Engine Failure

 

Like most assault helicopter companies in Vietnam, we were assigned a daily mission that we called “Ass and Trash.” It meant that we had a round robin, flying from one small base or outpost to another on a regular basis to move people, supplies and mail. We made the circuit once in the morning and once in the afternoon. It took just a couple of hours of flight time and was a single ship mission.

It wasn’t all that long after I made aircraft commander that it was my turn for the mission. I’d made the circuit a couple of times as a peter pilot, so that I knew where we had to go and how to get there. It wasn’t a difficult mission at all. Just make the run and return to Cu Chi.

The morning went off just fine. We finished up and landed in the Hornet’s Nest for lunch in our mess hall. When we finished, and probably about one o’clock (1300 hrs. for those in a military mindset), we took off for the afternoon circuit.

We landed first, at Bao Tri, if I remember correctly. There was an Air American Huey sitting next to the helipad, which didn’t really get in the way. For those who don’t know, Air America meant CIA. The pilots were in civilian clothes and what I noticed were the thick gold bracelets that each pilot wore. That was for them to buy their way out of trouble. We were issued lead… in the form of ammunition for our weapons. They just ignored us. We returned the favor.

There were two passengers for other locations, some supplies and little else. One of the soldiers approached and said that he was about to DEROS (return to the world, as we called it) and hadn’t had a ride in a helicopter. He wondered if he could ride along. I pointed out that he wouldn’t have a way back with us. He thought he could find a ride at Cu Chi. I had no objections and he climbed aboard.

We headed to the Sugar Mill, which is exactly what it sounded like. An old abandoned sugar mill that had been converted into a small military installation. We landed there, did our thing and took off.

I climbed to 2000 feet, which was outside small arms range and above our normal 1500 feet. Just as we reached altitude, the engine quit. Without thinking, I pushed down the collective and entered autorotation.

In flight school, we practiced this all the time. The instructor, at random times, would roll off the throttle, and we’d practice autorotation. Unlike the civilian flight schools, we sometimes shot the autorotation to the ground. Other times, like those civilian schools, we shot to a three-foot hover.

Once we had begun the descent, I mentally ran through the autorotation procedure. Yes, the collective was down. Yes, I had rolled off the throttle. Yes, I had picked out the rice paddy that we’d land in. Yes, I looked at the gas producer gauge and it was at zero.

And yes, the needles were split and not linked as they normally were. The engine RPM and the rotor RPM were on the same gauge. When the engine quit, the engine RPM went to zero while the rotor RPM stayed in the green. Our descent was keeping the rotor spinning.

I keyed the mike for the Guard frequency and said, “May day. May day. May day. This is Hornet 906, complete engine failure two miles north the Sugar Mill. We’re going down. May day. May day. May day.”

The first response was, “This is the Phouc Vinh tower. Can we help?”

I’m thinking, somewhat unkindly, “Yeah, bring your tower down here to help,” but I didn’t say that.

Hornet Operations called and I told them the engine failed.

At about 100 feet above the ground, I began to flare out, which meant I had pulled back on the cyclic and brought the nose up to slow our descent. At about 25 feet, I leveled the skids in preparation for landing. At that time, I began to slowly suck in pitch, slowing up more and bleeding off rotor RPM. As we neared the ground, I continued to pull up on the collective. We touched down and slid about six feet. It had been a gentle landing, but the dirt was up against the chin bubbles and I thought I had lost the skids. When I got out of the helicopter, I saw that the skids had sunk into the soft ground. The skids were fine.

I saw, off to the right, maybe a klick away, several helicopters circling, as if looking for us. I’d said north, but I was actually somewhat northwest of the Sugar Mill. I grabbed one of the smoke grenades, pulled the pin and tossed it into the rice paddy. Within a minute or two, those helicopters were heading in our direction.

It wasn’t long before a helicopter from the Hornets arrived and landed not all that far away. They were directing others toward us. I think they were arranging for a Chinook from the Muleskinners to help us. The Muleskinners were part of our battalion and their company area wasn’t all that far from ours.

I got the passengers out of there on one of the Hueys, along with the co-pilot and the door gunner. That left just me and the crew chief on the ground as we waited for the Chinook. I sat down behind one of the M-60 door guns and the crew chief was behind the other.

There was a small cluster of hootchs, maybe a hundred yards away. A kid, maybe eight or ten came running toward us. I was of the mind that anyone running toward us who we didn’t know was the enemy, but this was a kid. I shouted, using nearly my entire vocabulary of Vietnamese, “Di di mau.” The kid stopped, looked at me and turned and ran away.

It wasn’t long before another Huey landed, and there was a Chinook hovering over us. Several guys from the Huey began rigging our aircraft to sling load it out of there. The crew chief and I were loaded onto the Huey, and once my helicopter was properly rigged, it was lifted up and out of the rice paddy.

When we got back to Cu Chi, I watched the Chinook maneuver to put the Huey down in our maintenance area. I was annoyed to see them drop it from about ten feet. I figured that any damage that caused would be blamed on me, but no one ever said a word.

I thought I was done of for the day, but that wasn’t the way it was. Instead, I was given another aircraft and those guys who had been riding with me were standing there waiting for a lift.

The aircraft was the one assigned to the first platoon leader and as I walked toward it, he said, “Don’t break my airplane.”

Of course, the way things worked out, I managed to get it shot up as we were returning to Cu Chi. No real damage, just a bunch of bullet holes in the airframe. It wouldn’t have been worth a mention, except the co-pilot asked me why the door gunners were shooting. I told him, “Those aren’t the door guns.”