Flight to End Polio takes off from The Eastern Iowa Airport

CEDAR RAPIDS — And they’re off.

Peter Teahen, 69, of Robins, and John Ockenfels, 70, of Shueyville, soared upward and onward at 9:40 a.m. Friday from The Eastern Iowa Airport, en route to add their names to the roster of the 700 pilots who have flown around the world in a single-engine airplane.

Along the way, they strive to raise money and awareness to eradicate polio in the remaining hot spots of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and keep it at bay elsewhere. The two, related by marriage, set their sights high, hoping to raise $1 million for Rotary International’s polio vaccination and education program. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is giving a 2:1 match for every dollar donated.

“Today, we’ll break our first million dollars,” Teahen said Friday morning, as he and Ockenfels packed the last of the equipment and personal items needed for the 25,323-mile trek in their Cessna T210M.

But even those goals take a back seat to their ultimate goal: “to come back alive,” Teahen told the gathering of family, friends and media at the departure point by the Signature Flight Support building, near the airport’s control tower.

“So we expect to see you here celebrating, hopefully July 30,” Teahen added, noting he and Ockenfels plan to land during a welcome-home pancake breakfast at the airport that day.

In between, they anticipate 39 landings in 21 countries, beginning Friday in Portsmouth, N.H. Friday’s flight was expected to take about five hours, which will be typical. But several flights will be much longer, and mostly over water.

The longest trek is from Hawaii to California, estimated to take between 14 and 16 hours. That’s the stretch that makes Teahen the most anxious, but even in worst-case scenarios, they would seek out a freighter if they needed to make an emergency landing.

Newfoundland to Iceland will take about eight hours, and a couple other legs will take about seven hours, Teahen told 200 people gathered Wednesday night at Ockenfels’ hangar at the Iowa City Airport. That bon voyage party yielded more than $10,000 in donations, pushing the effort past the $1 million mark raised since 2019, when the flight first was announced.

“It's $3 to vaccinate a child, so in that couple-hour event, (those donors) have vaccinated over 1,000 children,” Teahen told The Gazette on Friday. “That's pretty amazing — people coming together and making a difference like that.”

Thursday night, Ockenfels flew the plane up to Cedar Rapids, which really only takes 10 minutes, he said, unless you want to stretch it to 15.

“It was one of the calmest flights that I've had in months and months,” he said. “Bright moon. You could see forever. … It was a really good, calm, gorgeous flight. Beautiful, beautiful visual flight right up on the end of the runway to come in. It's one of those things that pilots can't wait to get. They don't get very often a really smooth approach, a touchdown, taxi. And that was the start of something good.”

He got a little more sleep than Teahen, who spent the wee hours searching for his passport. He finally found it on the scanner in his home office.

Both were excited for this day, postponed three times since 2020 because of COVID. Their spirits never flagged, but all the fundraising receptions planned around the world fell off. Just six weeks ago, only two receptions were on the itinerary, both in Portugal.

“We had been pounding the streets and making phone calls for over a year now,” Teahen said, “and it wasn't getting any response.”

Then his wife, Janet Teahen, told him to give up on the fundraising aspect and turn it over to someone else. Ockenfels’ wife, Deb, agreed, telling the men to just focus on the flight.

“We said, ‘Lord, it’s yours. We can't deal with it anymore.’ And so within the last six and a half weeks, the phone started ringing off the wall,” Teahen said. “Now we have 25 major fundraisers in the world,” beginning Saturday in New Hampshire.

As the journey continues, Sri Lanka’s president is expected to attend a fundraiser there, and security is being finalized for royalty to attend a fundraiser at a Middle Eastern site.

Before takeoff Friday, Ockenfels said he was feeling “a heck of a lot better than I was this time yesterday.”

Their wives are happy, yet a little nervous, that departure day finally arrived.

“It’s a mix of emotions, for sure,” Janet Teahen said. “I want him to go, of course. I want him to see this great world of ours, but now I’m like, ‘Oh, don’t go.’”

Deb Ockenfels is “relieved.”

“We’ve been skipping dinner and working until all hours into the night,” she said. “But at this point, it’s done. He has his passport and he has his credit cards.”

And after three weeks, her final task of sewing two buttons on her husband’s back pants pockets is done, as well.

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