Monsignor Zoilo LG Camacho was known for a few things.
Building round churches, for one. Like San Vicente in Barrigada and Santa Barbara in Dededo.
Farming. A good portion of almost every day was spent growing fruits and vegetables. Even I received a nice watermelon from him one time.
But what not a whole lot of people knew about him was his loathing of air travel. Monsignor avoided flying on a plane if he could. If it meant not attending some event off-island, so be it. He would not board the plane.
On July 14, 1960, Father (he was not Monsignor, yet) Zoilo was flying from Okinawa to Manila on a Northwest Orient plane. His intention was to proceed from Manila to India to visit his sister, a missionary nun, whom he had not seen in 22 years.
At 320AM in the dead of night, the pilot reported that one of his engines had "run away." This means the engine was getting extra fuel from an unintended source (often a fuel or oil leak), making the engine run faster. The lack of lubrication for a faster-running engine means the engine could catch fire, and if it doesn't catch fire it will most likely break anyway.
The pilot said he could do nothing about the runaway engine, so only time would tell. An hour after reporting the runaway engine, the engine caught on fire. Dawn had not come yet and it was still dark, but the pilot decided the best thing to do was land in the sea. He was near Polillo Island, around 85 miles from Manila.
The plane landed in the sea just as safely as it could. Everyone got wet, lost their footwear and luggage, but there were no serious injuries or loss of life except for one passenger. American amphibious planes based in the Philippines rescued the crew and passengers. The survivors had calmly gotten into four or five life rafts after deplaning. There was only one other passenger from Guam, a businessman named Alfred Minot.
BRIDGET MACARAEG
(photo from the Macaraeg family)
Father Zoilo was taken to the San Juan de Dios Hospital in Manila for 24-hour observation, even though he had sustained no injuries. There he met a Guam resident, Mrs Bridget Macaraeg, wife of physician Dr Godofredo Macaraeg, who was in the Philippines for a visit. She reported that, besides losing his shoes, Father Zoilo had lost his eye glasses (as well as everything else he had on board).
Father Zoilo told Mrs Macaraeg that the pilot made all the necessary announcements and the passengers put on their life vests. Some people on the descending plane asked Fr Zoilo to hear their confessions, and he did. I wonder where?
The plane hit the water with just a strong jolt. Then it was a matter of life or death to exit the plane, now filling with smoke from the burning engine slowly going out from the ocean water. One female passenger, in a panic, clung to the plane but Father Zoilo managed to get her into a life raft.
The one passenger who died, an elderly woman, reportedly died of a heart attack. Her body was recovered.
The plane sank in less than ten minutes. The rescue operations took four hours to complete. Fortunately, the sun was up by then.
Despite the crash landing, Father Zoilo did proceed, by plane, to Hong Kong then India to meet his sister. Then back to Guam, all by plane.
But, after that, Monsignor Zoilo avoided flying on a plane as much as possible.
<My father told me this story in the 1960s when he enrolled me at San Vicente School. Pale Zoilo was our religion teacher and I don't know why I never asked him about this incident in his life.
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