Tan Son Nhut C-5 accident
Encyclopedia
The Tan Son Nhut C-5 accident refers to the 4 April 1975 crash of 68-0218, a Lockheed
C-5A Galaxy
participating in Operation Babylift
, which crashed on approach to an emergency landing at Tan Son Nhut Air Base
, Vietnam
. The cause was ascribed to loss of flight control due to explosive decompression and structural failure. The incident marked the second operational loss and first fatal crash for the C-5 Galaxy fleet. It is also the deadliest accident involving a US military aircraft.
overrun, the Ford administration
began instituting the evacuation of American citizens. To avoid alarming the host country, Ambassador Graham Martin
authorized Americans to be flown out under several pretexts, one of which was Operation Babylift
in which American caregivers were paired with Vietnamese orphans, most fathered by American servicemembers.
On the afternoon of Friday, 4 April 1975, C-5 68-0218, the first flight of Operation Babylift, departed Tan Son Nhut Air Base for Clark Air Base
, Philippines
. There, this first group of orphans were to transfer to charter flights and be welcomed by President Ford upon arriving in San Diego. At 4:15 p.m. the C-5A was about 13 nautical miles (24.1 km) off the coast of Vũng Tàu
, flying a heading of 136 deg and climbing to an altitude of 23,000 ft. At that moment the locks on the rear loading ramp failed, causing the cargo door to open explosively. This caused explosive decompression
, temporarily filling the cabin with a whirlwind of fog and debris. The blowout severed control cables to the tail, causing two of four hydraulic systems to fail, including those for the rudder and elevator, and leaving the flight control with only the use of one aileron
, spoilers
, and power.
The pilot Capt. Dennis "Bud" Traynor and copilot Capt. Tilford Harp, attempted to regain control of the airplane, and to perform a 180 degree turn in order to return to Tan Son Nhut. The aircraft began to exhibit phugoid
oscillations, but the crew countered them and maintained a controlled descent of about 250 to 260 kt. They were able to bring the plane to 4000 ft and begin the approach to Tan Son Nhut's runway 25L. While turning on final approach, the crew increased power to arrest a rapidly increasing descent rate. The plane touched down at 4:45 p.m. in a rice paddy, but skidded for a quarter of a mile, went airborne for another half mile crossing the Saigon River
, then hit a dike and broke up into four pieces. The fuel caught fire and some of the wreckage was set ablaze.
Survivors struggled to extricate themselves from the wreckage. The crash site was in a muddy rice paddy near the Saigon River, one mile from the nearest road. Fire engines could not reach the site, and helicopters had to set down some distance from the wreckage. About 100 South Vietnamese soldiers deployed around the site, which was near the site of an engagement with the Viet Cong the previous night. Out of 328 people on board, the death toll included 76 children, 34 Defence Attaché Office employees, 5 civilian dependents, 11 Air Force personnel, and 8 nurses from foreign countries. There were 175 survivors. All of the surviving orphans were eventually flown to the United States. The dead orphans were cremated and reported to be interred at a Catholic cemetery in Pattaya
, Thailand
.
Some members of Congress
called for a grounding of C-5s. In the end, the fleet was put under severe operational restrictions for a number of months while the cause was established. However, Pentagon officials commented publicly about Traynor's "remarkable demonstration of flying skill". The Air Force Accident Investigation Board attributed the survival of any on board to Captain Traynor's unorthodox use of power and his decision to crash-land while the aircraft allowed some control. Captains Traynor and Harp were awarded the Air Force Cross
for extraordinary valor. Thirty-seven medals were awarded to crew members or their next of kin. Flight nurse Regina Aune received the Cheney Award
for 1975.
In June 1975, a sister of a woman who died in the crash filed a $200 million class action lawsuit against the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation
charging negligence.
Many of the components were looted from the crash site, thereby complicating the investigation; the USAF paid a bounty for parts from the wreckage in order to recover them from the local populace. The , , and were assigned to search for the flight data recorder in the South China Sea
. The recorder was found, and naval ships and helicopters also discovered wreckage from the doors in the South China Sea as well as the body of a C-5 crewmember .
When the rear doors were eventually recovered from the sea, investigation determined that some of the locks had not engaged properly. Maintenance records showed that locks had been cannibalized for spares, then subsequently improperly refitted so that not all the door locks were engaging correctly. Furthermore, the flight crew confirmed that they had had difficulty closing the doors before take-off. As differential air pressure increased with altitude, the few locks that were working correctly were unable to bear the load, and the door failed.
show Mayday
(known as Air Emergency in the US, Mayday in Ireland and Air Crash Investigation in the UK and the rest of world). The episode is entitled "Operation Babylift".
Lockheed Corporation
The Lockheed Corporation was an American aerospace company. Lockheed was founded in 1912 and later merged with Martin Marietta to form Lockheed Martin in 1995.-Origins:...
C-5A Galaxy
C-5 Galaxy
The Lockheed C-5 Galaxy is a large military transport aircraft built by Lockheed. It provides the United States Air Force with a heavy intercontinental-range strategic airlift capability, one that can carry outsize and oversize cargos, including all air-certifiable cargo. The Galaxy has many...
participating in Operation Babylift
Operation Babylift
Operation Babylift was the name given to the mass evacuation of children from South Vietnam to the United States and other countries at the end of the Vietnam War , from April 3–26, 1975...
, which crashed on approach to an emergency landing at Tan Son Nhut Air Base
Tan Son Nhut Air Base
Tan Son Nhut Air Base was a Republic of Vietnam Air Force facility. It is located near the city of Saigon in southern Vietnam. The United States used it as a major base during the Vietnam War , stationing Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine units there...
, Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
. The cause was ascribed to loss of flight control due to explosive decompression and structural failure. The incident marked the second operational loss and first fatal crash for the C-5 Galaxy fleet. It is also the deadliest accident involving a US military aircraft.
Description
Early in April 1975 with much of South VietnamSouth Vietnam
South Vietnam was a state which governed southern Vietnam until 1975. It received international recognition in 1950 as the "State of Vietnam" and later as the "Republic of Vietnam" . Its capital was Saigon...
overrun, the Ford administration
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph "Jerry" Ford, Jr. was the 38th President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the 40th Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974...
began instituting the evacuation of American citizens. To avoid alarming the host country, Ambassador Graham Martin
Graham Martin
Graham Anderson Martin succeeded Ellsworth Bunker as United States Ambassador to South Vietnam in 1973. He would be the last person to hold that position. Martin previously served as ambassador to Thailand and as U.S. representative to SEATO....
authorized Americans to be flown out under several pretexts, one of which was Operation Babylift
Operation Babylift
Operation Babylift was the name given to the mass evacuation of children from South Vietnam to the United States and other countries at the end of the Vietnam War , from April 3–26, 1975...
in which American caregivers were paired with Vietnamese orphans, most fathered by American servicemembers.
On the afternoon of Friday, 4 April 1975, C-5 68-0218, the first flight of Operation Babylift, departed Tan Son Nhut Air Base for Clark Air Base
Clark Air Base
Clark Air Base is a former United States Air Force base on Luzon Island in the Philippines, located 3 miles west of Angeles City, about 40 miles northwest of Metro Manila. Clark Air Base was an American military facility from 1903 to 1991...
, Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
. There, this first group of orphans were to transfer to charter flights and be welcomed by President Ford upon arriving in San Diego. At 4:15 p.m. the C-5A was about 13 nautical miles (24.1 km) off the coast of Vũng Tàu
Vung Tàu
Vũng Tàu is a city in southern Vietnam. Its population in 2005 was 240,000. The city area is including 13 urban wards and one village. It is the capital of Ba Ria-Vung Tau province, and is the crude oil extraction center of Vietnam. It is also known as one of the most beautiful cities of tourism...
, flying a heading of 136 deg and climbing to an altitude of 23,000 ft. At that moment the locks on the rear loading ramp failed, causing the cargo door to open explosively. This caused explosive decompression
Explosive decompression
Uncontrolled decompression refers to an unplanned drop in the pressure of a sealed system, such as an aircraft cabin and typically results from human error, material fatigue, engineering failure or impact causing a pressure vessel to vent into its lower-pressure surroundings or fail to pressurize...
, temporarily filling the cabin with a whirlwind of fog and debris. The blowout severed control cables to the tail, causing two of four hydraulic systems to fail, including those for the rudder and elevator, and leaving the flight control with only the use of one aileron
Aileron
Ailerons are hinged flight control surfaces attached to the trailing edge of the wing of a fixed-wing aircraft. The ailerons are used to control the aircraft in roll, which results in a change in heading due to the tilting of the lift vector...
, spoilers
Spoiler (aeronautics)
In aeronautics, a spoiler is a device intended to reduce lift in an aircraft. Spoilers are plates on the top surface of a wing which can be extended upward into the airflow and spoil it. By doing so, the spoiler creates a carefully controlled stall over the portion of the wing behind it, greatly...
, and power.
The pilot Capt. Dennis "Bud" Traynor and copilot Capt. Tilford Harp, attempted to regain control of the airplane, and to perform a 180 degree turn in order to return to Tan Son Nhut. The aircraft began to exhibit phugoid
Phugoid
A phugoid or fugoid is an aircraft motion where the vehicle pitches up and climbs, and then pitches down and descends, accompanied by speeding up and slowing down as it goes "uphill" and "downhill." This is one of the basic flight dynamics modes of an aircraft , and a classic example of a positive...
oscillations, but the crew countered them and maintained a controlled descent of about 250 to 260 kt. They were able to bring the plane to 4000 ft and begin the approach to Tan Son Nhut's runway 25L. While turning on final approach, the crew increased power to arrest a rapidly increasing descent rate. The plane touched down at 4:45 p.m. in a rice paddy, but skidded for a quarter of a mile, went airborne for another half mile crossing the Saigon River
Saigon River
The Saigon River is a river located in southern Vietnam that rises near Phum Daung in southeastern Cambodia, flows south and south-southeast for about 140 miles and empties into the Nha Be River, which in its turn empties into the South China Sea some 20 km north-east of the Mekong Delta.The...
, then hit a dike and broke up into four pieces. The fuel caught fire and some of the wreckage was set ablaze.
Survivors struggled to extricate themselves from the wreckage. The crash site was in a muddy rice paddy near the Saigon River, one mile from the nearest road. Fire engines could not reach the site, and helicopters had to set down some distance from the wreckage. About 100 South Vietnamese soldiers deployed around the site, which was near the site of an engagement with the Viet Cong the previous night. Out of 328 people on board, the death toll included 76 children, 34 Defence Attaché Office employees, 5 civilian dependents, 11 Air Force personnel, and 8 nurses from foreign countries. There were 175 survivors. All of the surviving orphans were eventually flown to the United States. The dead orphans were cremated and reported to be interred at a Catholic cemetery in Pattaya
Pattaya
Pattaya is a city in Thailand, located on the east coast of the Gulf of Thailand, about 165 km southeast of Bangkok located within but not part of Amphoe Bang Lamung in the province of Chonburi....
, Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
.
Some members of Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
called for a grounding of C-5s. In the end, the fleet was put under severe operational restrictions for a number of months while the cause was established. However, Pentagon officials commented publicly about Traynor's "remarkable demonstration of flying skill". The Air Force Accident Investigation Board attributed the survival of any on board to Captain Traynor's unorthodox use of power and his decision to crash-land while the aircraft allowed some control. Captains Traynor and Harp were awarded the Air Force Cross
Air Force Cross (United States)
The Air Force Cross is the second highest military decoration that can be awarded to a member of the United States Air Force. The Air Force Cross is the Air Force decoration equivalent to the Distinguished Service Cross and the Navy Cross .The Air Force Cross is awarded for extraordinary heroism...
for extraordinary valor. Thirty-seven medals were awarded to crew members or their next of kin. Flight nurse Regina Aune received the Cheney Award
Cheney Award
The Cheney Award is an aviation award presented by the United States Air Force in memory of 1st Lt. William Cheney, who was killed in an air collision over Italy in 1918...
for 1975.
In June 1975, a sister of a woman who died in the crash filed a $200 million class action lawsuit against the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation
Lockheed Corporation
The Lockheed Corporation was an American aerospace company. Lockheed was founded in 1912 and later merged with Martin Marietta to form Lockheed Martin in 1995.-Origins:...
charging negligence.
Investigation
Given the explosive manner in which the rear doors failed, sabotage was initially suspected.Many of the components were looted from the crash site, thereby complicating the investigation; the USAF paid a bounty for parts from the wreckage in order to recover them from the local populace. The , , and were assigned to search for the flight data recorder in the South China Sea
South China Sea
The South China Sea is a marginal sea that is part of the Pacific Ocean, encompassing an area from the Singapore and Malacca Straits to the Strait of Taiwan of around...
. The recorder was found, and naval ships and helicopters also discovered wreckage from the doors in the South China Sea as well as the body of a C-5 crewmember .
When the rear doors were eventually recovered from the sea, investigation determined that some of the locks had not engaged properly. Maintenance records showed that locks had been cannibalized for spares, then subsequently improperly refitted so that not all the door locks were engaging correctly. Furthermore, the flight crew confirmed that they had had difficulty closing the doors before take-off. As differential air pressure increased with altitude, the few locks that were working correctly were unable to bear the load, and the door failed.
Dramatization
The story of the disaster was featured on the seventh season of Canadian National Geographic ChannelNational Geographic Channel
National Geographic Channel, also commercially abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo, is a subscription television channel that airs non-fiction television programs produced by the National Geographic Society. Like History and the Discovery Channel, the channel features documentaries with factual...
show Mayday
Mayday (TV series)
Mayday, also known as Air Crash Investigation in the United Kingdom, Australia and Asia and Air Emergency and Air Disasters in the United States, is a Canadian documentary television programme produced by Cineflix investigating air crashes, near-crashes and other disasters...
(known as Air Emergency in the US, Mayday in Ireland and Air Crash Investigation in the UK and the rest of world). The episode is entitled "Operation Babylift".
See also
- Turkish Airlines Flight 981Turkish Airlines Flight 981Turkish Airlines Flight 981 was a McDonnell Douglas DC-10, registered TC-JAV and named the Ankara, that crashed in Fontaine-Chaalis, Oise, France, outside Senlis, on 3 March 1974...
- Japan Airlines Flight 123Japan Airlines Flight 123Japan Airlines Flight 123 was a Japan Airlines domestic flight from Tokyo International Airport to Osaka International Airport on August 12, 1985. The Boeing 747-146SR that made this route, registered , suffered mechanical failures 12 minutes into the flight and 32 minutes later crashed into two...
- United Airlines Flight 232United Airlines Flight 232United Airlines Flight 232 was a scheduled flight from Stapleton International Airport in Denver, Colorado, to O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, with continuing service to Philadelphia International Airport...
External links
- Air Crash Investigation Operation Babylift
- C-5A Galaxy BABYLIFT Crash - Facebook group operated by Dennis Traynor, aircraft commander during the 1975 incident.
- First-Person Account – Pilot Dennis “Bud” Traynor Page 6
- World Airways – Homeward Bound - 30 Years After Page 44 (pdf page 34)