“Flying upside down underneath a tanker while in a thunderstorm on instruments with a full fuel and bomb load was a once-in-a-lifetime thriller,” Luke Graves, F-4 Phantom pilot
On a turbulent, rainy night in 1969 at Ubon, Thailand, a three-ship formation of F-4 Phantoms, using the call sign “Killer,” stood ready on the runway for a mission over northern Laos.
The flight leader at the time was Captain Luke Graves, a fighter pilot who completed 177 combat sorties over North Vietnam and northern Laos between 1968 and 1969. He flew the F-4D as part of the Wolfpack, the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing. The weather was “delta sierra,” with severe thunderstorms throughout the area. “I’ll never forget that the water was up to my ankles on the ramp as I was trying to pre-flight my aircraft,” said Graves. The mission was originally scheduled for an afternoon takeoff, but the TOT kept being delayed due to the weather. Eventually, at 11 p.m., they received clearance to launch. They had anticipated a daytime mission, but it became a night flight instead, and the theater was still filled with thunderstorms.
They were assigned to destroy an anti-aircraft position at a location known as the ‘Birds Head’, near the North Vietnam–Laos border. The plan was to head toward the target, refuel from an airborne tanker en route, and then strike the site. Almost immediately, they encountered a massive wall of thunderstorms, so Graves placed the formation in a 3‑mile radar trail to punch through the storm line. Once they finally emerged on the other side, they contacted ground control to arrange a refueling slot and were informed that the three tankers, ‘Cherry’, ‘Peach’, and ‘Lemon’, had all been forced by the weather into a relatively tight area and were now operating in proximity to one another.
Killer flight, a formation of three, pushed back through the band of intense storm cells and switched to the tanker frequency, only to find all three tankers crowded into the same small area, arguing over which altitudes each was supposed to hold. With multiple other strike flights also needing fuel, the situation was growing increasingly hazardous, given how closely grouped the three tankers were. Eventually, they managed to get onto ‘Cherry Anchor’ for refueling. The three F-4s and the tanker kept circling around the thunderstorms as they took on fuel, when suddenly the tanker led them straight into a powerful storm cell. Graves had just topped off and was in the pre-contact position when they entered the cell. He immediately called a ‘lost wingman’ maneuver, directing his two wingmen to break off to the left and right. With very few safe options, Graves rolled inverted beneath the tanker to create separation. “Flying upside down underneath a tanker while in a thunderstorm on instruments with a full fuel and bomb load was a once-in-a-lifetime thriller,” said Graves.
No one collided, and they were able to reassemble the formation and finish refueling before proceeding to the target, which was “of course” ringed with thunderstorms. They eventually located a break in the weather and dove in toward the objective. Due to the constant flashes of lightning, the enemy gunners spotted them and opened fire. At that point, they were fully committed to the attack, leaving them no option but to press through the barrage and strike the target. “It felt like we were diving into a volcano and reminded me of Edgar Allen Poe’s story Descent into the Maelstrom.”
Fortunately, none of the aircraft were hit, but with thunderstorms surrounding them, there was nowhere obvious to escape, so Graves made a quick decision to drop down to the deck rather than climb up and out. The challenge was that this region is packed with mountains and karst formations, making low-level flight at night normally out of the question. “I was going visual because of the lightning strikes …flick, flick, and I could see where I was going and avoid the karst ridge”. Eventually, they found a clear gap and climbed back up to cruising altitude.
By this stage, all three crews were shaken by how wild the mission had become. When they checked back with Wolfpack, they were informed that Ubon was completely socked in and were ordered to head back through the same thunderstorms to refuel once more and wait for new instructions. Exhausted and riding a series of adrenaline surges, Graves asked his backseater to take the controls and fly them to Udorn (instead of Ubon), which was still open. “I figured we had filled our bravery square for the night, so I just took us to Udorn and bought the boys a drink.”
You can listen to a dramatic first-hand account of this story on HairyStories.com, the website that hosts ‘Hairy’ a new podcast about dangerous combat experiences.
Photo by Airwolfhound from Hertfordshire, UK, via Wikipedia, U.S. Air Force, and Matt Graves
