SAN­DRA L BLOOD

blood­l­sandy@gmail.com

When Janelle “Pen­ny” Com­mis­siong was crowned Miss Uni­verse on Ju­ly 16, 1977, she made his­to­ry. At 24, she be­came the first Black Miss Uni­verse. The first Miss Pho­to­genic of African de­scent. The first Trinida­di­an to ever hold those ti­tles. The short­est win­ner to wear the crown. The first to do it all with nape-length hair and ef­fort­less grace.

At the 26th Miss Uni­verse Pageant in San­to Domin­go, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Com­mis­siong thought she had reached the peak of her his­toric rise.

It was sur­re­al and un­for­get­table—an era-defin­ing mo­ment.

But what she didn’t yet know was that an­oth­er un­prece­dent­ed ex­pe­ri­ence, filled with a dif­fer­ent kind of mag­ic, was just three months away.

From Oc­to­ber 28 to 30, she would be among 172 spe­cial­ly in­vit­ed guests aboard Pan Am Flight 50—a once-in-a-life­time jour­ney cel­e­brat­ing Pan Am’s 50th an­niver­sary with the short­est flight around the world. It be­gan with a birth­day par­ty and took off in­to the skies, adding an­oth­er set of un­for­get­table firsts to Com­mis­siong’s re­mark­able sto­ry.

Com­mis­siong said she vivid­ly and pas­sion­ate­ly re­mem­bers the mo­ments.

“It was one of my best-ever his­toric ex­pe­ri­ences, and I’m hap­py to have left an­oth­er his­tor­i­cal mark on Trinidad–the first Tri­ni to have cir­cum­nav­i­gat­ed the world pole to pole in the short­est time record­ed.”

The re­lease on the oc­ca­sion re­vealed that many at­tempt­ed the jour­ney or ac­tu­al­ly did so, but it took weeks, months or years.

The po­lar flight was led by chief pi­lot/flight com­man­der Cap­tain Wal­ter Mul­li­gan, record­ed 46 hours and sev­en min­utes and cov­ered 26,000 miles; the first round-the-world pas­sen­ger flight over both the North and South Poles, marked as a his­toric trip.

The route: from San Fran­cis­co (SF) In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, over the North Pole to Lon­don, then across to Cape Town, South Africa, then over the South Pole to Auck­land, New Zealand, and back to SF, be­tween Fri­day af­ter­noon and Sun­day evening.

Com­mis­siong not­ed that the first leg of the trip fol­lowed a north­east course over Ore­gon, Wash­ing­ton, and West­ern Cana­da, cross­ing the Arc­tic Cir­cle and soar­ing over the North Pole. The flight then veered south, pass­ing east of Green­land and Ice­land, over the coast of Nor­way be­fore con­tin­u­ing to Eng­land. Din­ner was served as the flight passed over British Co­lum­bia, fol­lowed by a pe­ri­od of sleep or rest.

The next morn­ing, as the flight land­ed at Heathrow In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, pas­sen­gers awoke in Lon­don to a wel­come from the may­or, who greet­ed them be­fore their shop­ping spree. From Lon­don, the flight chart­ed an al­most due south course over France and the Mediter­ranean, across Al­ge­ria and the vast Sa­hara Desert, and then down the full length of the African con­ti­nent to its south­ern tip—Cape Town, South Africa. The jour­ney took 11 hours. Up­on ar­rival at 11 pm, the may­or of Cape Town wel­comed the pas­sen­gers and ho­n­oured Com­mis­siong by invit­ing her to ad­dress the gath­er­ing as the new­ly mint­ed Miss Uni­verse.

Just af­ter 1 am, the re­lease stat­ed, “The longest and most in­ter­est­ing leg of the trip be­gan”—a 7,550-mile jour­ney across the South At­lantic and the icy ex­panse of Antarc­ti­ca, over the South Pole, and across the South Pa­cif­ic to Auck­land, New Zealand.

“That was the first time any plane flew the route,” the re­lease re­vealed.

At an al­ti­tude of 43,000 feet, the flight cruised in­to day­light, giv­ing Com­mis­siong a view of snow-cov­ered Antarc­ti­ca—“the bot­tom of the world” and, ac­cord­ing to the re­lease, “a beau­ty and an un­for­get­table sight”. The flight had reached the South Pole.

At 5:50 am., in heavy rain, the air­craft tax­ied in­to Auck­land, where Com­mis­siong was wel­comed with tra­di­tion­al mu­si­cal per­for­mances by New Zealand’s in­dige­nous peo­ple and var­i­ous lo­cal foods. Then came the fi­nal leg of the jour­ney: across the Pa­cif­ic west of Tahi­ti, through the Cen­tral Pa­cif­ic east of the Hawai­ian Is­lands, and fi­nal­ly land­ing in San Fran­cis­co at 6:57 pm, com­plet­ing what the re­lease called “the cir­cle of the globe”.

Now 71, Com­mis­siong re­called the youngest and old­est pas­sen­gers, aged 11 and 82, who chat­ted with her, along with oth­er in-flight ac­tiv­i­ties: par­ties, mod­el­ling at a Guc­ci fash­ion show, play­ing games, toast­ing up­on ar­rival in Cape Town, tak­ing pic­tures, fine din­ing, and watch­ing movies. She not­ed that to­day, peo­ple are pay­ing mil­lions to be the first to go to the moon, but in 1977, oth­ers paid hand­some­ly to be the first to trav­el the globe—vis­it­ing both the North and South Poles.

“I’m not on­ly grate­ful to have been a part of the his­toric first in avi­a­tion aboard the spe­cial car­ri­er and ho­n­oured to have been a part of the cel­e­bra­tion, but above all, I’m a proud Trin­bag­on­ian,” she as­sert­ed.

For the film/video which each pas­sen­ger was gift­ed: YouTube or Air­craft In­te­ri­ors In­ter­na­tion­al.