My first night flight at Fort Campbell KY

I had just changed duty stations from Camp Humphreys, Korea to Fort Campbell, KY. As a part of my in processing at a new unit as an aviator, I was designated at Readiness Level 3 (RL3) as a pilot which means you can only fly with an instructor pilot until you have satisfied him that have a mastery of all the required maneuvers for the aircraft and have a good working knowledge of the area of operations. Part of this is done in the briefing room where you assemble your Australian fold map book (This allows you to have 30-40-50 maps consolidated into a book that is small enough to fit in the cockpit but allows you easy access to adjacent map sheets when you move from one area to the next). As you assemble the map, you are also updating it with the hazards known in the area of operations from the hazard map in the flight operations office. This way before you ever go out into the area in a helicopter you have a general idea of where you are going.

My second flight as an RL3 aviator with Alpha Company, 7-101 Aviation (Predators) was a night unaided flight with CW3 Jerry Nollie. I really enjoyed flying with Jerry as he was a very gregarious man and always seemed to be in a good mood. I needed this as flying night unaided to a goggle qualified pilot is very scary. You just cannot see a lot and I was accustomed to being able to see more with goggles and I admit to flying the Fort Campbell reservation at night was not something I was looking forward to without my NVGs.

The day was a Tuesday, 24 July 1990, so sunset was 8:03 PM. We had pre-flighted before dark and then had dinner and did our flight planning in the briefing room. Jerry wanted it to be dark when we started so I’d say we started the flight about 9 PM. We started out with required training maneuvers I could do at Campbell Army Airfield (Hover work, traffic patterns, running landings etc.) as I was knocking off the dust having not flown but once in the past 60 days (My day flight orientation had been the previous Friday.)

Finally, about 10:15 or so I’d satisfied Jerry that I could fly a helicopter with some reasonable amount of skill and he decided we should do a lap around the reservation. This included a trip south down past the cantonment area to the normal entrance to the training area near Clarksville Base. From that point, you flew southwest to Mabry Road, then followed Mabry west south of Indian Mound Drop Zone and south of the southern artillery impact area. This brought you to the end of the reservation and you turned north and flew generally around the west and then north sides of the artillery impact area. There you turned east toward the airfield again. This route was flown as a one-way route to help avoid mid-air collisions.

At about 10:30 PM, we had just passed the southern impact area and turned north when we heard an Apache Attack helicopter (AH-64) contact our base radio flight following unit for the reservation (Eagle Radio) to report a burning aircraft in the Golden Eagle Landing Zone. Jerry immediately took the controls and did a 360 turn to the right to see if he could observe anything, which we could not. Jerry radioed to Eagle Radio that a Chinook from Bravo company (Varsity) 7-101 AVN was training in that area and the Apache confirmed the wreckage was a Chinook. Eagle Radio dispatched medivac to the scene and we returned to the airfield completing our flight. Jerry told me to post flight the aircraft and he left for the hangar. I helped the crew post flight and button-up the aircraft as we were all a bit shaken and they were worried about their Flight Engineer Instructor (SSG Johnson) who was training a flight engineer on that flight.

B-7-101 AVN Aircraft 82-23764 crashed at 10:30 p.m. in the Golden Eagle Landing Zone in the southeast corner of the base on the Tennessee-Kentucky border. The next paragraph is an excerpt of a crash report.

“On 24 July 1990, in the vicinity of Fort Campbell, during a night vision goggle (NVG) approach to a field site with a sling load, the pilot heard a loud noise. The aircraft pitched nose down and the instructor pilot took the controls. He jettisoned the load as the aircraft impacted the ground. The aircraft came to rest inverted. Fatal injuries were sustained by the pilot Chief Warrant Officer 4 (CW4) Dale W Tate, crew chief Specialist (SP4) Lee Jordan, and flight engineer instructor Staff Sergeant (SSG) Veltry Johnson. The copilot and the flight engineer had minor injuries. The aircraft caught fire during the crash sequence and was totally consumed by the fire. All crew members were evacuated to Blanchfield Army Community Hospital via MEDEVAC helicopter.”

The co-pilot was Second Lieutenant (2LT) Nancy Ann Schulz and the flight engineer for 82-23764 was Specialist (SP4) Carlos Clyburn. While Nancy was a 2LT, she was a seasoned aviator (She’d been a warrant officer and decided to enter the command field) and she was flying her NVG Instructor Pilot check ride.  The accident investigation determined that there was a fault in the forward and aft cargo hook release design that prevented the hook from releasing the load under severe strain (The 18,000 lb training load had contacted the ground and the forward hook failed to release when commanded by the flight engineer or the pilots.) that caused the crash and the unfortunate loss of life.

At the time of the crash, all we knew was that there had been a crash and we wouldn’t know more until later. Meanwhile, I had to call home, well after midnight, and let my wife know we were not the helicopter that crashed and she had to start calling to alert the family that I was safe. My grandmother was 91 and she followed the news. The last thing I wanted to do was panic her, or any other members of the family. Needless to say it was a long night and I was glad to get home to my family safe and sound.

The next day we learned that SSG Johnson and SP4 Jordan died instantly in the crash. SP4 Clyburn was thrown clear and assisted in the rescue of LT Schultz and CW4 Tate. Mr. Tate died in the hospital from his injuries. It was a tough time for both Bravo Company losing CW4 and SP4 Jordan and Alpha Company where SSG Johnson was assigned. Like my previous unit that had a crash, there was a safety stand-down to let us all take in what had happened and for us all to go over safety procedures again before our next flight. Eventually, all CH-47Ds were retrofitted with improved hooks that could release under heavy load.

As it so often happens, life gets in the way of the best laid plans too. Nine days later on August 2, 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait. Bravo Company was part of the 101^st Division Ready Brigade (DRB) deployment package and their unit had to deploy to Saudi Arabia August 12, 1990. Due to operational needs, the accident investigation and the loss of aircraft, Bravo company was augmented with both equipment and personnel from the rest of the battalion.

My next post will help detail how I integrated into my new unit while preparing for overseas deployment to Desert Shield/Desert Storm.