title: Southern Storm: The Tragedy of Flight 242 (Air Disasters)
author:  Samme Chittum 
description: Samme Chittum is a narrative journalist and a Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship recipient who explores the intersection of current events and history. Her work has been published by The New York Times, New York Daily News, New York Post, and The Village Voice. She is the author of the first two books in the Smithsonian Air Disasters series.
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  **Crash Landing on Iduna by**
  
   **Arthur Tofte**
  
   **PART I**
  
   **STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL**
  
   **CHAPTER ONE**
  
  We were in trouble… deep trouble… the kind that every spacefarer dreaded.
  
  There was a sudden, heart-stopping change in the rhythm of our flight.
  
  Instead of the smooth swish of our landing jets, there was now alternate
  silence and a roaring violence of jet-rocketry running wild.
  
  There was no pattern to it. The ship itself seemed to falter and slip, to
  twist and tumble. Over and over we were going on a wild, uncontrolled mad
  ride.
  
  Up to that moment everything had gone along perfectly. After months of search,
  we had found this uncharted, apparently uninhabited planet out near the edge
  of the galaxy. We had orbited it several times. After making the usual tests
  for night and day temperatures, atmosphere quality, harmful ray shielding,
  water supply, vegetation, and all