C-141 Crash – 20 Feb 1989
posted at 3/11/2010 10:47 AM CST on nwfdailynews.com
pottyscott requested articles on this topic.
Northwest Florida Daily News
21 Feb 1989
1A
C-141 crashes near Hurlburt
Seven servicemen, one civilian aboard
From staff reports
An Air Force C-141B transport plane with eight people aboard crashed during a violent thunderstorm Monday night north of Hurlburt Field.
The plane, based at Norton Air Force Base in San Bernadino, Calif., went down about 8 p.m. in a remote woody and swampy section of the Eglin Air Force Base reservation.
The first rescue workers, members of the Eglin Security Police, reached the crash site at 10:10 p.m. The plane went down about four miles northwest of the Hurlburt Field runway.
At midnight Monday, authorities at Hurlburt Field had no word on casualties. One passenger and seven military personnel from Norton were aboard the plane.
Air Force spokesmen said they did not know whether the passenger was from Norton. No names of those aboard were released Monday night.
Hurlburt Field spokesman Capt. Thomas Connell said a group of Army Rangers heard an explosion at 8:02 p.m. at the same time Eglin air traffic controllers lost radar and radio contact with the C-141B on a landing approach to Hurlburt.
However, Air Force Lt. Doug Kinneard said the area north of Hurlburt Field includes an explosive ordnance field and the explosion could have been anything.
Air Force officials wouldn’t speculate about the cause of the crash, but Okaloosa County was lashed with severe, lightning-filled thunderstorms Monday night that dropped more than 3 inches of rain and some hail between 6 and 9 p.m.
The weather, the condition of the roads and remote area made the crash site hard to find.
Dozens of Air Force and civilian rescue workers responded to the initial report of a downed plane. They poured down Timberlake Road off Lewis Turner Boulevard searching for the crash, and they raced toward the Florosa area before the site was pinpointed.
The C-141B belonged to the 63rd Military Airlift Wing at Norton. Airman Randy Lanier said he did not know when the C-141B left the base, why it was bound for Hurlburt Field or whether it carried any munitions.
It stopped at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colo., to refuel Monday afternoon.
The C-141, nicknamed the Starlifter, carries a crew of five and can haul 200 soldiers or 155 fully equipped paratroopers. It is equipped with in-flight refueling capabilities, which gives it an unlimited range.
The first model C-141, the C-141A, entered the Air Force inventory in the mid-1960s. It was the first military jet aircraft specifically designed to carry troops and cargo.
All the services’ Starlifters have been modified into C-141B models. Among the most noticable changes were a lengthening of the jet – extending the fuselage about 23 feet – and the addition of the in-flight refueling capability . The C-141B has an all-weather landing system.
The Military Airlift Command uses the C-141 to airlift combat forces over long distances, as well as to resupply ground troops. It also is used to move the sick and wounded.
The Starlifter can carry troops in rear-facing, airline-type seats or in canvas side-facing seats.
No C-141Bs are based at Hurlburt Field. According to an Air Force news release, the service’s active-duty C-141Bs are stationed at six U.S. bases: Altus Air Force Base, Okla.; Charleston Air Force Base, S.C., McChord Air Force Base, Wash.; McGuire Air Force Base, N.J.; Norton Air Force Base, Calif.; and Travis Air Force Base, Calif.
Forty-nine of the planes are stationed at Norton under the command of the Military Airlift Command.
Northwest Florida Daily News
22 Feb 1989
1A
Crash site called logistic nightmare
By ROBERT KUNTZ
Before Air Force crews can thoroughly examine the wreck of the crashed C-141B or recover any of it, they must build a road to it.
The cargo jet went down in what Eglin Air Force Base Commander Col. Howard Oakes described Tuesday as a logistical “nightmare … about the worst place I know of.”
Midway between two rugged range roads, the plane lies in a thickly wooded swamp.
At daybreak Tuesday, crews from Eglin’s 3202nd Civil Engineering Squadron attacked the swamp with chain saws and bulldozers. After clearing a 200-yard-long path through the swamp to Liveoak Creek, a team of three bulldozers began to slowly build up a road on the saturated ground.
“They go in one after another, just piling up dirt,” Oakes said. “The three of them line up and push a load of dirt down the road, then go back to the start and get more.”
By 5 p.m. Tuesday the road was completed. The roadbed was 6 feet higher than the swamp floor. To build it, the bulldozers had excavated a deep pit about 100 feet square at the end of the road.
With the road finished, however, Liveoak Creek still must be bridged. Two days of thunderstorms have swollen the creek to a swift-moving stream about 30 feet across and 8 feet deep.
“We don’t really have the equipment to bridge that,” Oakes said. “We’re going to be looking for help on that.”
Hurlburt Field spokeswoman Victoria Hanson said a 100-foot bridge was going to be placed across the creek today with assistance from the Navy.
After the bridge is laid, the engineers will push the road forward to the crash site.
Tuesday afternoon, workers were crossing the creek on a makeshift ferry composed of two aluminum johnboats and a rope strung between trees on opposite banks of the creek.
The trees and undergrowth on the far bank were so dense they obscured everything beyond them. Although chain saws could be heard running, no one could be seen operating them. And although the crash site begins about 100 yards from the river crossing, no sign of it could be discerned from there.
Civilians were not allowed past that point Tuesday.
Once access to the site is opened, Oakes said, officials will be able to examine several options for removing the wreckage of the 168-foot-long plane.
“We need to find out what the large helicopters can do,” he said. “But with the road there, we also might be able to truck some of it out.”
Northwest Florida Daily News
22 Feb 1989
1A
4 bodies found at jet crash site
4 others on plane feared lost
By TRACY WENZEL and ROBERT KUNTZ
The bodies of four men who were aboard a military plane that crashed Monday night have been found, an Air Force official said Tuesday, and four others are presumed dead.
The transport plane, a C-141B Starlifter assigned to Norton Air Force Base, Calif., went down at 8:02 p.m. in a remote area of the Eglin Air Force Base reservation.
Aboard were a seven-member aircrew from Norton and a civilian passenger, a military retiree, who had boarded that afternoon during a refueling stop at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado.
A 19-hour search left would-be rescuers little hope that anyone had survived the crash, said Col. Howard Oakes, Eglin base commander.
The search was called off at sunset Tuesday.
“We have not gone as far as to say `We have no survivors,’” said Oakes, who supervised the search team. “But from the looks of it, that is the conclusion I think a reasonable person would draw.”
A Norton spokesman said late Tuesday that four bodies had been found. He also identified the plane’s crewmen:
Capt. Mark J. Chambers, 30.
Capt. John F. Young, 30.
Master Sgt. Robert E. Wright Jr., 37.
Tech. Sgt. Ronald D. Grubbs, 29.
Staff Sgt. Karl M. Kohler, 32.
Airman 1st Class Scott D. Craig, 22.
Staff Sgt. John W. Remerscheid, 33.
Remerscheid was assigned to the 14th Military Airlift Squadron at Norton. The others were assigned to the 52nd Military Airlift Squadron at Norton. No hometowns were given.
The eighth man on board was identified by Hurlburt Field spokeswoman Victoria Hanson as retired Air Force Capt. John G. Galvin of Jacksonville.
The huge cargo plane was trying to land on the Hurlburt runway when it crashed. Oakes said the plane fell short of the runway, cleared a 200-yard swath through a heavily wooded area and ended up nose-down in a swamp.
The crash site is about four miles north of Hurlburt, far from any populated area.
Oakes said the plane’s left wing was severed in the impact and its right wing was bent backward. The rear half of the plane, from the wings to the tail section, was sticking up out of the swamp.
He said the aircraft was badly burned in the crash. Several brush fires were still burning when he left the area at 3 a.m. Tuesday.
As a general rule, Oakes said, C-141B crew members do not wear parachutes. For that reason, he said, it is unlikely that any members of the crashed plane’s crew bailed out before the impact.
Eglin air traffic controllers, who were monitoring the plane’s progress, lost radar and radio contact with the C-141B at 8:02 p.m.
About that time, Army Rangers from nearby Camp Rudder, conducting an exercise on the reservation, spotted what Oakes described as a “fireball” in the woods.
The first rescuers to reach the crash site were Rangers, who were there within 40 minutes, Oakes said. But other emergency crews, hampered by the reservation’s rough terrain, spent hours searching for and trying to reach the plane.
No roads lead directly to the crash site. On Monday night, the nearest access was a clay road that ended nearly a mile from the crash.
Rescuers had to wade the rest of the way through knee-deep swamp and scrub brush – a trek that, even in daylight, took longer than 30 minutes, Oakes said.
The colonel said Air Force and civilian rescue crews teamed up late Monday to find the downed plane. Until about 10 p.m., he said, they knew nothing but the “general vicinity” in which it had crashed.
At the time of the crash, rain was falling at a rate of about an inch an hour and golfball-size hail fell in some parts of Okaloosa County. Wind gusts exceeded 30 mph and there were numerous lightning strikes.
Oakes refused to blame the weather for the crash, but did not rule it out.
The Starlifter and its seven-man crew had left Norton Air Force Base at San Bernardino, Calif., early Monday. The plane landed at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., about 12:39 p.m. CST.
While there the plane took on about 6,923 gallons of fuel and underwent a preflight check, said Maj. Bruce Lewis, chief of public affairs for Peterson’ s 3rd Space Support Wing.
“Before any aircraft flies there is a preflight check,” Lewis said Tuesday. “According to the paperwork here, there was a preflight check and everything was normal.”
The passenger boarded sometime before the plane left the Colorado base at 3:18 p.m. CST.
The C-141B was to stop at Hurlburt before continuing on to Howard Air Base, Panama. According to Hanson, the plane was scheduled to spend Monday night at Hurlburt.
It was supposed to head for Panama on Tuesday morning after picking up 50 passengers, their baggage and some cargo.
Hurlburt C-130 gunships, along with their aircrews and maintenance teams, are rotated in and out of Howard Air Base to support the Air Force’s Southern Command, Hanson said.
Little information was available Tuesday about the C-141 that crashed.
“Those records have been frozen by the accident investigation board,” said Airman Veronica Fraga, a public affairs specialist at Norton. “While they’re conducting the investigation, no information about the maintenance records … can be released.”
The pilot of the C-141 was without ground-radar support during his approach to the Hurlburt runway.
A precision – or guided – approach, assisted by radar on the ground, is available only to planes flying into Hurlburt from the south, Hanson said.
In a precision approach – the favored method for landings in bad weather – the pilot is given his heading to the landing field, his distance from the field and his glide path or angle of descent.
But the pilot of the C-141B chose to approach the field from the north after his on-board radar showed severe thunderstorms to the south, Hanson said.
Planes landing from the north make a so-called TACAN – for Tactical Air Navigation – approach. A TACAN approach provides pilots a heading and distance but not a glide path, Hanson said. That means a pilot might not know whether he is making too steep an approach to the runway.
The search-and-recovery effort, which by midday Tuesday was being conducted by as many as 150 Air Force personnel from Eglin and Hurlburt, will resume at daybreak.
Air Force investigation teams, on the scene since Tuesday, will continue their work today as well.
Northwest Florida Daily News
23 Feb 1989
1A
2 more bodies, recorders found
By TRACY WENZEL and ROBERT KUNTZ
Two more bodies were recovered Wednesday from the wreckage of a C-141B transport plane that crashed and burned Monday on the Eglin Air Force Base reservation, bringing to six the number of confirmed deaths.
Two men are still missing and presumed dead.
Col. Howard Oakes, Eglin base commander, said two of the bodies were found inside the plane and four outside, near the plane’s nose.
Searchers also have retrieved the plane’s flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder.
The bodies have not been identified. Seven of those on board were aircrew members from Norton Air Force Base near San Bernardino, Calif. The eighth man was John G. Galvin, a retired Air Force captain from Jacksonville, Fla., who boarded the plane during a refueling stop Monday afternoon in Colorado.
An expert specializing in the identification of accident victims is expected to arrive today from Tyndall Air Force Base near Panama City, Oakes said.
The C-141B Starlifter went down at 8:02 p.m. Monday in a remote, swampy area of the reservation. It remained there Wednesday, belly-down in a clearing it had created when it plowed through the forest.
The plane was trying to land on the Hurlburt Field runway but fell about four miles short.
As it went down, it cleared a 200-yard-long swath through the woods. Trees in its path were sheared as if deliberately chopped down.
The Starlifter is a huge plane, 168 feet long with a wingspan of 160 feet. It rested on the ground Wednesday with its tail standing as tall as a four-story building, well above the treetops surrounding it.
The plane’s position seemed to indicate it had skewed to the right as it skidded along the wet earth.
From the wing roots to the tail, the plane was virtually intact. Near the wings, camouflage paint had been blistered by flames.
The plane’s left wing had disintegrated. One of its four Pratt & Whitney turbofan engines, about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, lay some 80 feet from the fuselage.
The plane’s nose and front section were destroyed by fire. What was left of that part of the plane lay nestled amid scorched trees at the southern end of the clearing.
A strong odor of JP-4 jet fuel hung over the crash site.
Evenly scattered wreckage made the site resemble a makeshift junkyard. Throughout the clearing, wooden stakes with tags attached marked spots where investigators had found the personal effects of those on board.
On the night of the crash, the plane was nearly inaccessible. It took Army Rangers, camped only a mile distant, 30 minutes to slog their way to the site – and that, Oakes said, was no small feat.
Members of Eglin’s 3202nd Civil Engineering Squadron on Tuesday and Wednesday cleared a rough foot trail from Liveoak Creek to the wreckage. The easiest route to the site, parts of it were still knee-deep in muck Wednesday.
The engineers plan to lay a catwalk along the trail today.
Searchers on Wednesday were still crossing the creek on a johnboat ferry. Squadron commander Col. Curt Archer said his men plan to bridge the creek today with 90-foot telephone poles planked with 6-inch boards.
The 3202nd CES built a half-mile dirt road Tuesday so searchers could get to the creek. On Wednesday the 3202nd cleared and filled perhaps an acre of swamp at the head of that road, then built a command post for use as a temporary base of operations.
At the site, engineers had erected two “hardback tents” – cabin-size wooden frames covered with canvas shells. With kerosene heating stoves inside, the tents will give investigators someplace warm to work.
Those working the accident site were being supplied box lunches. An officer said a field kitchen might be set up today.
When the on-scene investigation is finished, most likely within a month, the engineers will decide how to remove the plane.
The plane probably will be disassembled and either trucked or airlifted out. The Army has a helicopter, the CH-54A Skycrane, that can lift cargoes of up to 12 1/2 tons.
Northwest Florida Daily News
3 Mar 1989
1B
Jet gave no alarm before crash
By ROBERT KUNTZ
The leader of a team investigating the crash of a transport plane at Eglin Air Force Base said Thursday there was no indication of trouble from the doomed jet before it went down.
Col. Ernest Jones, president of the Air Force’s Safety Investigation Board, said cockpit voice and data recorders from the C-141B Starlifter have been analyzed and several interviews have been conducted.
Asked during a news conference whether there had been any signs of distress from the plane before it crashed, Jones said “No.”
But that was about all Jones would say regarding the Feb. 20 crash, which killed seven airmen and a military retiree.
The C-141B was flying into Hurlburt Field from Norton Air Force Base, Calif., via Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., when the accident occurred. The huge aircraft went down about 8:02 p.m. while on its final approach, slamming into a remote swampy area four miles north of Hurlburt on the Eglin reservation .
Jones wouldn’t say who his team had interviewed, nor would he offer any speculation on what caused the crash. “We just don’t know anything yet,” he said.
South Okaloosa County was pounded by heavy thunderstorms on the night of the crash, but Jones said he wasn’t willing to say yet what role – if any – the bad weather may have played in the crash.
“We look at the man, the machine and the environment,” Jones said. “We haven’t ruled anything out yet.”
Jones said that at one time or another his team will include specialists in every field from aircraft systems to meteorology to pathology.
The remains of the eight men killed in the crash were released Wednesday night, he said.
Jones is deputy commander of the 438th Military Airlift Wing at McGuire Air Force Base, N.J. His report must be filed by March 22 – 30 days after the accident.
The report will include two sections. One will consist of factual information – the weather, the angle at which the plane hit the ground, the extent of fire damage – and is supposed to be made public. The second section will include eyewitness accounts, speculation and opinions.
The second part of the report is kept confidential, Jones said, in order to inspire more candor from those questioned.
“We want to hear everything,” Jones said. “Our purpose is mishap prevention. We want to learn everything we can.”
Re: C-141 Crash – 20 Feb 1989
posted at 3/13/2010 4:31 PM CST on nwfdailynews.com
pottyscott
In Response to C-141 Crash – 20 Feb 1989:
pottyscott requested articles on this topic. Northwest Florida Daily News 21 Feb 1989 1A C-141 crashes near Hurlburt Seven servicemen, one civilian aboard From staff reports An Air Force C-141B transport plane with eight people aboard crashed during a violent thunderstorm Monday night north of Hurlburt Field. The plane, based at Norton Air Force Base in San Bernadino, Calif., went down about 8 p.m. in a remote woody and swampy section of the Eglin Air Force Base reservation. The first rescue workers, members of the Eglin Security Police, reached the crash site at 10:10 p.m. The plane went down about four miles northwest of the Hurlburt Field runway. At midnight Monday, authorities at Hurlburt Field had no word on casualties. One passenger and seven military personnel from Norton were aboard the plane. Air Force spokesmen said they did not know whether the passenger was from Norton. No names of those aboard were released Monday night. Hurlburt Field spokesman Capt. Thomas Connell said a group of Army Rangers heard an explosion at 8:02 p.m. at the same time Eglin air traffic controllers lost radar and radio contact with the C-141B on a landing approach to Hurlburt. However, Air Force Lt. Doug Kinneard said the area north of Hurlburt Field includes an explosive ordnance field and the explosion could have been anything. Air Force officials wouldn’t speculate about the cause of the crash, but Okaloosa County was lashed with severe, lightning-filled thunderstorms Monday night that dropped more than 3 inches of rain and some hail between 6 and 9 p.m. The weather, the condition of the roads and remote area made the crash site hard to find. Dozens of Air Force and civilian rescue workers responded to the initial report of a downed plane. They poured down Timberlake Road off Lewis Turner Boulevard searching for the crash, and they raced toward the Florosa area before the site was pinpointed. The C-141B belonged to the 63rd Military Airlift Wing at Norton. Airman Randy Lanier said he did not know when the C-141B left the base, why it was bound for Hurlburt Field or whether it carried any munitions. It stopped at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colo., to refuel Monday afternoon. The C-141, nicknamed the Starlifter, carries a crew of five and can haul 200 soldiers or 155 fully equipped paratroopers. It is equipped with in-flight refueling capabilities, which gives it an unlimited range. The first model C-141, the C-141A, entered the Air Force inventory in the mid-1960s. It was the first military jet aircraft specifically designed to carry troops and cargo. All the services’ Starlifters have been modified into C-141B models. Among the most noticable changes were a lengthening of the jet – extending the fuselage about 23 feet – and the addition of the in-flight refueling capability . The C-141B has an all-weather landing system. The Military Airlift Command uses the C-141 to airlift combat forces over long distances, as well as to resupply ground troops. It also is used to move the sick and wounded. The Starlifter can carry troops in rear-facing, airline-type seats or in canvas side-facing seats. No C-141Bs are based at Hurlburt Field. According to an Air Force news release, the service’s active-duty C-141Bs are stationed at six U.S. bases: Altus Air Force Base, Okla.; Charleston Air Force Base, S.C., McChord Air Force Base, Wash.; McGuire Air Force Base, N.J.; Norton Air Force Base, Calif.; and Travis Air Force Base, Calif. Forty-nine of the planes are stationed at Norton under the command of the Military Airlift Command. Northwest Florida Daily News 22 Feb 1989 1A Crash site called logistic nightmare By ROBERT KUNTZ Before Air Force crews can thoroughly examine the wreck of the crashed C-141B or recover any of it, they must build a road to it. The cargo jet went down in what Eglin Air Force Base Commander Col. Howard Oakes described Tuesday as a logistical “nightmare … about the worst place I know of.” Midway between two rugged range roads, the plane lies in a thickly wooded swamp. At daybreak Tuesday, crews from Eglin’s 3202nd Civil Engineering Squadron attacked the swamp with chain saws and bulldozers. After clearing a 200-yard-long path through the swamp to Liveoak Creek, a team of three bulldozers began to slowly build up a road on the saturated ground. “They go in one after another, just piling up dirt,” Oakes said. “The three of them line up and push a load of dirt down the road, then go back to the start and get more.” By 5 p.m. Tuesday the road was completed. The roadbed was 6 feet higher than the swamp floor. To build it, the bulldozers had excavated a deep pit about 100 feet square at the end of the road. With the road finished, however, Liveoak Creek still must be bridged. Two days of thunderstorms have swollen the creek to a swift-moving stream about 30 feet across and 8 feet deep. “We don’t really have the equipment to bridge that,” Oakes said. “We’re going to be looking for help on that.” Hurlburt Field spokeswoman Victoria Hanson said a 100-foot bridge was going to be placed across the creek today with assistance from the Navy. After the bridge is laid, the engineers will push the road forward to the crash site. Tuesday afternoon, workers were crossing the creek on a makeshift ferry composed of two aluminum johnboats and a rope strung between trees on opposite banks of the creek. The trees and undergrowth on the far bank were so dense they obscured everything beyond them. Although chain saws could be heard running, no one could be seen operating them. And although the crash site begins about 100 yards from the river crossing, no sign of it could be discerned from there. Civilians were not allowed past that point Tuesday. Once access to the site is opened, Oakes said, officials will be able to examine several options for removing the wreckage of the 168-foot-long plane. “We need to find out what the large helicopters can do,” he said. “But with the road there, we also might be able to truck some of it out.” Northwest Florida Daily News 22 Feb 1989 1A 4 bodies found at jet crash site 4 others on plane feared lost By TRACY WENZEL and ROBERT KUNTZ The bodies of four men who were aboard a military plane that crashed Monday night have been found, an Air Force official said Tuesday, and four others are presumed dead. The transport plane, a C-141B Starlifter assigned to Norton Air Force Base, Calif., went down at 8:02 p.m. in a remote area of the Eglin Air Force Base reservation. Aboard were a seven-member aircrew from Norton and a civilian passenger, a military retiree, who had boarded that afternoon during a refueling stop at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado. A 19-hour search left would-be rescuers little hope that anyone had survived the crash, said Col. Howard Oakes, Eglin base commander. The search was called off at sunset Tuesday. “We have not gone as far as to say `We have no survivors,’” said Oakes, who supervised the search team. “But from the looks of it, that is the conclusion I think a reasonable person would draw.” A Norton spokesman said late Tuesday that four bodies had been found. He also identified the plane’s crewmen: Capt. Mark J. Chambers, 30. Capt. John F. Young, 30. Master Sgt. Robert E. Wright Jr., 37. Tech. Sgt. Ronald D. Grubbs, 29. Staff Sgt. Karl M. Kohler, 32. Airman 1st Class Scott D. Craig, 22. Staff Sgt. John W. Remerscheid, 33. Remerscheid was assigned to the 14th Military Airlift Squadron at Norton. The others were assigned to the 52nd Military Airlift Squadron at Norton. No hometowns were given. The eighth man on board was identified by Hurlburt Field spokeswoman Victoria Hanson as retired Air Force Capt. John G. Galvin of Jacksonville. The huge cargo plane was trying to land on the Hurlburt runway when it crashed. Oakes said the plane fell short of the runway, cleared a 200-yard swath through a heavily wooded area and ended up nose-down in a swamp. The crash site is about four miles north of Hurlburt, far from any populated area. Oakes said the plane’s left wing was severed in the impact and its right wing was bent backward. The rear half of the plane, from the wings to the tail section, was sticking up out of the swamp. He said the aircraft was badly burned in the crash. Several brush fires were still burning when he left the area at 3 a.m. Tuesday. As a general rule, Oakes said, C-141B crew members do not wear parachutes. For that reason, he said, it is unlikely that any members of the crashed plane’s crew bailed out before the impact. Eglin air traffic controllers, who were monitoring the plane’s progress, lost radar and radio contact with the C-141B at 8:02 p.m. About that time, Army Rangers from nearby Camp Rudder, conducting an exercise on the reservation, spotted what Oakes described as a “fireball” in the woods. The first rescuers to reach the crash site were Rangers, who were there within 40 minutes, Oakes said. But other emergency crews, hampered by the reservation’s rough terrain, spent hours searching for and trying to reach the plane. No roads lead directly to the crash site. On Monday night, the nearest access was a clay road that ended nearly a mile from the crash. Rescuers had to wade the rest of the way through knee-deep swamp and scrub brush – a trek that, even in daylight, took longer than 30 minutes, Oakes said. The colonel said Air Force and civilian rescue crews teamed up late Monday to find the downed plane. Until about 10 p.m., he said, they knew nothing but the “general vicinity” in which it had crashed. At the time of the crash, rain was falling at a rate of about an inch an hour and golfball-size hail fell in some parts of Okaloosa County. Wind gusts exceeded 30 mph and there were numerous lightning strikes. Oakes refused to blame the weather for the crash, but did not rule it out. The Starlifter and its seven-man crew had left Norton Air Force Base at San Bernardino, Calif., early Monday. The plane landed at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., about 12:39 p.m. CST. While there the plane took on about 6,923 gallons of fuel and underwent a preflight check, said Maj. Bruce Lewis, chief of public affairs for Peterson’ s 3rd Space Support Wing. “Before any aircraft flies there is a preflight check,” Lewis said Tuesday. “According to the paperwork here, there was a preflight check and everything was normal.” The passenger boarded sometime before the plane left the Colorado base at 3:18 p.m. CST. The C-141B was to stop at Hurlburt before continuing on to Howard Air Base, Panama. According to Hanson, the plane was scheduled to spend Monday night at Hurlburt. It was supposed to head for Panama on Tuesday morning after picking up 50 passengers, their baggage and some cargo. Hurlburt C-130 gunships, along with their aircrews and maintenance teams, are rotated in and out of Howard Air Base to support the Air Force’s Southern Command, Hanson said. Little information was available Tuesday about the C-141 that crashed. “Those records have been frozen by the accident investigation board,” said Airman Veronica Fraga, a public affairs specialist at Norton. “While they’re conducting the investigation, no information about the maintenance records … can be released.” The pilot of the C-141 was without ground-radar support during his approach to the Hurlburt runway. A precision – or guided – approach, assisted by radar on the ground, is available only to planes flying into Hurlburt from the south, Hanson said. In a precision approach – the favored method for landings in bad weather – the pilot is given his heading to the landing field, his distance from the field and his glide path or angle of descent. But the pilot of the C-141B chose to approach the field from the north after his on-board radar showed severe thunderstorms to the south, Hanson said. Planes landing from the north make a so-called TACAN – for Tactical Air Navigation – approach. A TACAN approach provides pilots a heading and distance but not a glide path, Hanson said. That means a pilot might not know whether he is making too steep an approach to the runway. The search-and-recovery effort, which by midday Tuesday was being conducted by as many as 150 Air Force personnel from Eglin and Hurlburt, will resume at daybreak. Air Force investigation teams, on the scene since Tuesday, will continue their work today as well. Northwest Florida Daily News 23 Feb 1989 1A 2 more bodies, recorders found By TRACY WENZEL and ROBERT KUNTZ Two more bodies were recovered Wednesday from the wreckage of a C-141B transport plane that crashed and burned Monday on the Eglin Air Force Base reservation, bringing to six the number of confirmed deaths. Two men are still missing and presumed dead. Col. Howard Oakes, Eglin base commander, said two of the bodies were found inside the plane and four outside, near the plane’s nose. Searchers also have retrieved the plane’s flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder. The bodies have not been identified. Seven of those on board were aircrew members from Norton Air Force Base near San Bernardino, Calif. The eighth man was John G. Galvin, a retired Air Force captain from Jacksonville, Fla., who boarded the plane during a refueling stop Monday afternoon in Colorado. An expert specializing in the identification of accident victims is expected to arrive today from Tyndall Air Force Base near Panama City, Oakes said. The C-141B Starlifter went down at 8:02 p.m. Monday in a remote, swampy area of the reservation. It remained there Wednesday, belly-down in a clearing it had created when it plowed through the forest. The plane was trying to land on the Hurlburt Field runway but fell about four miles short. As it went down, it cleared a 200-yard-long swath through the woods. Trees in its path were sheared as if deliberately chopped down. The Starlifter is a huge plane, 168 feet long with a wingspan of 160 feet. It rested on the ground Wednesday with its tail standing as tall as a four-story building, well above the treetops surrounding it. The plane’s position seemed to indicate it had skewed to the right as it skidded along the wet earth. From the wing roots to the tail, the plane was virtually intact. Near the wings, camouflage paint had been blistered by flames. The plane’s left wing had disintegrated. One of its four Pratt & Whitney turbofan engines, about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, lay some 80 feet from the fuselage. The plane’s nose and front section were destroyed by fire. What was left of that part of the plane lay nestled amid scorched trees at the southern end of the clearing. A strong odor of JP-4 jet fuel hung over the crash site. Evenly scattered wreckage made the site resemble a makeshift junkyard. Throughout the clearing, wooden stakes with tags attached marked spots where investigators had found the personal effects of those on board. On the night of the crash, the plane was nearly inaccessible. It took Army Rangers, camped only a mile distant, 30 minutes to slog their way to the site – and that, Oakes said, was no small feat. Members of Eglin’s 3202nd Civil Engineering Squadron on Tuesday and Wednesday cleared a rough foot trail from Liveoak Creek to the wreckage. The easiest route to the site, parts of it were still knee-deep in muck Wednesday. The engineers plan to lay a catwalk along the trail today. Searchers on Wednesday were still crossing the creek on a johnboat ferry. Squadron commander Col. Curt Archer said his men plan to bridge the creek today with 90-foot telephone poles planked with 6-inch boards. The 3202nd CES built a half-mile dirt road Tuesday so searchers could get to the creek. On Wednesday the 3202nd cleared and filled perhaps an acre of swamp at the head of that road, then built a command post for use as a temporary base of operations. At the site, engineers had erected two “hardback tents” – cabin-size wooden frames covered with canvas shells. With kerosene heating stoves inside, the tents will give investigators someplace warm to work. Those working the accident site were being supplied box lunches. An officer said a field kitchen might be set up today. When the on-scene investigation is finished, most likely within a month, the engineers will decide how to remove the plane. The plane probably will be disassembled and either trucked or airlifted out. The Army has a helicopter, the CH-54A Skycrane, that can lift cargoes of up to 12 1/2 tons. Northwest Florida Daily News 3 Mar 1989 1B Jet gave no alarm before crash By ROBERT KUNTZ The leader of a team investigating the crash of a transport plane at Eglin Air Force Base said Thursday there was no indication of trouble from the doomed jet before it went down. Col. Ernest Jones, president of the Air Force’s Safety Investigation Board, said cockpit voice and data recorders from the C-141B Starlifter have been analyzed and several interviews have been conducted. Asked during a news conference whether there had been any signs of distress from the plane before it crashed, Jones said “No.” But that was about all Jones would say regarding the Feb. 20 crash, which killed seven airmen and a military retiree. The C-141B was flying into Hurlburt Field from Norton Air Force Base, Calif., via Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., when the accident occurred. The huge aircraft went down about 8:02 p.m. while on its final approach, slamming into a remote swampy area four miles north of Hurlburt on the Eglin reservation . Jones wouldn’t say who his team had interviewed, nor would he offer any speculation on what caused the crash. “We just don’t know anything yet,” he said. South Okaloosa County was pounded by heavy thunderstorms on the night of the crash, but Jones said he wasn’t willing to say yet what role – if any – the bad weather may have played in the crash. “We look at the man, the machine and the environment,” Jones said. “We haven’t ruled anything out yet.” Jones said that at one time or another his team will include specialists in every field from aircraft systems to meteorology to pathology. The remains of the eight men killed in the crash were released Wednesday night, he said. Jones is deputy commander of the 438th Military Airlift Wing at McGuire Air Force Base, N.J. His report must be filed by March 22 – 30 days after the accident. The report will include two sections. One will consist of factual information – the weather, the angle at which the plane hit the ground, the extent of fire damage – and is supposed to be made public. The second section will include eyewitness accounts, speculation and opinions. The second part of the report is kept confidential, Jones said, in order to inspire more candor from those questioned. “We want to hear everything,” Jones said. “Our purpose is mishap prevention. We want to learn everything we can.”
Posted by lindamurchison
Re: C-141 Crash – 20 Feb 1989
posted at 3/13/2010 4:33 PM CST on nwfdailynews.com
pottyscott
Thanks, Linda. That was one of the two worst aircraft accident I have been involved with. The other was in Nevada.
Pottyscott
Re: C-141 Crash – 20 Feb 1989
posted at 3/24/2010 10:17 AM CDT on nwfdailynews.com
pottyscott
I sent this post to another friend of mine who worked the site as well. He lives in Virginia now, and he said that he remembered the night of the accident.
Anyway, good job on this and it brought back a lot of not so happy memories.
Pottyscott
