Tinian

North of Guam, where America's day starts,  are the Marianna's.  One of the islands is Tinian.  It is most famous as the launch point for the Enola Gay and Bockscar.  In 1985(ish) I learned an important Physics lesson although I was just a bystander.

For the record, two aircraft cannot occupy the same space at the same time.  I think it all has to do with the density of atoms, or the time-space continuum, or crappy command and control.

We were practicing a night airfield seizure, like Entebbe, but we had a much bigger force.  There were helicopters, and about eight C-130s scheduled to land at North Field.  It was a clear calm night and everything should have been pretty straightforward except...

When the first helo arrived at the airfield and opened the door to lower the "Fast Rope" one of the combat controllers actually beat it the ground. He fell at least 50 feet on and into the coral runway.  Needless to say, he wasn't having a good night.  The helicopter landed the medics and then went to the approach end of the runway to wait for him to be stabilized for evacuation.

Meanwhile, on the C-130 command and control net, the Colonel unaware of this problem, decided to tell the C-130's to land early.  So they start in from their holding point.  We are doing all this in complete darkness using night vision goggles.  As the first 130 starts to flare for his landing he catches a glint off the rotor blades of the helicopter.  He firewalls the throttles to go around, but the momentum of the plane carries it down into the rotor blades of the Blackhawk, knocking it over and shredding the left main landing gear on the 130.

Once the "knock it off" call was made we started sorting out the pieces.  Another helicopter brought in a medical team to evacuate the army guys shaken up in the crash, and the combat controller who's shattered arm had been extracted from the coral runway.  As the MC-130 crew sorted out their problems, we decided not to foam the runway at Anderson and they came in and landed, keeping the left gear off the ground as long as they could. When they set it down they ground looped about 90 degrees.  I think the Rangers in the back were very grateful to be on firm land.

For those who may not be very familiar with military training, I would offer this one thought.  What we do in training has to be tough and is by its nature risky because war is very unforgiving.  We were all very fortunate that evening not to lose a lot of soldiers and airman.

Have a happy New Year.