Ann Pellegreno Comes Home Happy And Tired

Ann Pellegreno Comes Home Happy And Tired

By Daniel J. Miller

At 5:49 p.m. yesterday the Lockheed Model 10 Electra touched down at Willow Run Airport. And Ann Pellegreno was home. 

When she landed in Oakland, Calif. last Friday she had flown 28,000 miles around the world commemorating the Amelia Earhart  Commemorative Flight. 

But when she landed at the Ypsilanti area airport, the Saline housewife and ex-school teacher was home. She stepped off the plane and the first thing she said was, "Hi!" She kept saying that for the next five minutes as more than 100 people applauded, shouted, struggled through the television and radio cables, shook her hand, and got her autograph -- "Hi!"

She was wearing a sleeveless, white blouse, blue ankle-length slacks, and white tennis shoes. Her husband, Don, who saw her long before she came to Willow Run, helped her from the plane and shook her hand. She gave him a big kiss. 

After all the hands were shaken, all the autographs signed, all the shouting done, Ann Pellegreno sat down. How did Willow Run look after 33 days and 28,000 miles?

"Great," she said. "When we finally saw it."

An annoying persistent drizzle had been falling all day, and visibility was down to 300 feet. 

Any future trips?

"Just home."

Then what?

She looked into the air as if she hadn't thought about that. "I just want t sit down on something that isn't moving."

Mrs. Pellegreno's plane, virtually identical with the plane that Amelia Earhart disappeared in over 30 years ago, had been in the air for 10 hours a day for the last month, except for brief periods adding up to about a week which were used to fuel and check the plane, and for visiting.

"I think I enjoyed meeting people most," she said, taking off her right tennis shoe. "I talked to people who had talked to Amelia and seen her take off. It was a real thrill."

The purpose of Mrs. Pellegreno's flight was to recreate the flight of Miss Earhart and try to do "something significant" with the information that she and her crew of three learned.

"I'm going to write a technical book about the flight," she said. "The I'd like to write about planes and flying. Maybe some fiction. I don't know what yet. But I jsut want to write now."

She already has agreed to write an article for McCall's and Air Progress, a technical journal of flying. She is hoping for other offers. 

The flight was not an easy one. She tapped the tabletop nervously with her long fingers. Her cheekbones were pronounced and her eyes sunken, although they lost none of their sparkle. She said she was tired -- "wonderfully tired."

But the trip was thrilling. The most exciting thing was finding Howland Island, she said, an incredibly small pile of rock in the Pacific that Amelia Earhart never reached. "As we circled, I dropped a wreath down. There's no question that it hit the island."

The crowds along the way were "great", she said, although a few landing strips were less than desirable. 

On the island of Nauru on the equator near Australia, they landed on a dirt runway. By the time the plane was fueled and the crew had eaten, it was dark. The runway had no lights, except for some flares like the ones around construction. 

"We made the second successful take-off in history from that strip," she said with no little pride. "Boy! I'll take my hat off to the crew any numbers of times they want."

The crew consisted of navigator William Polhemus of Ann Arbor, Lee Koepke of Ypsilanti, mechanic and owner of the plane and Air Force Col. William Payne, McLean Va., co-pilot. 

"They were just great," she said, feeling the top of her blond head for her hat. 

By the time Mrs. Pellegreno and the crew finished a round of festivities from Oakland to Willow Run, which included a "tremendous reception" in Newton, Kan., Miss Earhart's hometown, she was ready to stop. 

"Well," she said, "if it hadn't been done, I'd do it again. But now there's no point. We made it and we made it safely."

Throughout the conversation, Mrs. Pellegreno, surrounded by her crew, patted each one warmly as his skill and personality came into her account of the flight. 

She couldn't give enough credit to each one of them -- Polhemus for managing to find the pinpoint in the Pacific called Howland, Koepke for keeping the plane in perfect running order throughout the flight ("Not one speck of trouble. Not one!") and Payne for his help at the controls especially when dysentery put the aviatrix on an air mattress for two days. 

In all the excitement, Donald Pellegreno was nearly forgotten. But he was asked the inevitable question, "How does it feel to have Ann home?"

He replied "I haven't found out yet."

Mother, Grandmother Greet Pilot [image]

Mrs. Ann Pellegreno (center) visits with her mother, Mrs. Clifford Holtgren (left), and her grandmother, Mrs. Bessie Dearing, after arriving at Willow Run yesterday. Mrs. Pellegreno, holding a stuffed tiger presented to her before the flight by students at the former Illinois high school, flew 28,000 miles around the world as the leader of the "Amelia Earhart Commemorative Flight." She left June 9.

Crew An Elated Group [image]

Mrs. Ann Pellegreno and her crew of the Amelia Earhart Commemorative Flight chat after arriving at Willow Run Airport yesterday. From left are Air Force Col. William Payne of McLean Va., co-pilot; Mrs. Pellegreno, pilot; William Polhemus of Ann Arbor, navigator; and Leo Koepke of Saline, mechanic and owner of the plane.