past the queue, commandeered one of the wash-stands and vigorously commenced a predawn toilet. Don Mauricio Hochschild, Bolivia's fabulously wealthy tin magnate, was in a hurry to get to New York.

At Belem, Don Mauricio brusquely took command of the Pan American ground force while other passengers straggled off to an airport breakfast. Soon he pried out information that the plane would need a new engine, might be held up in Belem for a day or two. Don Mauricio burned up the wires to New York--not to Pan American but to W. R. Grace & Co., Pan American's partner in Panagra. Panagra is the rival service that flies down South America's west coast.

Don Mauricio said he wanted a plane that would get him to New York--quick. He explained that his wife got earaches flying; they were fed up with ordinary "public" planes.

Early next morning, a Panagra DC-6 landed in Belem on charter to Hochschild, having flown nearly 3,000 miles into territory where no Panagra plane had ever ventured before. Shortly afterward, the 57-passenger plane took off for New York, carrying Don Mauricio, his wife and nobody else. "What money won't do!" gasped one of the stranded passengers. Thirty-nine hundred miles and 12 1/2 hours later, Hochschild's DC-6 touched down at New York's Idlewild airport, having just about shattered all known records for a private charter flight. Though Panagra declined to talk about the feat, the gossip was that Hochschild had shelled out some $40,000--at $1,500 an hour.

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