The Unofficial U.S. Air Force HH-43B/F "PEDRO" Crash Rescue - Air Rescue Web Site

Following the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, President Johnson among other actions, sent additional U.S. Air Force units to Vietnam and Thailand. The arrival of additional jet fighters in Southeast Asia added demands on the Air Rescue Service. Pacific Air Force's rescue resources were already stretched. Because Pacific area rescue forces were already thin, local base rescue detachments in the United States were told to prepare for short notice temporary assignments to Vietnam and Thailand. On August 6, 1964 the unit at Maxwell AFB, received orders to leave immediately for Southeast Asia. Captain Philip Prince, the detachment commander, worked his crew through the night dismantling and loading their two HH-43B's on board two C-124 transports. By noon the following day they were on their way to Thailand. Prince's unit reached Korat on August 14, 1964 and was soon performing local rescue services for both the Air Force F-105 unit and the Royal Thai Air Force flying school.

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The following anecdote was provided by Phillip Prince, Brigadier General, USAF (Retired)

"Hi Bill --

Read with interest Jay's story of slinging the T-28. Reminded me of an event at Korat RTAFB in '64.

We'd been deployed from Maxwell AFB (Montgomery, AL) to Korat immediately after the Tonkin Gulf incident. Not a lot of excitement initially, but some interesting flying.

We were asked by the Thai base commander if we'd help recover a RTAFB "Chipmonk" trainer that had gone down about ten miles from the base. We said, "sure," though, like Jay, had never slung load an aerodynamic object.

The trainer was quite light, something on the order of 1,500 pounds and we attached lifting straps around the fuselage. Picking it up was not a problem and we started moving toward a large open area about three miles away.

The game plan was to fly at 25-30 knots the entire distance at an altitude of 500'. Unfortunately, the young pilot flying the 43 decided to move out a bit more smartly than that and as we neared 45 knots and 500' AGL the Chipmonk began oscillating below us.

At first the oscillations were modest but they grew and grew and grew with each passing second. As the IP, I was in the left seat and got a little (no, make that a lot) concerned as the load moved below the Pedro from left to right in an ever increasing arc.

Finally, as the load swung high to the right and I could see it across the cockpit (sort of flying formation with us) I decided enough was about to become enough.

One more oscillation convinced me it was time to bow to the reality of the situation. With the load now high above me on the left side of the 43 and with me looking nearly straight up and with the 43 in just about a 90 degree right bank I released the load and as we rolled back to the left watched the trainer spin to the ground. Made quite a nice impact in the rice paddy below.

Thankfully there were no farmers in the vicinity.

We did not make another attempt to recover the airplane.

We did, however, make a concerted effort to recover our composure before we landed and tried to explain what had happened to our RTAFB host.

Oh, well.

Cheers, Phil"

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