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I posted this to another forum a few years back and hit a dead end.
Some searching bought up an account in a book called AIRPORT INTERNATIONAL by Brian Moynahan (Pan Books, London, 1978 ) with the story appearing on p. 84 as follows
At the time (2006) that was as far as things went, I was wondering if anyone has seen a version that predates 1978?
I was talking with a friend about aircraft disasters and he told me the following story.
Sometime in the late 50's or early 60's a passenger jet was flying across the US, the pilot was in control and the co-pilot was in the passenger cabin chatting up a flight attendant.
Then all of a sudden the plane does some fairly violent maneuvers throwing everyone who's not wearing a seatbelt around.
The co-pilot makes his way to the cockpit and finds the flight engineer picking himself off the floor. The pilot turns to them and says something along the lines of "They're throwing up a lot of flack today, Guadalcanal (or Rabaul, my informant was unsure which) is always a hard target."
Then supposedly what happened was that the co-pilot quickly grabbed the controls while the flight-engineer subdued the pilot.
The plane made an emergency landing and the pilot was committed to an asylum.
Sometime in the late 50's or early 60's a passenger jet was flying across the US, the pilot was in control and the co-pilot was in the passenger cabin chatting up a flight attendant.
Then all of a sudden the plane does some fairly violent maneuvers throwing everyone who's not wearing a seatbelt around.
The co-pilot makes his way to the cockpit and finds the flight engineer picking himself off the floor. The pilot turns to them and says something along the lines of "They're throwing up a lot of flack today, Guadalcanal (or Rabaul, my informant was unsure which) is always a hard target."
Then supposedly what happened was that the co-pilot quickly grabbed the controls while the flight-engineer subdued the pilot.
The plane made an emergency landing and the pilot was committed to an asylum.
An intructor pilot, who was examining another airline pilot on a Boeing 707, suddenly wrenched the plane into a steep climbing turn and yelled, "Damn Japs down there are putting up a lot of flak. Guadalcanal will always be a tough target." He was over Oklahoma City at the time. The crew had to knock him out.