Erv,
I promised you the “other side of the story”
about the mid-air that 59-0054 had with the A-7D Corsair in July 1978. Here it
is:
We had a contingent of six A-7’s from the 76th
Tactical Fighter Squadron, 23rd Tac Fighter Wing, England Air Force Base,
Louisiana. Our part to play in Red Flag 78-8 was to be the “
The story starts 24 July, the day before the
accident, during the crew chief’s preflight of 71-0331, the mishap aircraft.
While inspecting the seat mounted parachute the crew chief found three of the
six pins that held the container closed were pulled out. Safety procedures
dictated that the parachute had to be repacked, rather than just putting the
pins back in, in case something else was wrong. The problem that we quickly ran
into was that there were no A-7 qualified riggers at Nellis. We made a phone
call back to
The young staff sergeant they sent out flew
into
We had the parachute repacked and
re-installed in the airplane right after we recovered the morning sortie. As
planned, we plugged 331 into the afternoon two ship along with 71-0329.
I don’t know what the mission was that
afternoon. 331, with 329 in the lead, launched just ahead of 0054, which was
leading 56-0454. Most times, the pilots talked about the sortie only after they
came back. This time was no different.
About an hour into the 90 minute sortie we
started hearing things over the maintenance radio about a jet going down. Just
like the old days we had to wait until the planes started coming back to see
who was missing. When only one A-7 appeared we knew we were the one’s shy a
jet. The captain flying 329 was almost distraught at having lost his wingman,
believing that the other pilot may have been killed as no one had heard a
mayday call or seen a chute. Someone else who was very nervous was the young
man who had packed the parachute that morning. We did our best to calm him down
but I don’t think we helped all that much.
We had to wait about an hour more to be told
that 331’s pilot had indeed gotten out of the aircraft and was not injured. We
were jubilant! No one cared about losing the plane. We just wanted our pilot
back!
We were able to talk to the pilot later that
evening. He told us that somehow, during a turning maneuver between the two
A-7’s and the two F-106’s 331 and 0054 had gotten belly-up to each other and
crossed. While the -106 lost it’s nose the A-7 lost everything from the left
wingfold outboard, literally half the left wing! The aircraft started rolling violently
and the pilot was unable to get out a MAYDAY call. He said as soon as the plane
came upright after about the second roll he pulled the seat handles and jettisoned
the aircraft. The seat and the newly repacked parachute worked just fine. Both
plane and pilot disappeared into a pretty solid undercast before anyone really
knew what was going on. Only after he was on the ground was the pilot able to
call for help. By then the other jets had had to leave due to fuel
considerations.
Needless to say the pilot of 331 was happy
that all of his emergency equipment worked. Probably the happiest person was
the staff sergeant who had repacked the parachute. He told us later that in his
six years in the Air Force this was the first time anyone had had to use one of
‘his’ parachutes. Following tradition the pilot
bought the young man a case of his favorite beer as well as several
bottles of harder stuff. As far as I know, he may still be drinking free booze!
The
included pictures are those taken the afternoon of the 25th. I would
imagine I was the only person taking pictures as we had to get permission to do
so. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to tell this story. I spent just 15
months with the A-7’s but they were some of the most interesting of my 20 year
career.
Ron Alldredge
rlalldredge@bak.rr.com