We were operating out of Song Be, when the entire Recon Platoon was alerted that an AF Jet had gone down and the wing man didn’t see the pilot eject. 1Lt John Deacy had three teams deploy to the site of the crash and my team was included.
There was a path approximately a half a mile long in the ground and the plane had gone in inverted. The three teams formed a perimeter and we waited for Deacy to call for a demo team to be sent out. There were 18 men on the perimeter and LT Deacy and his RTO next to the aircraft. All told there were seven Americans and 13 Cambodes at the crash site. We arrived at the site at approximately 0740 hours.
Before noon, two UH1 helicopters arrived and the demo team and 200 lbs of C-4 with Det Cord, primers fuses and a medic got off of the birds. Our mission was to have the demo team set off charges to expose the cockpit to recover the pilot or to prove that he had ejected.
The demo team set off 5 different charges by 1600 hours finally getting to the cockpit area of the downed bird. The AF Commander radioed that he was going to have the Wingman flown to our location. We waited until almost 1800 hours for him to get there. Once the AF Officer was there, the demo team set off their charges and exposed the cockpit. They discovered that the pilot’s ejection seat was missing! Meanwhile a Flying Crane arrived, hooked up to the tail section of the plane and lifted it.
One of the Cambodes signaled that he had movement to his front. Everyone got down and watched as an AF pilot wearing his flight suit came out of the wood line. The pilot said that he 1st observed the action when we arrived that am but he also saw our Cambodes and thought that they might be NVA.
De Oppresso Liber,
SFMike
There was a path approximately a half a mile long in the ground and the plane had gone in inverted. The three teams formed a perimeter and we waited for Deacy to call for a demo team to be sent out. There were 18 men on the perimeter and LT Deacy and his RTO next to the aircraft. All told there were seven Americans and 13 Cambodes at the crash site. We arrived at the site at approximately 0740 hours.
Before noon, two UH1 helicopters arrived and the demo team and 200 lbs of C-4 with Det Cord, primers fuses and a medic got off of the birds. Our mission was to have the demo team set off charges to expose the cockpit to recover the pilot or to prove that he had ejected.
The demo team set off 5 different charges by 1600 hours finally getting to the cockpit area of the downed bird. The AF Commander radioed that he was going to have the Wingman flown to our location. We waited until almost 1800 hours for him to get there. Once the AF Officer was there, the demo team set off their charges and exposed the cockpit. They discovered that the pilot’s ejection seat was missing! Meanwhile a Flying Crane arrived, hooked up to the tail section of the plane and lifted it.
One of the Cambodes signaled that he had movement to his front. Everyone got down and watched as an AF pilot wearing his flight suit came out of the wood line. The pilot said that he 1st observed the action when we arrived that am but he also saw our Cambodes and thought that they might be NVA.
De Oppresso Liber,
SFMike