Pilot-Priest On Mission

Date: May 14, 1974
Location: Fort Worth, TX
By: Jim W. Jones
Newspaper: Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Page: 25

A Catholic priest flew into Mangham Field in North Richland Hills over the weekend, piloting a Cessna 180 airplane.

He has valuable cargo aboard.

Father Bill Woods, who flew to Tarrant County from Guatemala, carried a damaged engine of another Cessna airplane used by “Wings of Hope,” a nonprofit, nondenominational organization which provides free airlift for mission activities throughout the world.

The engine brought to Mangham Field is now being overhauled by a group of Fort Worth-Dallas area American Airlines employees who belong to the local chapter of Flight Engineers International Association.

Father Woods’ activities with Wings of Hope in Guatemala involves helping the government there in a relocation program taking people from unproductive mountain lands and settling them in former jungle land that has been cleared off in Santa Cruz Quiche near the Mexican border.

The American Airlines flight engineers are volunteering their efforts to overhaul the airplane engine. Father Woods said if Wings of Hope had to pay for the repair it would cost about $2,000.

Another American Airlines group, Allied Pilot Association, recently donated a Cessna 180 to the Wings of Hope effort in Guatemala.

In fact, it was that donated plane that Father Woods flew into Texas.

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