Joyride: 1986 Theft of a Marine A-4 Skyhawk

brought to you by Magellan TV piloting a high-performance military jet aircraft is the goal of many young men and women but it is a difficult dream to attain in 1986 a talented young marine made an impulsive choice after receiving some bad news that time that a Marine ground crewman stole an 18 million dollar Marine Corps jet fighter deserves to be remembered I know you heard me talk about the sponsor of today's episodes many times Magellan TV it's a new type of documentary streaming service it's run by filmmakers it's got more than 2,000 high-quality documentaries every one of them worth watching I know right now many of us are stuck at home and that's a great time to educate yourself and Magellan TV is a great way to do that when I first subscribe to Magellan about a year ago one of the first documentaries that I watched was a fascinating documentary about a nearly forgotten event and I nearly forgotten war and recently I just rewatched explosion 1812 and I cannot recommend it highly enough the documentary is about the American attempt to take York which is modern-day Toronto in Canada during the war of 1812 and it talks about an interesting little nun event that changed the course of history in North America the episode focuses on new archaeology sheds even more like on history that deserves to be remembered the documentary remind to be yet again of why I subscribe to Magellan TV I'm a big fan of history documentaries but you might enjoy science space or nature or all of which Magellan TV offers Magellan TV has the richest and most varied history content available anywhere ancient modern current early modern war biography and even not historical genres like science and crime or of course historical in nature you can watch explosion 1812 anywhere on your television laptop or mobile device Magellan is compatible with Roku Amazon fire TV Apple TV Google Play and iOS and you can even cast it from your phone to your television and of course the best part is Magellan is offering a free one-month subscription to fans of the history guy and to get that free month all you have to do is sign up with the link that's in the description a May 18th 1984 article in the Los Angeles Times the grubs what might be called a young man whose interest in flight was typical Howard buddy foot developed an interest in aviation after building model airplanes at age 12 and became determined to be a pilot after taking his first ride the commercial airliner in age 14 the young man however then just 18 took that interest higher and farther than most he earned his pilot's license at age 16 joined a soaring Club in Long Beach and proceeded to break the California junior altitude record in an unpowered glider flying at 33,000 140 feet high altitude soaring is not a simple still story explained that the best conditions for high altitude soaring require passing through severe ground-level whether the altitudes of which the teenager was flying were deadly cold around minus 72 degrees Fahrenheit and required oxygen equipment or the pilot would pass out within minutes but it wasn't doing this on his own his efforts were supported by a group of British and American aeronautical engineers who were supporting his attempt to break the world's record for high-altitude flying in an unpowered glider among his supporters was marine Brigadier General art bloomer who was commanding officer of the nearby Marine Air Station el Toro near Irvine in California already an accomplished pilot and well known within the gliding community after graduating high school foot toes to enlist in the Marine Corps in 1986 he became an eighth for aviation mechanic at El Toro his goal was to obtain a commission through the Corps enlisted commissioning program a program where enlisted marine earns a four-year degree and then can be commissioned as an officer a requirement to become a pilot a friend from high school noted that foot had talked about his glider flying in a class presentation and said that his goal was to fly the douglas a-4 skyhawk the sky Hawk is a delta-winged single turbo jet engine subsonic carrier capable attack aircraft entering service in 1956 the F war served with the United States and the Vietnam War with the Israeli Air Force in the Yom Kippur War and with the Argentine Air Force in the Falklands War designed to be lightweight the a4 served with both the Navy and Marines but also with the number of foreign navies where its small size allowed them to be operated off of smaller aircraft carriers the plane was also used by the Navy flight demonstration team the Blue Angels the agile fighter was by the Navy as the primary adversary aircraft at the Navy fighter weapons school known as Top Gun the plane served as a training surrogate for the mig-17 and it's superb low-speed handling needed an excellent aircraft for trending aviators in air combat maneuvering while the Navy continued to use the a4 in flight training the Marines had passed on the Navy's frontline replacement the LTV a-7 corsair ii and yes corsair means pirate thus at the time he entered the service the Marines were still operating the a4 in their attack squadrons with a primary mission of air support for ground units according to his high school buddy foot could have flown with any branch but chose the Marines because he wanted to fly the a4 but in February 1986 foot's dreams were ruined foot had continued flying high altitude gliders in his off-duty time still seeking to break the world altitude record while flying at forty two thousand five hundred feet foot suffered in aerial embolism a blockage in the bloodstream caused by lack of oxygen it's an affliction similar to the band's suffered by divers it's caused when the human body fails to adapt to a quick change in pressure foot was able to recover and land the glider but was then informed by a flight surgeon that suffering the embolism at the foot would be unable to fly for the Marines foot and his family disagreed with general bloomer over the event foots father bud contended in a 1988 interview in the Los Angeles Times that it was the general who got buddy's head all turned around and that foot had flown too high at the generals urging he said that if the general had left buddy alone everything would have turned out fine reportedly general bloomer had tried to get the altitude record flight to be a Marine Corps sanctioned event but he was not able to get approval had he succeeded the Corps would likely have provided a pressure suit which would have made the attempt much safer bloomer insisted that he tried to discourage foot from going above 30,000 feet without the pressure suit foot said that he felt that the general had given him a job to do my job was to break glider records but was upset that none of the people in command who had encouraged him and his high-altitude glider record attempts would come forward and get me a medical waiver so I could fly jets the 20-year old Marine reportedly became extremely depressed for what he saw as the loss of his dream he'd signed up for the Marines to become a pilot not a line officer in the early morning hours of July 4th he made an interesting decision he decided that he was going to steal an 18 million dollar Marine jet fighter in the early morning hours foot down a flight suit and drove a yellow truck of the type used to deliver pilots up to an a4 M of marine attack squadron VMA 214 in the black sheep essentially noticed him but assume that a mechanic was performing nighttime maintenance work on the aircraft something a Marines postman later described as not uncommon but maintenance was not the young man's plan he told the LA Times I had worked my entire life for this flight there was nothing else he fired at the plane which was unarmed and closed the canopy taxied over a nearby runway which was unlit boost the throttle forward took off Lance Corporal Brenda Miller the sentry in charge of the area was heading for an authorized break when she heard the planes engine is a taxi for the runway that's what clued me that there was something wrong she would later say any hearing no plane should have been on the runway which was closed retired Marine Corps Major Richard harden recalled that night sank was about midnight when he heard an a4 depart the field he said I was wondering who had the huevos to do a closed field departure must have been somebody really important they surmise for my base housing quarters Lance Corporal Miller chased the plane down the runway but was unable to get the pilots attention she had a sidearm but chose not to draw it and she did not have an accurate shot it seems extraordinary the foot could manage to take off in an unfamiliar hi-tech fighter aircraft from a darkened runway despite his experience piloting gliders but as a mechanic he was familiar with a plane moreover he had spent significant time training on an a4 simulator something harden speculated he'd been able to wrangle because he was a celebrity of sorts among the local gliding community the rumor are denoted was at foot had had more time on the simulator than active-duty aviators the runway was closed and there were no air traffic controllers on duty so if its flight was not tracked but news reports at the time said that he spent about 45 minutes of the ocean executing high-speed maneuvers an aviation maintenance officer later testified that one of the gauges indicated that the plane had undergone considerable gravitational pressure arraign spokesman Linder simply said he had some fun up there he was not being tracked and the Marines decided not to send a plane up to chase him but he still chose to return to El Toro he fooled the field five times which one of the sentries interpreted as a request to turn on the runway light so he could safely land the lights were turned on and he landed the plane he was immediately arrested by armed military police the aviation maintenance officer had just arrived and asked him if he'd had a good flight he responded that he thought we had a generator a problem with the engine foot was not found to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol and upon inspection the aircraft was found to be undamaged el Toro had no prison facilities so foot was confined at the Brig at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton near San Diego the charges were serious he was charged with misappropriating the truck of the plane damaging the aircraft disobeying regulations flying without proper training approval and recklessly disregarding the planes mechanical condition at the time of this theft the planes aileron rigging was out of alignment and the no steering mechanism was not working properly renting the plane from a mechanical standpoint not a flyable airplane but the most significant charge was hazarding a vessel while the other charges might render lengthy prison sentences the hazarding a vessel charged and tended to prevent the safety risk of mishandling naval ships could result in the death penalty foot was held in the brig at Camp Pendleton for four and a half months where a major hardened said his daring stunts made him somewhat of a cult hero among both officers and enlisted alike his military attorney sought to have the hazarding charge which had never been for been applied to the misappropriation of an airplane thrown out several officers including general bloomers spoke on his behalf bloomer later said buddy was a sterling Marine with an unblemished record who had done a lot of things that people a lot older could only dream about doing I only regret that he screwed up a good career after 122 days in the brig at time of which the commanding officer testified he maintained a good and positive attitude all charges were dropped foot was required to write a letter of apology was given a less than honorable discharge he said that we'd like to have paid them rings back for the problems that had created but understood that it would be difficult for the Corps to take him back Brigadier General DEP Miller replaced bloomer in command to deltoro said that his lack of judgment and violation of trust make it impossible to keep him in the Marine Corps in the written statement Miller said this was a very unusual case in which a marine with a tremendous amount of skill and great potential did a very stupid thing which could have resulted in a tragic loss of life the military had likely taken to account not only that several officers had spoken on his behalf but his mental state doing - being told that he would no longer qualify for flight school and also his otherwise spotless record and good behavior while in custody his military attorney told the LA Times that foot's unauthorized flight should be treated for what it was a once-in-a-lifetime flight from reality not the beginning of criminal conduct surprisingly buddy foot was not the only ground crewman who would steal an aircraft in history notably in 2018 a horizon Air Ground Service agent stole one of the airline's bombardier q400 aircraft from Seattle's SeaTac Airport he flew through several aeronautical maneuvers for which the plane was clearly not designed before crushing the plane in May of 1969 a 23 year old Air Force crew chief who had been passed over for promotion stole a c-130 cargo plane from a base in England crashing it into the English Channel luckily buddy foots jaw ride ended up better than those two examples did after his discharge from the reins he attended Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida and eventually qualified to fly more than 20 types of aircraft including obtaining a special waiver that allowed him to fly a russian-made jet fighter aircraft as a hobby he was still intent on flying the a4 and attempted to enlist in both the Israeli Air Force and the Honduran Air Force so that he could fly the plane but neither one of those worked out in 1991 he was back in the LA Times this time as a test pilot for a new experimental aircraft that was powered with microwaves and in 1992 he was in the news again this time trying to break more aeronautical records in another experimental aircraft by 2001 the Palm Springs Desert Sun reported that he had shifted his energies to developing technology for something called space power which is a technology that would have satellites around the earth collecting solar power from the Sun and beaming it back to the earth using either lasers or microwaves and as of 2009 he still had a company that was building that technology he had also started racing a car at a local racetrack in California where he earned the nickname LED foot he has at least two patents for experimental aircraft and engines who worked with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and all around seems to have overcome the bad decision that he made when he was a young man at the age of 20 in 1986 he told the LA Times I just wanted to fly it one time I didn't sign up to become a line officer I joined up to fly but I think I'm going to become a lot more productive now that I've left the service [Music] [Applause] you

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 437,340

Rating: 4.9259882 out of 5

Keywords: history, the history guy, history guy, us history, aviation, US Marines, A-4 Skyhawk

Id: HersvTbNdC0

Length: 14min 17sec (857 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 15 2020

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[u/ProfessorRGB]

The history guy is (among) the best.