 On June 18, 1947, he picked up the Clipper Eclipse in Karachi, India, for a flight to Istanbul with the designation Pan Am Flight 121. Five hours into the flight, the number one engine developed a fault and was shut down. The plane was able to fly on three engines. However, they began to overheat, and the pilot descended to a lower altitude to allow the engines to cool. A second engine caught fire, and fire suppressant measures failed to extinguish it. While the pilot attempted to land the plane, Roddenberry went to the cabin to calm the passengers. He was certain at the time that he was going to die, as the engine fell from the wing, exposing fuel lines, causing the fire to spread. The plane descended rapidly. As he unbuckled himself from a seat to calm a woman, it crashed in the Syrian Desert. Though he had two broken ribs, he began to evacuate passengers from the burning plane with the other crew. Roddenberry had to force the broken seatbelt of the Maharani of Phaltan open so that she could leave the plane. He repeatedly re-entered the plane to pull out more passengers; some were burning and he used pillows to extinguish the flames. The wind turned, causing the fire to engulf the plane, and he was unable to make any further trips. Roddenberry took charge in the aftermath, and, after a group of local tribesmen proved to be of no help, he formed two teams to search for civilization. The team he led trekked four miles across the desert to the town of Mayadine, where he telephoned the emergency landing strip at Deir ez-Zor, some 38 miles (61 km) away. In response, the Syrian Army dispatched planes with medical teams to the crash site. Roddenberry returned to the site to assist the survivors. Fourteen people died in the crash; eleven passengers needed hospital treatment, eight were unharmed.
