About This Time of Year

About this time of year I am reminded of my mortality and the capricious nature of life.  In June of 1980, I returned to the United States from Japan.  Leaving the 1st Special Operations Squadron had been a tough call, the commander had asked me to be the senior evaluator for my specialty, and it would have been a great job.  But it was time, we had just returned from the failed mission to rescue American’s held captive in Iran.  I was burned out, and my wife wanted to bring our daughter home so the grandparents could see her.  She was also expecting our second child and we wanted him to be born in the States.

My good friend Greg stayed behind and took the job I turned down.  Over the next six months the unit was extremely busy training for a possible return to Iran as well as executing a very short notice unit relocation from Kadena AB, Japan to Clark AB in the Philippines.  The unit moved over the 1980 Christmas holiday lull.

When they arrived at Clark, and before the dust had settled, the unit was thrown into a major special operations exercise called SPECWAREX.  The exercise was intended to bring special forces from the US, Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines together to train.

The crews were pulling 12 to 14 hour days as they flew both day and night missions into and out of Cubi Point Naval Air Station.  Among the mission profiles was a low level flight involving over water segments.  The unit was flying what we called hard crews.  For the entire exercise the same crew members flew together as a team.

As the senior Navigator Greg was teamed up with a new arrival to the squadron.  Someone who would have had only a hundred hours or so in the aircraft.  His pilots were experienced and so was the rest of the aircrew.

On February 25th the crew of aircraft 64-0564 took off from Cubi Point at 0428 local time flew a short segment and landed back at Cubi at 0506  for a tactical onload of personnel.  They departed at 0508 on what was supposed to be a simulated tactical departure.  All indications were the mission was going exactly as planned.  At about 0523, local fishermen Northwest of Cubi Point reported seeing an aircraft impact the water and explode.  Twenty three people were killed, but remarkably Jeff, the electronic warfare officer, survived.

The truly amazing fact was that his crew position is located in the forward part of the cargo compartment.  The radio operator sitting right next to him was killed.  The passengers sitting right next to him were also killed.  Jeff was ejected from the aircraft as it broke apart and sank, but not only was he ejected so was a life raft which he remembers climbing into before he passed out.

The accident investigation sited crew fatigue and perhaps a failure of the terrain following radar system for the accident.  At the time we were putting duct tape over all the warning lights so we could use our night vision goggles.  My friend Greg died in that crash, and but for a single choice made eight months earlier it would have been me in the seat with that new guy.

I am reminded “Not one sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing about it”  Matthew 10:29.  Jeff survived and continued his career and I am convinced from that accident each of us has a destiny.  We can never know the time or the place of our death, but must make the most of all that is given us.