1/Nov/2012 15:40
602nd OMS Yearbook -- 1970
Click on the cover page for the PDF file
This was shared with all of us by Tony Guarcello, who noted:
"Back in 1966 I made my way to Travis Air Force Base
where for the next 7 years had the great privilege of
working with the C-141."
Sept 10, 2012 2:17pm
67-0006 Crash
Got this note from a former firefighter who responded to the crash of 67-0006 in the UK on 28 Aug 1976.
I came across your site whilst I was looking for any information regarding the
above crash.
I wondered if the following might be of some interest to you.
That August bank holiday weekend, I was on duty with the rest of the members of
White Watch at Dogsthorpe Fire Station in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire. I was on
kitchen duties that day and we had finished the main meal and I was about to
serve up the pudding when we got a call to an aircraft in flames on the
outskirts of Thorney.
I had only been in the service for just over 3 years ,but I had passed my Heavy
Goods Vehicle driving test and was driving the Water Tender Ladder that day. A
colleague,of many more years experience than me, was driving the Emergency
Tender. I felt all the way there that I didn't want to hold him up.
The drive to Thorney, some 9 miles or so, seemed to take forever, especially in
the wet conditions. But we got there and I'll never forget the sight that met
us.
The tail section of the aircraft was lying in a field at the side of the
approach road, the Emergency Tender crew were detailed to check for radioactive
substances in the tail. I proceeded as far as I could into the field containing
the main wreckage, which had a crop of sugar beet in it, before we became bogged
down in the wet muddy conditions.
From then on it was just a matter of carrying everything we needed from the
appliances as best we could. As I remember, all the attending appliances got
bogged down, some nearer than others to the actual incident.
After searching the site it became obvious that there would be no survivors and
the image that I will always have with me is the view inside of what remained of
the flight deck, with members of the crew inside.
I'll never forget that.
After some hours the fire crews arrived from Mildenhall airbase, and we then
prepared to leave, but that proved to be a problem as we were all stuck in the
mud. We had to get a farmer to help to tow us all out onto solid ground using
his tractor.
The atmosphere on the watch was very subdued for a while after that. It was a
terrible tragedy, and although I'm retired now and living 60 miles from
Peterborough, whenever I travel back that way, through Thorney, I always
remember the events of that day.
Nigel Lettice (retired firefighter)
Dereham
Norfolk
UK
Here's a couple of photos of Nigel from back in the glory days.
Thursday, May 3, 2012 08:24 am
BIOT C-141 Stamp
Thanks goes to sharp-eyed C141Heaven visitor Frank Correa for finding this:
Sunday, April 29, 2012 11:49 am
64-0641 Crash
A month or so ago we started a quest to find a relative of Frank Eve, an 8th MAS pilot who was killed in the C-141 that crashed in the Olympic mountains northwest of McChord AFB in March, 1975. A hiker in the area had located an ID tag years after the crash and had turned it in to the Parks Service who subsequently made an attempt to interest the AF in returning the tag to Frank's family. Due to the passage of so many years and so much time it seemed they (the AF) just didn't want to spend the needed time or effort to locate someone.
That didn't seem right to me so I posted a note here on C141Heaven about the tag and asked everyone for help in locating a member of Frank's family. This was not an easy task ... but Lee Corbin managed to locate Frank's wife, who has since remarried. I communicated with her regarding the people at the Parks Service who actually have the tag and will be sending it to her this week.
It was a cold March night that I waited for him to come home. As usual they were late so I went to bed only to be awakened around 2-3am with a knock at our door. I was told that the plane was missing and my only thoughts were of the vast ocean, and the fact that he had just returned from water survival training...so he would be ok, just a matter of daylight..
Thanks to everyone who helped on this project. It's too bad the AF couldn't do the right thing years ago.
Sunday, April 29, 2012 11:45 am
T-Tail Geyser
Read the latest T-Tail Tall-Tale, T-Tail Gusyer by George Levanduski.
Saturday, April 14, 2012 01:37 pm
Replaced by dummies ...
Saturday, April 14, 2012 01:37 pm
A Few Blasts From The Past
While digging around in Google's news archives ...
Wednesday, March 28, 2012 02:22 am
One Hell of a Salesman
Does the DoD know the C-141 was removed from service in 2006? Evidently not.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012 04:44 pm
MATS/MAC Videos
It's truly amazing how poor the quality of these productions (both video and sound) are, considering some of them are only 20-30 years old!
Monday, March 26, 2012 09:46 am
67-0006 Accident Mildenhall, August 28th, 1976
Portions of the USAF Collateral Investigation Report can viewed at this link.
Sunday, March 25, 2012 07:34 am
Old Weekend Warrior Reserve Ads
Thanks to Les Crosby ...
Thursday, March 22, 2012 08:10 am
Olympic Mountains Crash-Update
Here's the latest on the Frank Eve ID Tag story. After posting here and on several Facebook groups (C141, 8th MAS and others) I got a flurry of responses and assistance. Several of them were from folks with access to Ancestry.com services and thus far we've uncovered these things:
-
Frank A Eve is buried at Rockford Cemetery, Rockford Coosa County, Alabama. Seethis link.
I contacted the person who posted this info on the page and he is not related to Frank Eve. He updated the page with information about the crash and our quest to locate a family member. There was also a link to a person who left 'virtual flowers' on the page. I've her sent an email asking if she has any knowledge of family relationships. -
Someone has noted from Ancestry.com that Frank was born in Virginia.
-
Mother's maiden name was Newcumber. He lived in Kent (north of McChord).
-
Contacted the McChord AFB chaplain's office who offer no help but referred me to the base historian's office. A voice mail message said to send him an email, but then didn't it leave an email address to send it to and of course there is nothing on the public McChord web site with email addresses. (Nobody seems to know how to use voice mail these days!). So I left a voice message with my phone # and my email address. Time will tell if anything comes of this.
-
Sometimes the top is the best place to start so I've sent a letter to the 62nd AW commander with details.
-
Sent emails to the 62nd PA office and to the AMC PA office. No response yet.
-
Sent another note to the TNT (Tacoma News Tribune) "news tips" folks to see if they can shake anything loose at McChord or from the AF.
All this has happened in just a couple of days, so I'm hopeful we'll make headway on this before too long. Thanks to everyone who's helped so far ... Let's keep up the quest until we succeed!
Tuesday, March 20, 2012 06:20 pm
Olympic Mountains Crash
A bunch of emails have gone back and forth recently related to the crash of 64-0641 in the Olympic Mountains near McChord in March 1975. Years later, in 1987, an unidentified mountain climber found a set of dog-tags and turned them in to the local forest service office in the Olympic National Park. Representatives of the forest service and the mountain rescue folks contacted McChord to try and return the tag but were basically given the brush off. The tag remains under the care of the Olympic National Park museum to this very day.
The image of the tag above is very difficult to see, but the tags belonged to pilot Frank Eve. I'm starting a quest to locate one of his family members to see if they would like to have the tags after all these years. Anyone who might know where we can find one or more them please contact me and we'll try and get this ball rolling.
Sunday, March 18, 2012 02:21 pm
Nice Shot of 64-0645
Richard Fillhart, a former maintenance officer mailed in a few shots of some of the aircraft he was involved with back in the 70's. Here's a very nice one of 64-0645.
© 1971 Richard Fillhart This was January 1971 @ Hill AFB, UTAH
This one is from a REFORGER mission in January 1969. Tail number as 65-0273 ... flown by a KCHS crew. Taken at Spangdahlem, Germany. The VIP is General Howell M Estes... Commander of MAC.
Sunday, March 18, 2012 02:21 pm
67-0006 Crash Info - Flight Data Recorder
Four shots of the Flight Data Recorder from 67-0006. There was not too much recoverable information from this device.
Friday, February 3, 2012 02:47 pm
67-0006 Crash Info
I was recently sent about 500+ pages of material on the crash of 67-0006 (see post below). It is a huge amount of material and I'm going through it now to determine what might be suitable for posting here on C-141 Heaven. Here's a shot of the Mildenhall weather radar, taken about 45 minutes after the accident. The heavy thunderstorms in the area and track of the aircraft (and its end point) are shown via the white line to the left side.
Friday, February 3, 2012 12:17 pm
67-0006 Memorial
The memorial for 67-0006, which crashed in a huge thunderstorm just outside of Mildenhall in August 1976 was given a face-lift last month.
photos By Charles W. Hanjy
Saturday, January 28, 2012 06:23 pm
Shoebox Find
Andrew Pollock found these pics from his time at Norton and sent them to me for scanning and posting here on C141Heaven.
These first few are of a honeycomb delamination repair job on the underside of the T-Tail of 66-0177 that he and another guy were assigned to do. He had the outstanding foresight to take along a camera and snap some shots from an angle most of us never had a chance to see.
These next pics are from a base-guide distributed to all new Norton personnel, probably by the housing office or some similar entity.
Saturday, January 28, 2012 05:58 pm
eBay Find
Bill Watkins found an old copy of American Aviation on eBay and sent me a couple of photos (cover and a Lockheed ad) from before the first flight of the C141 in December of 1963. At that time Lockheed still held out the hope that the C-141 would be sold to a wide civilian market.
Saturday, January 28, 2012 05:38 pm
"The German"
It has nothing to do with the C-141 but it's a very well done video and worth
watching if you like aviation in WWII!
If you don't haven't spend much time on
VIMEO they have a wide variety of fantastic videos of all types. It easy
to waste hours there if you have no sense of time.
The GermanfromNick RyanonVimeo.
Written & Directed by Nick Ryan
A British fighter pilot pursues the German ace that shot down his friend across sky and country... with murder in mind. But he discovers it's not so easy to kill a man when you have to look them in the eye.
This was funded by an Irish Film Board scheme called 'Short Cuts' and was shot in November 2007. The Budget was €70K, and was used entirely on the live action components of the film - leaving a grand total of ZERO for visual effects!
The film's creator completed all the visual effects shots, over 120 in total, entirely by myself. Dave Head modelled the aircraft (and truck), but I textured, lit, animated and composited the shots over a six month period in 2008.
Saturday, January 28, 2012 05:13 pm
Crew Latrine
My last request last year was on behalf of someone working on a book about
Medivac operations and he needed a bit of info about the crew latrine for some
reason.
Something to with possibly seeing someone try to plant a bomb in one during the
evacuation
of orphans from Tan Son Nhut in the last days of our adventures there.
I asked, and you responded with these stunning images:
It's enough to make you want to take a little trip on a C-141!