One more hairy flight
June ,1969: After finishing our combat flights in Vietnam , I thought my time of danger was over. Little did I know that I had one more hairy flight left ! We were leaving Sangley Point P . I . on our way to the USA. The bomb bay tanks had been installed to give us enough range to get home. Cdr. Neville Dunnan and Lt. Ron Whittaker were the pilots. Lt. Catalano and Ltjg. Avallone were the navigation Officers. I was the plane capt. and AE1 Mello was the electrican. Leaving NAS Sangley Point and climbing to about 1500 feet we found the bomb bay tanks had come loose. The plane started filling with fuel fumes. The pilots opened the bomb bay doors and cut the electrical power. We flew around for awhile trying to decide what to do to fix the problem. The fuel was still pouring out of the tank ! If we had an electrical spark, we would have been blown out of the air ! I climbed out in the bomb bay on top of the tank. The bomb bay doors were open. I was on top of the tank with no harness nor parachute ! Try as I might, I was unable to get the tank hooked up. I was being washed down with fuel. My flight suit was soaked. I climbed back into the plane unable to stop the fuel from spraying. We headed back to the Phillipines and landed at NAS Sangley Point. After the problem had been fixed and I changed my flight suit, we finally headed for home ! That was my last hairy flight !
I brought number one gunship to Vietnam and brought it back home - Story submitted by ADR1 S. Sam Gore, Plane Captain Crew 1. |