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Dyess 130 crash in Turkey circa 1980


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I heard something about a herk going down in Turkey back around 1980, from Dyess. According to this person the acft had an engine come off in flight. 39 or so souls lost according to this mans account. Said he was a former MX officer. Anyone have any specifics or is this even true. I wouldnt have known myself cause I was still chasing teenage girls at the time in HS.

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I believe this a true story. It happened when they were on rote on a Turkey Trot mission. I think the accident report listed the cause as a lightning strike. I also heard that this crash was caused by a missile. I'm sure someone will give you the straight scoop. It's been long time so I might be wrong.

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Going back I found ten aircraft that Dyess lost. Two in Turkey

63-7796 France low level 1965

63-7886 Texas low level 1966

63-7801 Pope 1967

74-2064 Turkey 1980

74-1672 Nellis 1981

74-1678 Turkey 1982

74-1693 Pope 1983

74-2068 Nellis 1983

74-1681 Bragg 1989

74-1662 Jackson Hole 1996

Bob

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It's been a long time and I may be wrong but it seems that in 1982 the 774th was on rote to Mildenhall and lost one of their airplanes in Turkey. DC10FE could probably give more specifics, but I believe this was the one that had a problem with engine mounts or bolts. If I remember the briefing correctly the engine was twisting around in the mounts quite severely. The prop finally came off and went up over the wing causing enough damage that the wing came off. At that point the other wing also departed.

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One of the instructors at Allison school said that it was gearbox failure.

Too much oil got between the gears at the first stage of reduction and caused them to "Hydraulic themselves apart" which in turn caused the case to fail.

I remember hearing rumors about it being shot down too.

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The aircrew was from the 773 TAS, Dyess. We were on Rote to Mildenhall and they were the Turkey trot crew. When I left on terminal leave in May 1980 the accident report had not came out. Will have to dig up the crew names. The FE was SSgt Pat Cypher, CP was Major Micky Jones, can't remember the rest of the crews names, know the Nav was a LtCol, who was the FOL commander , because the regular Nav had gone DNIF that morning. The Crew Chief was a 2 or 3 stripper name Watkins.

Mike

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Found these names and date on the old board.

March 14,1980 C130H 74-2064

AC Capt Richard J. Wagner

CP Maj. Michael L. Jones ( Was coming back into C130's after a tour as a T38 IP)

Nav LtCol Benjamin H. Barnette Jr.

FE SSgt Patrick L. Cypher

LM SRA George K. Moreau

CC A1C Howard K. Watkins

Mike

Edited by spec13fe
misspelled name
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I'm not sure I remember the official cause of the 80 crash but I seem to remember a lightening strike.

The 82 crash was the one with the corroded engine bolts. That one lost partial outer wings on both sides due to counter torque from the lost of the engine when it separated. Too long to remember now but seems one of them two had a prop separate and dance across the wing which caused some of the failure.

The 82 crash also had a bunch of civilians on board from C Springs I believe. Civic leaders?

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hmmm....wonder which incident he was talking about. He went into pretty good detail. He even went as far as saying that crash was Allison's fault.

I went through in the winter of 96. I think his name was Bob. Big tall guy that had been working for Allison almost 40 years. He is retired now. Anybody remember him?

This is bugging me now.

I've been using that as an example in the "why gearbox oil pressure is so important" part of my engine class.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I was in Athens when we heard on the radio (Paul Harvey, oddly enough) about the first crash in 1980. The crew chief, Keith Watkins, was from Big Springs Texas. My home town was Rotan Texas, about 65 miles NE of Dyess. My dad almost had a stroke when the news came over the TV about the crash, the whole town (all 2,000 of them) was calling him asking if I was ok. Seemed to take me forever to get a darn phone line to call home and tell him I was ok. We heard the same rumors, it was shot down, lightning hit it. Seems like one of the more bizarre rumours for one of the crashes was that the plane had landed safely out in a field, but then the terrorists who had shot it down caught up to it and killed everyone and destroyed the plane.

James

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  • 3 months later...

I was a pilot with the 773 from 1979 to 1981. I knew crew members on both the 1980 crash and the 1982 crash. The 1980 crash occurred on March 14, 1980 and was due to a lightning strike that caused one of the internal fuel tanks in the wing to explode. This aircraft was carrying a number of civilians, incuding a teen "rock & roll" band that was to perform at another base. Our squadrom was on rotation and I had just returned to Mildenhall the week before, after flying a 17day stint in Turkey. Our crew was serving as the admin crew when we dispatched this crew to Turkey just 2 days prior to the crash. The regular nav on this crew (Brian Gomula) was not on board and was substituted by LtCol Benjamin Barnette that had just arrived to be the "on-site" commander for our operations in Turkey. I had flown with most of the crew members including the co-pilot Mike Jones (we were at Little Rock together and at Laughlin when I was going thru UPT)

The other crash on April13, 1982 was with a sister squadron, but the A/C was from my squadrom (773). His name was Dean VanDam (we called him Dino or Deano). I flew with, and trained in the sim, with Dino. He was trying to build up enough overseas TDY time to qualify as a remote tour - hence his volunteer status with the other squadron. He was also "best buddies" with Rick Wagner (the A/C of the prior 1980 crash). His crash came within about a month of being 2 years since we lost the other crew. The VanDam crash was due to missing and failed engine mount bolts. There had been an emergency T.O. inspection, requiring a check of the torque, on all engine mount bolts. Apparently some of these inspections had been falsified to get aircraft back in the air. Allegedly, some that knew this, and insisted that the aircraft being deployed on rotation go thru a "second" inspection. Maintenance personell, thinking that the aircraft had already been inspected just a few months prior, "pencil whipped" the second inspection. This aircraft was later determined to have been missing an engine bolt and had another one loose. The failure occurred when number four (starboard outer) engine mount failed, destroyed number three (starboard inner) engine, and the wing broke. Among the passengers of this flight was an entire IG team.

FYI the 773rd experienced a couple of other crashes during this time period: In Sept. 1981 another crash occurred in the

Nevada desert on a special night mission killing 7 Army soldiers. This was a controlled flight into terrain, during a blackout landing attempt. I know a fair amount of this one from hearsay, but won't share it on this forum. Also, in June 1983 another 773rd C-130 crashed at Nellis Air Force Base during a Red Flag exercise, near Las Vegas, Nev., killing six.

Edited by Jim Caudill
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I was in the skycops - first assignment Incirlike Common Defense Installation (ICDI). I was on the initial crash recovery response to the 1980 Herk - we were told it was a lightning strike. Spent 20+ hours in the mud (the storm cleared for a few hours then it rained on and off through the night)

The band aboard was made up of Maint troops - only "Rock" band we had at the time. They'd go around the remote's doing the morale thing. One of the bandmembers had his wife along that trip, she worked at the audio visual center - great couple/friends.

Years later when I retrained to LM my first set of orders was to the 773rd, that changed to the 40AS while I was still in tech shool. The 39th had a memorial for both crews lost in their heritage room. I know the suadrons moved to the old child care center shortly after I PCS's out.

"Rowdy"

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  • 3 months later...

Fleagle is right on. I also was stationed at the Lik 79-80. The crash occured on a Friday and the initial team went out to secure the area. On the following Monday morning, the Lik put together a crew to help at the crash site. 20 or so of us were put on a bus and transported to the site.

The main fuselage went straight in to the hillside with all the paxs/crew. Some of the volunteers went to recover one of the engines which was not near the main crash site. Rumors were just like some of you have said, lightning or a missile, cant substantiate either.

The local base rock band onboard included SSgt Billy Lancaster (fine AMMO troop) and his wife. I also believe there were at least one or two high school students in the band onboard at the time. Billy was a real good man from West Va or Tenn as I recall.

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  • 1 month later...

I heard something about a herk going down in Turkey back around 1980, from Dyess. According to this person the acft had an engine come off in flight. 39 or so souls lost according to this mans account. Said he was a former MX officer. Anyone have any specifics or is this even true. I wouldnt have known myself cause I was still chasing teenage girls at the time in HS.

I was assigned to the 463 TAW and I would like to give you the details of the 1980 crash, but I just can't. The crash was classified Top Secret. It was my job to read the classified Top Secret document and lock it up in the safe. I don't know if the document was ever declassified.

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Guys!

You might want to back-track this mishap - during my tenure on the early site and todays I've seen this mishap up as a subject repeatedly. From my standpoint - first base, skycops, just got into CSC after change over when the secondary net came up with the first news we had a problem. What I do remember was what first came over the net was "lost radar and radio contact, eighteen souls on board" I spent the next day and a 1/2 (security troop, we were teamed with a Crash/Recovery officer) out slogging through the mud trying to keep the local's from the mud hut town nearby from grabbing the few aircraft parts and worse yet the damn dog's that came in that first night - I've no idea what the dogs were after but there were only two reasons why. Next morning we'd an area with remains quartered. I will not speak to the conditions of the remains - That belongs in that time in history. Through my 26yrs in service, last half a Loadmaster on C-130's I flew with the 40th. My original orders were to the 773rd but while in re-train tech shool the merged the three squadrons into two = 39th and the 40th.

Somewhere on this site there is one heck of a long thread about this very mishap. Beware of perceptions - unless you were there or were in direct conduct of the recovery I'm sure you'll hear "stories". From where I stood before going into CSC we had one heck of a lightning storm going on. DECCA wouldn't allow for us to take our weapons off base so in the case of the dogs/mutts I do recall using what I know now was part of a fuel system line as a baseball bat on the dogs.

Again, check (search) the threads, I know this has been a common question about what happened - we were told it was lightning. Don't know the "math" on that because while flying into Sarajevo, Tuzla and a few other "garden spots" that we were struck a few times, saw St Elmo going round the flight deck window panels - best bet would be freedom of information act to get the numbers right.

VR

Bert "Rowdy" Piper, MSgt, USAF (ret)

C-130 Evaluator Loadmaster

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  • 3 weeks later...

I was doing research today for information regarding the crash of c130 on March 14, 1980 in which my big brother Billy Lancaster was killed. I was very pleased that he was well liked. I have fond memories of him. I remember our parents receiving a final report of the investigation that looks like a book. I do remember that the cause was listed as "lightening". Billy was the lead guitarist and also back up vocals in the rock band. The bands name was "Ballse'". We never did find out what "Balse'" meant however they did enjoy their special assignment which included touring the remotes and entertaining for others. All members of the band were airman except for the drummer who was actually a high school student. Terribly enough, the drummer's father was an officer and would only allow him to travel with the band so long as his big brother was with him. They both lost their lives. Billy was from Northeast Arkansas.:)

Steven Lancaster,

Former Air Brat

Leachville, Arkansas

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  • 3 weeks later...

I requested a copy of the accident report for 2064 March 14, 1980 Accident.

Response is that the files have been destroyed. I was told in letter that they only keep the records for 25 years. Does this mean that it was declassified because the records were destroyed?:confused

Bob,

Thanks so much I was able to get a copy of the report.

Edited by sasjosie
answer
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My guess is you may have asked the wrong office.

You can get a redacted copy, I have one, of the accident report or a complete unclassified report if you are a family member from Lewie Alley at the AF Safety Center at Kirtland AFB New Mexico.

They save the reports forever. His number is 505-846-1193

Bob

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  • 4 weeks later...

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