1969 USAF C-130E Loss off Alderney, CI

[GrumpyOldFart]

While looking for something else, I stumbled upon this:

Date: 23 MAY 1969
Time: 06:55
Type: Lockheed C-130E Hercules
Operator: United States Air Force - USAF
Registration: 63-7789
Msn / C/n: 3856
Year built: 1963
Crew: 1 fatality / 1 on board
Passengers: 0 fatalities / 0 on board
Total: 1 fatality / 1 on board
Airplane damage: Written off
Location: off Alderney, Channel Islands (United Kingdom)
Phase: En route (ENR)
Nature: Military
Narrative:
Illegal flight by crew chief. Possibly shot down. (My emphasis)

(Found at http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19690523-2 )

Wow! Anyone have any recollection of this? If so, can you share 'the rest of the story'? 'Possibly shot down' by whom?

[diginagain]

Googled in the tail number, try here;
http://p076.ezboard.com/fc130herculesheadquartersfrm4.showMessage?topicID=10.topic
and
http://p076.ezboard.com/fc130herculesheadquartersfrm4.showMessage?topicID=49.topic

[GrumpyOldFart]

Thanks, diginagain. Was too befuddled to think of Google. D'oh!

:zzz:

[diginagain]

No problem, I've got nothing else to do, and I've not been seeing in the New Year. It's an interesting story. I wonder how much information is in the public domain?

[chevvron]

The airman (not flight crew if I remember rightly) had 'personal problems' and managed to steal the aircraft from Mildenhall. Fighters were scrambled, but there is some discussion as to whether the guy simply lost control or whether it was actually shot down.
I was working at LATCC West Drayton at the time (this was before we had radar at Drayton, the radar was still at Heathrow); first we knew was when the Air Defence people asked if they could take 'some fighters' though the LTMA across Heathrow.

[lightningmate]

Wattisham QRA (1 aircraft) scrambled but the C130 had hit the sea before the Lightning got near. In the operational sense that was just as well, since explaining why a Lightning QRA aircraft could not effectively engage a C130 , if required, would have been a bit embarrassing. F3 aircraft, no guns, displayed Firestreak acquisition on turboprops a rare event and always a bit too close.

lm

[O2thief]

I was an ATCO at Lyneham on the date that this happened. From my hazy recollections of events, the ac was from Ramstein and the USAF managed to get this chap's (crew chief) wife to speak with him on HF with the intention of getting him to land. Clearly this had no effect as he blundered on, seemingly intent on getting back to the USA by himself. Flew westbound down the Channel for a while before being summarily removed from the flying progamme! I cannot, positively, recall who was responsible for his removal apart from the fact that Soosterburg QRA was launched to shadow him down the Channel.

O2T

[Conan the Librarian]

This was Paul someone or other wasn't it? Nicked a 130 from Mildenhall? All ended in tears as I remember, but it did get a lot of BBC coverage as it happened. My Gods... what memories Pprune doth plumb. I was all of ten years old.


Conan

[gravity victim]

Shot down by a fighter out of Bentwaters, I was told by a serviceman there. Apparently given a chance to jump but did not take the hint.

[Onan the Clumsy]

the USAF managed to get this chap's (crew chief) wife to speak with him on HF with the intention of getting him to land. One would think that would have the exact opposite effect :hmm:

[diginagain]

a little extreme unless there was a specific threat to the UK
How about the small matter of stoofing into some innocents on the ground anywhere?

[Onan the Clumsy]

not much ground between the uk and the usa though.


In any event, aren't all largish aircraft fitted with automatic control wrestler and school playground avoidance equipment?

[diginagain]

Onan, who's to going to give me a clue as to the nav skills of an inebriated crewchief. Couple of degrees either way, there's large chunks of Europe, or the Irish Republic. Plus if he'd pulled up far enough, lots of small tubes containing US voters.

IMHO, he did well to get as far as he did.

[Lon More]

I was a civil ATCA at Sopley (Southern Radar) when this happened. There was a great flap on; I seem to remember an armed guard at the door of the special ops. cabin. There was a great deal of speculation after the event about what had happened but those in the know were keeping stumm and the rest of us were having the Official Secrets Act waved at us again.
FWIW I think he just lost it although there was probably an intention to shoot him down if he approached land again.
For a while afterwards the Americans padlocked the nosegear of the C130s to prevent a repeat, but this died out quite soon as the keys were constsntly being lost

[SASless]

Dig,

If that was a concern....I know lots of fledgling aviators that would be on a hit list....even some very senior ones too.:E

[Regie Mental]

From my recllection the guy in question was homesick, got drunk and so decided to fly home in a C-130 from Mildenhall (afterward all Herks were chained to the ramp). Speculation has been rife for years as to why the aircraft came down as the guy had managed to take off and fly straight and level for some time. A request under the Freedom of Information Act was met with the response that it was a US matter! Speculation has variously proposed that a USAF F-4/F-100 or Lightning shot it down. Considering only the latter would have been on QRA that is the most likely candidate to be scrambled but I guess it may well have crashed before it got close enough, possibly on purpose.

[Firestreak]

The QRA at Wattisham was brought to cockpit readiness but not scrambled, F4s from Bentwaters were put in the air and the strong rumour was that they shot it down.

Firestreak aquisition on a turboprop?? never had any great difficulty. Anyway, fairly academic as the Q fit at that time was invariably Red Top

[NutherA2]

[ Firestreak acquisition on turboprops a rare event and always a bit too close.]

During the Malaysian/Indonesian "Confrontation" in the 60's, C130's featured high on the list of possible intruders. On 60 Sqn (Javelin 9 with Firestreak) we did some ad hoc trials at medium & low level to investigate acquisition envelopes. As I recall, acquisition at useful ranges was achieved more or less anywhere from abeam the Herc round to its 6 o'clock. We even got some success from head on. I don't suggest the Firestreak would have achieved hits from all these angles, but acqusition certainly presented no apparent problems.

[pulse1]

I spent that afternoon ('twas a Friday) getting very cross with ATC at Hurn. I was trying to get telephone clearance to operate non radio in their zone and nobody would speak to me and wouldn't tell me why.

When they did call me, they just told me that there had been a crisis but wouldn't say what it was.

Still it did mean that they kindly let me in the next day and it all became clear what the problem had been.

[lightningmate]

Ref comments above covering Firestreak acquisition on Turbo-Prop sources. Firesteak acquired on 'hot-metal', ie jet pipes. Turbo-Prop jet pipe efflux temps are generally relatively low compared to those developed by a 'standard' jet engine. Moreover, many Turbo-Prop jet pipes are angled or shielded. Hence, whilst not impossible, acquisition was hit & miss and could have been on other airframe hot-spots. An acquisition indication is just that, it does not define what the seeker has actually 'seen'. The big concern being that a possibly tenuous acquisition would be lost at scan-lock changeover and/or during the dynamics of missile launch and guidance.

Whilst not disputing the stated results gained from 'informal' Javelin trials, the fact that head-on acquisitions were obtained by Firestreak leads me to conclude that the trial results could have been interpreted optimistically.

I cannot be categoric, but at the date of this event I recollect the Wattisham Wg had only recently commenced 'familiarising' with Red Top and the Sqns were not fitting them for QRA. Even so, availability of Red Top would not have dramatically changed the situation. Its seeker head characteristics were designed for the head-on acquisition case and in the situation being discussed, the Red Top seeker acquisition mode was less 'flexible' than that of Firestreak.

Finally, the Lightning radar fit at the time was AI23B, the additional, potentially advantageous missile-head slaving options provided by AI23C were not available.

lm

[Firestreak]

Lightningmate, can assure you that Wattisham wasn't in any sort of familiarisation with Red Top at the time, it was a well established part of the inventory. I went through the OCU in 68 and was at Wattisham 68-71, cannot recall being on Q with anything other than Red Top.

[Setpoint99]

I was a USAF EM stationed at RAF Mildenhall in the late 1960s. On the day of the loss of that C-130 in 1969, when I reported to work on base at the the supply squadron in the morning, my section NCOIC took us aside and quietly told us--with a bit of gravitas--that earlier that day a C-130 crew chief on rotation duty at Mildenhall, who had a personal problem with the woman in his life, had stolen a C-130 and managed to take off with it. He said that when the tower had figured out that something was awry, it ordered the Air Police to try to block the runway, but by then it was too late.
As I recall, the 513 TAW at Mildenhall was comprised of rotating C-130 units on TDY. We had a lot of reservists TDY with us who had been called up by LBJ during the Vietnam War, who were definitely disgruntled--or at least most certainly not gruntled--by the dislocation of their personal lives (as school teachers, lawyers, etc.) required by their unexpected service. Don't think that the guy who nicked the 130 was necessarily a reservist, though.
While delivering aircraft parts to mechanics on the flightline via truck in the winter at Mildenhall, we'd often encounter a C-130 loudly trundling along a taxiway, emerging out of ground fog straight ahead, and we'd have to do a quick 180. Loved that Brit weather. (These last two paragraphs are merely free dissociation and not related to the C-l30 incident. Ah, nostalgia.)