EP 5 The Nearly Impossible Landing

On the hot summer night of August 3rd, 1975, just hours after an incredibly short and rough strip had been carved out of a tree covered hillside, and with that strip outlined by strings of Christmas tree lights, a pilot somehow landed a DC-4 loaded with marijuana on the side of Treat Mountain, Georgia.

The pilot, pot and plane survived. But with the bad luck of being mistaken for moonshiners as they drove away in trucks packed with pot, almost all of the members of the smuggling crew were arrested that night. And that was just the beginning of an incredible tale that could only have been born of an era where pilots were eager and willing to trade safety for adventure and the hope of wealth. By the time this story ended, the DC-4 had become a tourist attraction, and was later flown off the side of the mountain so that it could star in a truly bad film loosely based on the smuggling flight and its aftermath.