Chapter 14 - "Fortune - Where is the Man Who Survives Without..." Summary and Analysis

O'Connor survives his Nova Scotia ordeal and goes on to fly many missions across the Hump. Gann is assigned to a Douglas C-54 and makes long-haul missions. On one trip he flies a C-54 and moments after takeoff one, then two, then three engines begin to sputter and misfire. Gann realizes the plane is in serious trouble and will likely crash; he immediately begins to return to the airport as the three engines behave erratically. After a scant three minutes aloft, he manages to set the plane down without incident.

On the ground, he learns that some design engineers had replaced the spark plugs in three of his four engines with a spark plug of a new, 'better', design...