Air Vietnam Crash 12/22/1969

Hey to all the old WOs stopping by....thanks, and Welcome Home! And Thanks for
bringing my numbers up. I got over myself long ago Shark4...and the war too. PRH 7-1-09

As I sit here looking for the bright sun to make a dent in the 5 inch snow fall, and rest the back...thinking what the Hell am I going to do in the next 5 days, and if the injections fails...where do we go from here? I pulled a couple of old photos out of the Vietnam Box...and I notice one, pretty non-interesting that shows an open air school house from my days at Nha Trang, RVN....the back of the photo simply reads "Gook School House 1969", crude to say the least, but that's they way things were 38 years ago....I had nothing against the Vietnamese people in general....it was a crude slang, like so many others used to describe a group of folks. I tend not to worry about ancient history....others should not either....if they do, well, sorry about their personal problem.

What was interesting about this school house, was, it was located at the end of the main runway at Nha Trang AB.....on December 22, 1969, I was finishing up my tour at Nha Trang, and would be heading south to Saigon, Tan Son Nhut Air Base, to serve another 6 months in Vietnam. I had 5 days left at Nha Trang. December 22nd dawned bright and sunny, I do remember that much...I also remember it as the day I realized just how much I disliked Army Warrant Officers...it was nothing personal, I didn't like their attitudes, I just didn't like them....Warrant Officers, were in my opinion, half assed officers....Helicopter Jockies who thought their shit didn't stink.....we had to put up with them, because they were stationed next to us....in general, they were a pain in the ass.....by the end of 12/22/1969, I couldn't stand the sight of them.

We received notice of an in-air situation concerning a Air Vietnam DC 6....someone had exploded a bomb on board the plane, but it was still flying, and was going to attempt to make a landing at our runway.....Cops, and the guys with the bright red fire trucks were called out....the Security Police would clear the area...the Fire guys would sit by and wait to see if the plane would land safely, if not, those boys knew what to do.....I knew a little about Air Force Fire Protection Specialists, my older brother Mike was one.......our problem clearing the runway and surrounding area would have been easy, the Air Force guys knew better than to give us any grief...the clowns that called themselves Warrant Officers(I called them assholes), were not as easy to chase off....I especially remember one overweight blond WO....as I told him to get off the pylon, and out of the area, he yelled back, I had no authority, and I was to call him sir(The Air Force didn't recognize WOs as officers, so we did not salute them or call them "sir")....that did it, I laughed at him, and told him the only thing I would call him was "Jackass", and he had 30 seconds to clear the area, if not, I was going to arrest him......the stare down lasted about 30 seconds until Staff Sgt Melvin Sloan showed up, and told "Blondie" he had just used up his free pass....looking at the 6' 4" black man, with the pissed off look on his face, I guess the WO figured, he best not force the issue, and with a glare(at me) left the flight line. Sloan was my buddy....plus I figured, if any fight ensued, it was best to have him on my side...especially at the NCO Club, or elsewhere some didn't appreciate off duty Cops.

My issue with this WO, and others, was here we were with a good chance of people dying, and they wanted to shoot photos.....they were not from "Stars and Stripes", and I wasn't letting them get close enough to see death and destruction.....no photos were taken by anybody near us, that I know.

The aftermaths of the "crash landing" can be found at:

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/planes/q0283.shtml

and:

http://www.planecrashinfo.com/1969/1969-81.htm

What I remember is the plane approaching from over the beach on the South China Sea....you could see the gaping hole in the rear passenger side....as in slow motion, the plane landed far down the runway.....it did not burst into flames, but it did spark and come apart...as it slid towards the school house and the shacks in the neighborhood......

How most of those on the plane survived, is a mystery.....to this day I can't remember exactly what happened on the ground....I know the school was hit and basically destroyed, 24 people on the ground were killed....what I don't recall, and probably best that way, is whether the school was evacuated.....and whether it was kids in the school or residents in the area that lost their lives.....I just know, I can still see the slow motion picture in front of me....and the thought that I was lucky I never saw the Warrant Officer again, I probably would have ended up in jail.... instead, I was gone in 5 days, heading for Saigon.....I don't know what happened to "Blondie", and frankly, I could care less....I'm just glad he never got to get his death photos, at least on my side of the runway.

{A DC 6B....not the one that crashed... the School House at the end of the Nha Trang Runway, a few weeks before the crash, and me in my blue Sky Cop Helmet manning the Civilian Gate in October 1969}