ADAK AF586 Ditch and Rescue 1978

October 26th 1978 was a typical October day in adak Alaska swirling winds and rain showers announced the impending arrival of a severe storm brewing in the North Pacific Navy Patrol Squadron 9 deployed out of Moffet field in California had been assigned to the adak Detachment since May with three P3 aircraft and about 100 crew in ground support at 8:15 local time crew 6 taxed their P3 Alpha foxr 586 for a pan aerial reconnaissance program mission that would take them to the periphery of the Soviet Union waiting for a controlled time of departure they were just ahead of Coast Guard CG 1500 after a 10-hour date of flying the C130 aircraft refueled and was waiting to take off for their home base of Kodiak no one could have imagined that as soon to be crippled aircraft and one of their SAR team Rescuers were currently alongside each other Alpha foxtop 586 is Mission using the military's skyc Communications umbrella would fly Westward and just south of the command dorski islands off the camaca peninsula for the next few hours 586 would be under radio silence while monitoring the Sky King broadcast system in the blind Sky King Sky King do not answer Mike Bravo 5 time 38 authentication uniform golf this is main cell out the flight was uneventful at first with only two surface ships encountered all things seemed normal aboard the P3 but a complex search and rescue mission was about to unfold it would take the heroics of aircraft from the Air Force Navy and Coast Guard as well as a Russian fishing tler under command of Cold War adversaries the Soviet Union to ultimately save the men as Alpha foxtop 586 was heading west the Russian tler they had just rigged was heading in the same direction to return to their home Port after a 6-month fishing Expedition the Coast Guard C130 had left adak and was about halfway home to their base in Kodiak on shamia Airfield an Air Force Boeing 707 the highly sophisticated Cobra ball RC 135 was awaiting a claxon call to take off and monitor a Soviet ICBM missile launch anticipated for that day another P3 from 586 a squadron was on launch standby for any mission that might develop along the uion chain these four different entities would prove to be crucial pieces of the puzzle the rescue of alpha foxtop 586 inside the 586 flight station the crew rotated positions with Mission Commander Jerry griggsby sharing flight time with fellow Pilots Ed Kaylor and John wner after arriving at the patrol area it was standard to loiter engines to save fuel but upon entering icing conditions Grigsby gave the mandatory order to restart a loitered engine while he monitored behind the Pilots That's when the problems began it was a routine restart for about 30 seconds when suddenly the propeller went off speed surging above 103% power which mandated shutdown the crew pulled the emergency e handle to feather the prop with no success 586 had a runaway prop that would eventually lead to a gearbox failure as the flight crew wrestled with the confusing indications in the cockpit back in the tube the Tactical coordinator Matt given prepared for a possible emergency by breaking radio silence and Advising Elmendorf Airways that Alpha foxr 586 would be aboring their mission with a propeller malfunction and heading to to the nearest airfield which was shimia Air Force Base about 2 plus hours to the northeast of their present position elmor alpha fox shot 586 we're a PPA 3 aircraft uh we have a propeller malfunction at this time present position 52 22 North 164 30 East our altitude is 1,000 ft true air speed 154 ground speed 1 N4 we are diverting direct shim at this time over after turning the nose to Shemia a warning horn indicated a fire in the engine one gear boox quick action extinguished the first fire as pilot Jerry griggsby wrestled the crippled aircraft down to 10,000 ft but it became quickly apparent to Taco mat gibons that at their current ground speed it would take more than 2 hours to get to Shia with a runaway prop increasingly tearing itself apart and a second fire that could burn into the Wing fuel bladder alpha fox drop 586 was a flying death trap with very few options at 14400 local time the cg500 was monitoring Airwaves and aware they might be called to help in the rapidly developing problem they were nearly at codiac when they were directed to return West to adak refuel and await directions on how to to assist we were right at sitkinak Island on South End of Kodiak we were 20 minutes from landing and we got the word to turn around and uh Bill asked me how far away is that so I laid it out on the chart and turned out to be 1,310 Mi I remember that clear's Bell and we had to go back 800 miles to get the gas at adak we weren't going to be able to stay airborne long enough we knew that it's it was going to be a long night knowing that were running out of time the alpha foxr 586 crew members in the back of the crippled P3 put on their survival suits and began emergency destruction of crypto gear and the shredding of classified documents they were diligent in their tasks indifferent to the possible dangers during their agonizingly slow progress to divert to Shemia Airfield at the far end of the uion chain Tac oat giens issues another Mayday call to Elmendorf as the crew members took their positions for possible ditching mayday mayday mayday alpha fox shot 586 we are dishing dishing dising 54 on board three orange [Music] lifee 56 ride copy R the copy the fire extinguished itself and the ditch was postponed for a while longer the interval between the second and third fires was less than the first to second TR assuring that another fire was imminent at that point flying at 500 ft the onboard radar operator found one of the ships they had identified earlier directing the pilots to fly straight toward it Gibbons also radioed Elmendorf to request status of possible SAR aircraft Elmendorf indicated they would check on SAR status when vp9 ready alert Navigator Dennis medy interjected the conversation and I knew the nurse was still probably had I 5 6 minutes to go but I just jumped up on the radio and said hey we're we're rolling now we're going to be looking for it and of course I've heard after the fact that they had that up on the PA system in the aircraft so they heard me talking to which I guess helped a lot on on the aircraft the alpha fox trck crew was encouraged someone was coming to assist however a very real possibility of propeller gearbox disintegration prompted remaining crew to Dawn survival gear with the prospect of a controlled ditching their only hope was to proceed as far as possible until another problem developed which it did in short order one more fire warning horn sounded prompting the use of the final extinguisher into the degraded gearbox of engine number one any more fires would prove fatal to the aircraft and certain death to the entire crew minute by minute they were running out of options then came the anticipated but very much unwanted fire that sealed the Fate of the P3 and its proof Jerry gridsby turned his airplane into the wind and descended towards the sea 586 mayday mayday mayday position 5227 North 165 5 ner East heading 1 2 3° true speed 143 we are ditching ditching ditching position 52 27 North 166 mayday mayday alpha fox 586 we are dising years later Navy Captain Andy Jam Poler wrote in his book that the P3 hit the water at around 65 knots the resulting impact against high waves battered the aircraft powerfully wreaking major structural damage and speeding its Sinking by all accounts the aircraft sank within minutes 13 of the 15 crew members managed to board two rafts only four members reached the 12-man raft while the other nine men crammed into the smaller raft built to only accommodate seven in the waves and Gale the rafts quickly separated both deployed their emergency Beacon radio and hunkered down against freezing cold as best they could while the SAR team search began in an incredible desision by the Air Force Cobra ball commanders they canceled the planned Soviet missile recon mission and diverted their $500 million aircraft to do a search and rescue for the ditch Navy P3 the pilot in command of the Cobra ball RC 135 Cliff Carter turned his aircraft to the Southwest flying to a point that was literally 1,000 miles from nowhere Air Force Cobra ball Mission Commander Alan feldcamp directed his Navigators to construct handdrawn charts to the reported P3 ditch location in the cold Waters of the North Pacific using a crew form of balancing nulls received by two onboard Direction finding antennas they pointed the aircraft to the ditch site which led precisely almost incredibly directly on top of the rafts in the low clouds high waves and Gales when we got to fairly close to the area we started picking up an emergency locator beak now the the operators in the back of the airplane could pick up the frequency but they couldn't tell you they couldn't DF it which how to turn or anything like that but they did have antennas on on both sides of the airplane so what we did was they would punch up a a antenna on one side and then punch up the antenna on the other side and when it was stronger one way or the other we turn until we got a null or an equal strength and then that was as Clos as we could get to where they were at so we used flying that and descending and as we came down through the clouds you know we were just looking we had no idea and uh the cloud tops were somewhere around 500 ft it could have been a little bit lower could have been a little bit higher but the Seas were you know looked to me like you know they were monstrous seeing the Cobra ball RC 135 fly over gave hope to the Grateful survivors who shot flares to confirm their location really uh we were a low altitude we went down to uh I think we were probably 300 300 to 500 ft and um super rough there was a uh reminded me of being in a B-52 where i' been early CED low-level missions uh you could barely stand up in the aircraft it was that rough but uh we did the search pattern and um it wasn't probably but we were just down there probably 20 minutes when um Bob revas the co-pilot saw one of the flares slightly to our right at our 1:00 position I was at a large glass window Bob called the the flare from the crew members and um I could see the uh the player went off kind of over actually kind of over our wing actually and um it caught a quick glimpse of the raft down below circling the rafts well below their normal operating altitude for more than an hour the RC 135 climbed to altitude and act as Communications relay when the ditched P3 sister aircraft x-ray foxtrot 675 the ready alert arrived what helped immensely was that initial data by the Air Force gave us the initial General location and then once once we got down as low boy uh between a couple of flares and some excellent uh information from the Air Force guys on datam we were able to see them visually you you you see some rats so you know there's some survivors but then you know I'm kind of thinking to myself that you know wait a minute this is not good you know how do you how do how do we what do we do to save these guys now 675 now assume SAR command at 200 ft above their fellow Squadron mates for several hours x-ray foxtrot 675 would repeatedly mark on top the rafts and then fly to the Russian fishing trer the down P3 at raid hours earlier the missen Yavin there they signaled them to follow me without any confirmed compliance from their political adversaries low on fuel they returned to the ditch site dropped a sar kit including an additional raft and then swapped positions with the Coast Guard C130 who arrived on datam just in time we knew how to do this we were confident the only thing I was a little worried about was the actual accuracy of the drop since we actually had never in in the drills actually thrown anything out of the plane to see how close we could get to a Target it just went perfectly we we lined that sucker up we did a couple of practice runs um and Ron called the drop from the flight station and the air crew back there just performed like a Swiss watch it went out uh just like we had all trained for like it was supposed to unknown to the survivors this was the same Coast Guard aircraft that had departed a do earlier that morning heading east cg500 took over as seam Commander with their Allison t-56 engines sounding the same as the P3 ready alert the survivors were confident that work was still being done to get someone from somewhere to rescue them but the real threat to the survivors was time they had been been in the freezing Waters high waves and G level winds more than 7 hours the effects of hypothermia were taking its toll after verifying the rafts location the Coast Guard aircraft flew to the Russian fishing vessel Missin to try and establish radio contact using their more elaborate SAR communication Suite of equipment and frequencies they eventually spoke directly with the captain of the Soviet vessel asking for help to rescue their down friends despite political differences The Plea for assistance was answered the Missin reversed course and powered on as fast as they could following the Coast Guard aircraft to the last known raft position in route back and forth we dropped uh smoke flares which which really they put out smoke but the big thing at night was they put out a light so you had a candle to follow so we spent what about 6 hours going back and forth and back and forth and talking to the uh that radio man on the Miss yaven after we established on uh FM frequency cuz they they couldn't talk on your frequency and we couldn't we could talk to them though we traded off names and uh that's why the captain knows my name and everything cuz he must have been in the Radio Shack and at one point Manoff was saying um I told him I said U Manoff you speak good English and he came back and he said uh uh bill you speak good English too and uh when he said that I remember that it just really lightened the whole thing we all laughed 12 hours after the P3 ditched Soviet fishermen prepared for a recovery of US Navy personnel from a turbulent sea in rough conditions it was American plane that brought them he guided the plane guided them to the first rft but they were confused and they thought we initially were're going to land in the water and so we explained it's not our airplane it's somebody else in the water and then they wanted to know who's in the water so um we just told them friends it was an agonizing period for the survivors as three of the men in the overcrowded raft would succumb to the elements and died with the lights of the ship in close proximity 10 men from the alpha fox drop 586 crew were recovered from the turbulent sea along with three bodies two members of crew 6 gridsby and Miller were lost at sea the survivors were taken to the port of Petros and into a hospital on the camaca peninsula for several days us and Russian assets continued the search of the area for the missing crewman with no success after nearly a week under Soviet control vp9 crew 6 and the bodies of three Shipmates were transported to Japan and eventually to their home base in Moffet field California survivors of the ditching of alpha foxtrot 586 will never forget the SAR team members who saved their lives and created A brotherhood forever forged so many key events throughout that you know the key event of of uh great man who was able to Pilot a crippling airplane into the the sea um that had never been done this type of an aircraft um uh great man who enabled me to survive in my life rra Great Men even through Cold War times are just men just like us that came to our rescue and and showed us that humanity is not just your neighbor back home but is worldwide I know there's a lot of work a lot of people involved that affected our rescue and the only thing I can say to them is that thank you I think it speaks a lot about Captain abuav and what he did uh pretty much with his own initiative I mean when you're out there on the open ocean as a in a commercial boat or a navy boat or even you know a P3 flying around 1,000 miles from Land I mean you're pretty much your own boss and you know there's nobody telling you what to do I mean there's all kinds of messages coming in and out but I mean it's your judgment on the scene and the fact that he turned around and went right back into that storm he was trying to outrun uh says a lot about him and um the fact that the state department and the U the Pentagon and the Carter Administration they all did did not flinch did not hesitate they went U straight to the Russians and asked for help it says a lot about them that we truly weren't expectable through these many years since then these 45 years since then uh um we stayed in touch it's been a very um very fulfilling thing a little embarrassing Sometimes When U these guys say well thank you for saving our life but you know I don't know what to say to that except we were glad to do our job and and uh we wouldn't have wanted to be in that position but if we had been in that position where they were we would have hoped that they would have done U the same type of job we did and U that's the way it [Music] [Music] [Music] was [Music] [Music] am

Channel: John Ball

Views: 4,381

Keywords: P3, VP9, Patrol Squadron Nine, aircraft ditching, soviet union, cold war, Parpro, 1978, Adak, Alaska, Petropavlosk, Russia, Coast Guard, Air Force, Navy, rescue, hypothermia, SAR, search and rescue

Id: tdsUKdnwkds

Length: 21min 30sec (1290 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 25 2023