Murphy's Law

I got this emailed to me by my buddy in the RAN again, what a tale!

——————– Forwarded by **** *********/MCCAFO-W/HMAS
STIRLING/NAVY/AU on 09/04/2002 12:15 —————————
———————- Forwarded by **** *******/MCCAFO-W/HMAS
STIRLING/NAVY/AU on 09/04/2002 11:57 —————————
Read the dit first.

A-6 making emergency landing :
Lieutenant Keith Gallagher’s Account:
Murphy’s Law says, “Whatever can go wrong, will, and when you least
expect
it.” (And, of course, we all know that Murphy was an aviator.) Murphy
was
correct beyond his wildest dreams in my case. Fortunately for me,
however,
he failed to follow through. On my 26th birthday I was blindsided by a
piece
of bad luck the size of Texas that should have killed me.
Luckily, it was followed immediately by a whole slew of miracles that
allowed me to be around for my 27th. Not even Murphy could have
conceived
of such a bizarre accident (many people still find it hard to believe),
and
the fact that I am here to write about it makes it that much more
bizarre.
We were the overhead tanker, one third of the way through cruise,
making
circles in the sky. Although the tanker pattern can be pretty boring
midway
through the cycle, we were alert and maintaining a good lookout
doctrine
because out airwing had a midair less than a week before, and we did
not
want to repeat. We felt we were ready for “any” emergency: fire lights,
hydraulic failures and fuel transfer problems. Bring ’em on!

We were ready for them. After all, how much trouble can two JO’s get in
overhead the ship? After my third fuel update call, we decided that
the
left outboard drop was going to require a little help in order to
transfer.
NATOPS recommends applying positive and negative G to force the valve
open.
As the pilot pulled the stick back I wondered how many times we would
have
to porpoise the nose of the plane before the valve opened. As he moved
the
stick forward, I felt the familiar sensation of negative “G”, and then
something strange happened: my head touched the canopy. For a brief
moment
I
thought that I had failed to tighten my lap belts, but I knew that
wasn’t
true. Before I could complete that thought, there was a loud bang,
followed
by wind, noise, disorientation and more wind, wind, wind. Confusion
reigned
in my mind as I was forced back against my seat, head against the
headrest,
arms out behind me, the wind roaring in my head, pounding against my
body.
“Did the canopy blow off? Did I eject? Did my windscreen implode?” All
of
these questions occurred to me amidst the pandemonium in my mind and
over
my
body. These questions were quickly answered, and replaced by a
thousand
more, as I looked down and saw a sight that I will never forget: the
top of
the canopy, close enough to touch, and through the canopy I could see
the
top of my pilot’s helmet. It took a few moments for this image to sink
into
my suddenly overloaded brain. This was worse than I ever could have
imagined
– I was sitting on top of a flying A-6!
Pain, confusion, panic, fear and denial surged through my brain and
body as
a new development occurred to me: I couldn’t breathe. My helmet and
mask
had
ripped off my head, and without them, the full force of the wind was
hitting
me square in the face. It was like trying to drink through a fire hose.
I
couldn’t seem to get a breath of air amidst the wind. My arms were
dragging
along behind me until I managed to pull both of them into my chest and
hold
them there. I tried to think for a second as I continued my attempts to
breathe.
For some reason, it never occurred to me that my pilot would be trying
to
land. I just never thought about it. I finally decided that the only
thing
that I could do was eject. (What else could I do?) I grabbed the lower
handle with both hands and pulled-it wouldn’t budge. With a little more
panic induced strength I tried again, but to no avail. The handle was
not
going to move. I attempted to reach the upper handle but the wind
prevented
me from getting a hand on it. As a matter of fact, all that I could do
was
hold my arms into my chest. If either of them slid out into the wind
stream,
they immediately flailed out behind me, and that was definitely not
good.
The wind had become physically and emotionally overwhelming. It
pounded
against my face and body like a huge wall of water that wouldn’t stop.
The
roaring in my ears confused me, the pressure in my mouth prevented me
from
breathing, and the pounding on my eyes kept me from seeing. Time had
lost
all meaning. For all I knew, I could have been sitting there for
seconds
or
for hours. I was suffocating, and I couldn’t seem to get a breath. I
wish I
could say that my last thoughts were of my wife, but as I felt myself
blacking out, all I said was, “I don’t want to die.” Close up of Keith
just
after landing someone turned on the lights and I had a funny view of
the
front end of an A-6, with jagged plexiglas where my half of the canopy
was
supposed to be. Looking down from the top of the jet, I was surprised
to
find the plane stopped on the flight deck with about 100 people looking
up
at me. (I guess I was surprised because I had expected to see the
pearly
gates and some dead relatives.)
My first thought was that we had never taken off, that something had
happened before the catapult. Then everything came flooding back into
my
brain, the wind, the noise and the confusion. As my pilot spoke to me
and
the medical people swarmed all over me, I realized that I had survived,
I
was alive. It didn’t take me very long to realize that I was a very
lucky
man, but as I heard more details, I found out how lucky I was. For
example,
my parachute became entangled in the horizontal stabilizer tight enough
to
act as a shoulder harness for the rap, but not tight, enough to bind
the
flight controls. If this had not happened, I would have been thrown
into
the
jagged plexiglas during the trap as my shoulder harness had been
disconnected from the seat as the parachute deployed. There are many
other
things that happened, or didn’t happen, that allowed me to survive this
mishap, some of them only inches away from disaster. These little
things,
and a s-hot, level headed pilot who reacted quickly and correctly are
the
reason that I am alive and flying today. Also, a generous helping of
good
old-fashioned Irish luck didn’t hurt.

Lieutenant Mark Baden’s (pilot) Account of the Incident
As we finished the brief, my BN (bombardier navigator – Keith
Gallagher)
told me that it was his birthday and that our recovery would be his
100th
trap on the boat. To top it off, we were assigned the plane with my
name on
the side. As we taxied out of the chocks, I was still feeling a little
uneasy about all the recent mishaps. To make myself feel better, I went
through the”soft shot/engine failure on takeoff” EPs (emergency
procedures),
touching each switch or lever as I went through the steps. “At least if
something happens right off the bat, I’ll be ready,” I thought.
The first few minutes of the hop were busy. Concentrating on the
package-check and consolidation, as well as trying to keep track of my
initial customers, dispelled my uneasiness. As we approached mid-cycle,
that
most boring time in a tanker hop, we kept ourselves occupied with fuel
checks. We were keeping a close eye on one drop tank that had quit
transferring with about 1,000 pounds of fuel still inside. I had tried
going
to override on the tank pressurization, but that didn’t seem to work.
My BN
and I discussed the problem. We decided it was probably a stuck float
valve.
Perhaps some positive and negative G would fix it. We were at 8,000
feet,
seven miles abeam the ship, heading aft. I clicked the altitude hold
off
and
added some power to give us a little more G. At 230 knots I pulled the
stick back and got the plane five degrees nose up. Then I pushed the
stick
forward. I got about half a negative G, just enough to float me in the
seat.
I heard a sharp bang and felt the cockpit instantly depressurize.
The roar of the wind followed. I ducked instinctively and looked up at
the
canopy expecting it to be partly open. Something was wrong. Instead of
seeing a two or three inch gap, the canopy bow was flush with the front
of
the windscreen. My eyes tracked down to the canopy switch. It was up.
Moment
of impact my scan continued right. Instead of meeting my BN’s
questioning
glance, I saw a pair of legs at my eye level. The right side of the
canopy
was shattered. I followed the legs up and saw the rest of my BN’s body
out
in the windblast. I watched as his head snapped down and then back up,
and
his helmet and oxygen mask disappeared. They didn’t fly off; they just
disappeared. My mind went into fast forward. “What the hell happened?”
I
wondered. “I hope he ejects all the way.
What am I going to do now? I need to slow down.” I jerked the throttles
to
idle and started the speed brakes out. Without stopping, I reached up,
de-isolated, and threw the flap lever to the down position. I reached
over
and grabbed for the IFF selector switch and twisted it to EMER. I was
screaming “Slow down! Slow down!” to myself as I looked up at the
airspeed
indicator and gave another pull back on the throttles and speed brakes.
The airspeed was passing 200 knots.I had been looking back over my
shoulder
at my bombardier the whole time. I was doing everything else. I felt a
strange combination of fear, helplessness and revulsion as I watched
his
body slam around in the windblast. After his helmet flew off, his face
looked like the people who get sucked out into zero atmosphere in some
of
the more graphic movies.
His eyes were being blasted open, his cheeks and lips were puffed out
to an
impossible size and the tendons in his neck looked like they were about
to
bust through his skin as he fought for his life. At 200 knots I saw his
arms
pulled up in front of his face and he was clawing behind his head. For
a
moment, I thought he was going to manage to pull the handle and get
clear
of the plane. I was mentally cheering for him. His arms got yanked
down by
the blast and I cursed as I checked my radio selector switch to radio
1.
“Mayday, Mayday, this is 515. My BN has partially ejected. I need an
emergency pull-forward!” The reply was an immediate, “Roger, switch
button
six.” I switched freqs and said (or maybe yelled), “Boss (Air Officer),
this
is 515. My BN has partially ejected. I need an emergency
full-forward!”
I slapped the gear handle down and turned all my dumps on in an effort
to
get slower, max trap never crossed my mind). The Boss came back in his
ever-calm voice and said, “Bring it on in.” Checking out the BNAs I
watched,
the indexers move from on-speed to a green chevron I worked the nose to
keep
the plane as slow as possible and still flying. The plane was holding
at
around 160 knots and descending.
My BN’s legs were kicking, which gave me some comfort; he was not dead.
But,
watching his head and body jerked around in the windblast, being
literally
beaten to death, made me ill. I had been arcing around in my descent
and
was
still at seven miles. The boss came up and asked if the BN was still
with
the aircraft. I think that I caused a few cases of nausea when I
answered,
“Only his legs are still inside the cockpit.” It made sense to me, but
more
than a few people who were listening had visions of two legs and lots
of
blood and no body.
Fortunately, the Boss understood what I meant. As I turned in astern
the
boat, I called the Boss and told him. I was six miles behind the boat.
I
asked how the deck was coming. He asked if I was setting myself up for
a
straight-in. I told him “yes.” He told me to continue.
It was then I noticed that my BN had quit kicking. A chill shot through
my
body and I looked back at him. What I saw scared me even more. His head
was
turned to the left and laying on his left shoulder. He was starting to
turn
grey. Maybe he had broken his neck and was dead. Bringing back a body
that
was a friend only minutes before was not a comfortable thought. I
forced
myself not to look at my bombardier after that. The front windscreen
started
to fog up about four miles behind the boat. I cranked the defog all
the
way
and was getting ready to unstrap my shoulder harness so I could wipe
off
the
glass when it finally started clearing.
I saw the boat making a hard left turn. I made some disparaging remarks
about the guys on the bridge as I rolled right to chase centerline. I
heard
CAG paddles (landing signal officer) come up on the radio. He told the
captain he would take the winds and that he needed to steady up. My
tension
eased slightly as I saw mother begin to leave her wake in a straight
line.
Coming in for landing was driving it in at about 300 feet. I had been
in a
slight descent and wasn’t willing to add enough power to climb back up
to a
normal straight-in altitude for fear I would have to accelerate and do
more
damage to my already battered BN. I watched the ball move up to red and
then
move slowly up towards the center. Paddles called for some rudder and
told
me not to go high. My scan went immediately to the 1-wire. I had no
intention of passing up any “perfectly good wires.” I touched down
short of
the 1-wire and sucked the throttles to idle. The canopy shards directly
in
front of the BN’s chest looked like a butcher’s knife collection. I was
very
concerned that the deceleration of the trap was going to throw him into
the
jagged edge of the canopy. I cringed when I didn’t immediately feel the
tug
of the wire. I pulled the stick into my lap as paddles was calling
for
altitude. I got the nose gear off the deck and then felt the hook catch
a
wire.
I breathed a sigh of relief. Testing the spool-up time of a pair of
J-52s
as
I rolled off the end of the angle was not the way I wanted to end an
already
bad hop. As soon as I stopped, I set the parking brake and a yellow
shirt
gave me the signal to kill my No. 2 engine. Immediately after that, I
heard
a call over the radio that I was chocked. I killed no. 1 and began
unstrapping. As soon as I was free of my seat (I somehow remembered to
safe
it), I reached over and safed the BN’s lower handle, undid his lower
koch
fittings and reached up to try to safe his upper handle.
As I was crawling up, I saw that his upper handle was already safed. I
started to release his upper koch fittings but decided they were
holding
him
in and I didn’t want him to fall against the razor-sharp plexiglas on
his
side. I got back on my side of the cockpit, held his left arm and hand,
and
waited for the medical people to arrive. I realized he still was alive
he
said, “Am I on the flight deck?” A wave of indescribable relief washed
over
me as I talked to him while the crash crew worked to truss him up and
pull
him out of the seat.
Once he was clear of the plane, they towed me out of the landing area
and
parked me. A plane captain bumped the canopy open by hand far enough
that
I
could squeeze out. I headed straight for medical without looking back
at
the
plane. Later, I found that ignorance can be bliss. I didn’t know two
things
while I was flying. First, the BN’s parachute had deployed and wrapped
itself around the tail section of the plane. Second, the timing
release
mechanism had fired and released the BN from the seat. The only things
keeping him in the plane were the parachute risers holding him against
the
back of the seat.

(See attached file: image001.jpg)
(See attached file: image005.jpg)
(See attached file: image004.jpg)

Leave no-one behind!
Attachments: