“You could see it. You could see the hole in the back of the plane. You could see sunlight streaming in. Things started flying around. Eyeglasses. Pens…” medical technicians aboard C-5 Number 68-0218.
The most widely publicized C-5 flight ended in tragedy on April 4, 1975, when C-5A 68-0218 (S/N 0021) crashed during Operation Babylift. As North Vietnamese forces advanced on Saigon, the United States was evacuating orphaned children and infants from the war zone by air. According to Richard Lippincott in his book C-5 Galaxy In Action, the aircraft departed Tan Son Nhut Air Base with 328 people aboard, climbed to 23,000 feet, and had already reached open water when the rear cargo ramp failed and broke away.
Captain Keith D. Malone, who was in the cockpit on his initial “check ride” in the C-5, described it as a “classic rapid decompression.” He recalled, “Ironically, we had just concluded a conversation about what we would do in case there was a rapid decompression. We decided that we would go into a left descending turn and get down as quickly as possible.” One of the medical technicians on board described the experience in the 1989 Military Airlift Command Office of History; Coy F. Cross II, MAC, and Operation Bablylift: Air Transport in Support of Noncombatant Evacuation Operations: “You could see it. You could see the hole in the back of the plane. You could see sunlight streaming in. Things started flying around. Eyeglasses. Pens… That went on for a little while until the air stopped.” Then-Lieutenant Regina Aune later stated, “It was while I was getting the medication out of the medication box we had the rapid decompression. I never got back downstairs.” The air rushing from the aircraft “blew off” the aft pressure door, part of the aft loading ramp, and the aft center cargo door. As these parts flew off, one of them severed the pitch trim, elevator, and rudder cables.
As a result, the crew lost all control of the rudder and horizontal stabilizer. Aircraft commander Capt. Dennis “Bud” Traynor and copilot Capt. Tilford Harp were left with only one way to steer the aircraft: by using asymmetric engine thrust. By increasing power on one side and reducing it on the other, they were able to turn the aircraft around and make it back over land.
After the decompression, the crew put on their oxygen masks, initiated a descending turn to the left, and then informed Saigon air traffic controllers of their situation and their intention to return to Tan Son Nhut AB for an emergency landing. They observed that both the pressure and fluid quantity in hydraulic systems one and two were at zero. In addition, the pilot realized he no longer had effective pitch control. When he asked the copilot to assist with pitch inputs, the copilot discovered he also had no pitch control.
“We had one system powering the right aileron; that was an.” Malone later recalled. He then explained, “The only reason that without elevators we didn’t go into an immediate dive that we could never get out of was that when we had the RD [rapid decompression] and the cables were severed and the hydraulic power lost, the elevators were trimmed for 260 knots, which were our climb speed.” He continued, “Therefore, as long as we stayed at 260 knots the aircraft would fly. If we got higher than that, the aircraft would climb; if we got lower, it would descend.”
As the aircraft continued its descending left turn, the airspeed climbed to 370 knots, and the C-5’s nose began to pitch up. The aircraft then entered a sharp climb, causing the airspeed to drop. To prevent an aerodynamic stall, Captain Traynor rolled the aircraft to the right and reduced engine power. When the C-5 transitioned into a steep dive, he leveled the wings and increased power to gain speed. He soon determined that he could exert limited pitch control by carefully coordinating changes in power and bank angle.
Master Sergeant Raymond F. Snedegar, the senior loadmaster, went below decks to inspect the damage. He reported what he found to the pilot, explaining which systems were still functioning and which had failed.
Meanwhile, the medical team moved through the aircraft, calming the children and other passengers and treating those who had been hurt by debris during the decompression. Captain Klinker focused on caring for Staff Sergeant Michael G. Paget, who had been gravely injured. The two combat photographers, aboard to document the first military Babylift mission, used their powerful lights to illuminate the area where Captain Klinker was working. Other nurses and medical technicians prepared the children for the possibility of a crash landing.
“We checked all the children and resecured them, repadded them, and retied all their seat belts,” Lieutenant Aune explained later. She continued, “In flight school, you learn all your emergency procedures. We immediately went into our emergency mode about what we were going to do and how we were going to get out of the aircraft when we landed, who was going to go down the escape slides, etc. We went through our usual emergency procedures.”
As ground crews at Tan Son Nhut readied the airfield for an emergency arrival, the C-5A crew prepared themselves for the possibility of a crash landing. The flight crew extended the landing gear and lined the aircraft up with the runway. Approximately six miles from the airport, Captain Traynor initiated a shallow left turn to set up for landing.
Captain Malone remembered, “We really thought we were in good shape. We had altitude on the turn to final, we had the runway, and the gear was down.” Suddenly, the C-5 commenced a rapid descent. The extra drag of the landing gears had reduced the airspeed to 230 knots, too low to maintain level flight. Realizing they could not reach the runway, the pilots working together leveled the wings, used full power to bring the nose up, and then cut power just before impact.
The C-5 touched down at roughly 269 knots in a marsh about two miles short of the runway threshold. It rolled and skidded for around 1,000 feet before lifting off again. The aircraft then remained briefly airborne for about 2,700 feet as it crossed the Saigon River. On its second impact with the ground, the C-5 began to break apart while sliding a further 1,200 feet. The airframe separated into four major sections: the tail, flight deck, troop compartment, and wing assembly. During the impacts and subsequent skidding, the cargo compartment was completely destroyed, killing most of the medical personnel on board, including Capt. Mary Klinker.
Aune took charge of the surviving medical personnel and, despite being seriously injured herself, repeatedly carried survivors to nearby medevac helicopters until she finally collapsed from exhaustion. Thanks to the bravery of the medical team, 176 people lived through the crash. In recognition of their actions, the flight crew received the Air Force Cross. Capt. Mary Klinker, the last female U.S. service member killed in Vietnam, was posthumously awarded the Airman’s Medal. For her heroism that day, Lt. Aune became the first woman to be honored with the Cheney Award. She later retired with the rank of colonel in 2007.
The following video is the C-5 Number 68-0218 crash animation.
Photo by Mike Freer – Touchdown-aviation via Wikipedia and U.S. Air Force
Artwork courtesy of AircraftProfilePrints.com
