Two local airmen survive B-1 crash

Wednesday, December 19, 2001

by Kelly Everitt

Mountain Home News

Two men from Mountain Home AFB are resting comfortably today and awaiting their chance to return to battle after the $200 million B-1B Lancer bomber they were flying went down last week in the Indian Ocean.

"As a military aviator, it's one thing you don't like to think about," said the co-pilot of the plane, identified only by his call sign, "Rooster."

A member of the 366th Wing's 34th Bomb Squadron, Rooster, and the Offensive Weapons System Officer, identified as "IROC," also from Mountain Home, were two of the four crew members of the plane that went down. The other two, mission commander Capt. William Steele, and the Defensive Weapons System Officer, identified by his call sign as "Lost," were from Ellsworth AFB.

All four crew members suffered only minor bruises and abrasions from the high-speed ejection that occured at about 15,000 feet above the ocean, and were awaiting clearance at their base in Diego Garcia from an Air Force crash investigation safety board to resume missions into Afghanistan, where the much-maligned B-1 bomber has proven to be the key aircraft in tonnage dropped on the Taliban positions. The plane itself was from Ellsworth AFB.

The mission had begun like any other in the three-month war. The mixed crew from the two bases, who had flown several times together before, completed their mission briefing and pre-flight checks and prepared for the long flight from the small, isolated British coral atoll island of Diego Garcia in the middle of the Indian Ocean to the rugged mountains of Afghanistan.

But shortly after take-off, as the aircraft was reaching its cruising altitude, something went wrong. Captain Steele declared an in-flight emergency and began to turn the plane around. For about 15 minutes he and Rooster wrestled with the huge supersonic bomber, trying to keep it in the air, but the problems continued to mount.

"Basically, we had multiple aircraft system malfunctions, which made it impossible for us to fly the aircraft," Steele said.

Pilots never like to leave their planes. But despite their efforts, when the aircraft's life came to an end, it came fast, "within a minute" and was obvious to everyone. The B-1's Aces-II ejection system can either be fired automatically, each of the four crew members being ejected by a rocket under their seat up and to the side of the plane in a controlled sequence (to avoid being hit by canopies and other parts of the plane), or each can elect to punch out manually.

"In this particular situation, things occured quickly," Rooster said. "Under our own awareness, each of us ejected" manually.

In the few seconds before ejection, each crew member prepared to be launched into space at more than 20g's of acceleration from the rocket motors.

"I sat upright, got in the perfect position, as I was taught, closed my eyes, slid my seat down as I was supposed to," and pulled the ejection levers, Rooster said. The perfect position is important to keep the spine aligned with the direction of acceleration. It is not uncommon for pilots to be seriously injured, usually involving spinal injuries, in an ejection. Some are even killed.

"I will say that going through an ejection like that is about the most violent thing I've ever felt," Steele said, adding, "we're all pretty bruised up and have some cuts, but overall, we're doing very well."

Rooster said there was a huge wind blast as they exited the plane.

At moments like that, time becomes highly subjective. Both Steele and Rooster, made available to the press in separate telephone interviews, said the ejection seemed like it took forever. In fact, it took only a few seconds from ejection to chute deployment.

The Aces-II system ejects the entire seat with the crewman. At the altitude they "punched out," the system would have separated the seat from the crewman, begun to deploy and inflate his life raft and deployed his survival gear on a line attached to the crewman, and opened his chute in under four seconds.

"There was a huge jerk, and then I looked up and saw my open chute," Rooster said.

Neither Steele nor Rooster indicated they felt any moments of fear. In both cases, they said, their training took over. "I immediately began my pre-landing checklist, trying to recall everything while you're under stress," Rooster said. "They make you memorize all this stuff. It's engraved in your mind, and I just went through it all. So it's relatively easy in that respect."

Still, he said, "my life flashed before my eyes." He thought of his wife and two young daughters, and then, looking up, "it was the greatest feeling to be under that canopy. The military equipment we buy is the best."

Based on a 15,000-foot bailout point, it would have taken 15 minutes to descend in the darkness to the water, based on the normal rate of descent of the parachute. "It was some time before I hit," he said.

It was a moonless night. He couldn't see the inky black waters coming up beneath him. But aircrews are trained to estimate their time of descent and assume the proper landing position in time.

Rooster hit the water, immediately disconnected himself from the chute, then climbed into his life raft.

"It was a very smooth entry into the water. The water was actually very warm, and I immediately climbed into the raft. "My initial concern was for myself, then I wanted to make sure my buddies were OK. I yelled out and we could hear one other." Eventually, three of the four crewmen gathered close enough to see and hear each other.

Rescue efforts already were under way. A KC-10 tanker from the 60th Air Mobility Wing, call sign "Denver O-7", had been flying an unrelated mission when its crew was notified a B-1 was going down. It aborted its originial mission and began flying a search pattern.

Rooster got on his radio and within 30 minutes had found contact with the tanker/transport. "I let them know I was OK. It was a very welcome feeling to hear them. It improved moral greatly."

He fired off a flare and the tanker crew spotted it immediately. A Navy PC-3 Orion anti-submarine warfare aircraft also joined the search and stayed on station above the crewmen, now bobbing around in low swells in the ocean north of Diego Garcia.

When the first report of the plane going down came in, Navy Cmdr. Hank Miranda, commanding officer of the USS Russell (DDG 59), a guided missile destroyer, immediately turned his ship toward the spot where the plane was last reported, and began coordinating with the aircraft overhead to guide him to the crewmen.

For Miranda and his crew, the rescue effort had special meaning, and would bring a certain measure of redemption. On Nov. 27, the ship had lost a crewman overboard whose body was never found. This time, they were determined not to lose anyone as they headed out at flank speed to the search area.

"Denver O-7 gave me a good lock on how the destroyer was progressing," Rooster said. "Basically, they were just keeping me up to date." About that time he learned all four crewmen had been located and had called in by radio that they were all right. "That was a good feeling," he said.

Rooster and his fellow crewmen were in the water for a little under three hours when the destroyer came up. But the Russell, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, draws about 30 feet of water. Where Steele, Rooster, IROC and Lost were located was shallower than that. The destroyer could only get within a few miles of the men.

Quickly, they put a Rigid Hull Inflatable Boat (RHIB) into the water, and headed out to the crewmen, who could be spotted by their light beacons from their emergency kits.

Rooster was the last of the four crewmen pulled aboard the boat. "Guys, I'm glad to see you," he told them, adding that the crew of the RHIB gave them all a round of applause as they came aboard.

They were quickly taken aboard the destroyer where they were checked out and told their families already were being notified that they were safe. "They took real good care of us. They gave us a cup of Starbucks coffee. You just don't get Starbucks coffee in the Indian Ocean," Rooster said.

After being returned to Diego Garcia, the men got a chance to talk to their families and were debriefed about the accident. It was only the eighth B-1 to crash since it began service in 1985. The plane itself apparently went down in much deeper water. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said he did not believe there would be an effort to recover the plane's debris.

Rooster said he was looking forward to being cleared by the accident investigation board and getting back to the war.

"We've got a really great group. This crew is unique, two from Mountain Home and two from Ellsworth," he said. All the B-1 crews at Diego Garcia have been consolidated into one provisional squadron. "Both as a squadron and a crew, we've really come together," he said.

But as anxious as he was to get back to the war and help finish it, "I can't wait to get home and put my arms around my wife and kids.

"I'm very happy to be alive. I'm just glad it didn't happen further north."

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