Existing comment:
Charles Maultsby's mission to North Pole, October 27, 1962:
Illustration by David Lindroth, published in One Minute to Midnight by Michael Dobbs.
Capt. Charles Maultsby, a 36-year-old veteran of the Korean War, was the pilot on this flight. This map shows his planned route from the Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska to the North Pole and back, in relation to his actual route, which took him over Soviet territory.
Soviet fighter aircraft from two Siberian airfields, Pevek and Anadyr, scrambled to intercept Maultsby's plane; two U.S. fighter jets, armed with nuclear-tipped missiles, also scrambled to guide Maultsby back to Alaska, where he landed safely at Kotzebue, the site of a US military radar station. |