Ring of Fire
Call Sign: Pedro 70
Tail No: 59-1562 /
Aircraft Model: HH-43F
Date of Loss:
U-Tapao RTAFB / Country of Loss:
Pilot: Warren K. Davis Location on the
Wall (20W-18)
PJ/FF: Harry Cohen
Location
on the Wall (02E-40)
Note: Flying L.B.R. for burning B-52 at U-Tapao; aircraft exploded
causing the helicopter to crash.
photo courtesy of B-52D BUF
"U-Tapao
Royal Thai Air Force Base"
Members
of Det 12, 38th Air Rescue and Recovery Squadron (ARRS) were going about their
normal day to day duties. Unknown to the crew of PEDRO 70, they
would experienced the deadly complexities of what might happen during an
aircraft emergency.
The
Alert Crew that day was (P) Major Warren K. Davis, (FE) John B. Gent and (PJ/FF) Tom Miles and Harry Cohen. At about 1300 hours, B-52s could be heard starting their
engines for preflight checks in preparation for their afternoon launch. Within
the hour, with worsening weather the "Buffs," as they were called,
were roaring down the 13,000 foot runway.
The
crash phone rang announcing that a B-52 had run off the departure end of the runway and was on fire. Running
from the detachment, Maj Davis started the cocked Huskie, Tom Miles and Harry
Cohen donned their aluminized crash turn-outs and John Gent connected the sling
loaded FSK, getting the H-43
airborne in under a minute.
A typical Scramble; photo taken by
Comments of Thomas M. “Mike” Sanders, LtCol, USAF(ret): I was the navigator
on the last of 3 B-52's comprising the first of two cells in a 6-ship
"wave" departing from UTapao for a bombing mission on 19 July 1969.
The weather was terrible--heavy tropical rain.
We were on our departure, monitoring the progress of the wave, when we
realized that the second cell never came up on frequency.
We then heard several
transmissions of "Pedro seven-zero this is
The
second cell lead B52, accelerating in the heavy
rain, noticed an out-of-limit difference between the pilot's and copilot's
airspeed indicators and aborted
take-off. They slowed down quickly but, in an attempt to clear the runway for
the remaining two B52s, they pushed up the thrust levers
to get to the end of the runway sooner. The crew sped up too much, however, and
the aircraft--carrying about
300,000 lbs of fuel and 108 500-pound bombs--skidded off the runway into
a ditch. The tail gunner popped his Gun Pod, slid down a rope, and was picked
up by a maintenance crew, who then drove to the safety of a nearby revetment.
The remaining crewmembers escaped through overhead escape hatches at the front
of the plane and were picked up by
(PJ/FF) Tom Miles, USAF (ret) related the
following: We
launched quickly and were on-scene pronto. Major Davis after talking to the tower
stated, 'I can see his escape rope,' and then pulled up and away from the
inferno. I got one short look at the Buff burning...then all I remember was a
bright flash and waking up in Wilford Hall Hospital (Lackland AFB, San Antonio,
Texas) 22 weeks later."
The remains of PEDRO 70 at
Utapao RTAFB -
A
sympathetic detonation of the B52’s
massive ordinance load blew Pedro 70 from the sky with only one
survivor, Tom Miles.
Editors
Note: On this the 38th
anniversary of their ultimate sacrifice, one phrase strikes a chord:
“Least We Forget”
Steve