I look at every day of my life as a bonus. During my time in the military I had a few opportunities to… lets say, see what’s next. Each time I walked away without so much as a hair on my head out of place (maybe a few more gray hairs). I’d like to share one of these times with you.
As I’ve mentioned before I used to be a flight mechanic on the Air Force DC-9A AirEvac aircraft flying one, two or three day missions out of Scott AFB, IL. This particular mission was a two day run, leaving SAFB very early in the morning flying directly to Guantanamo Bay NAS, Cuba Puerto Rico , Florida and Virginia
The following morning during the mission briefing the Pilot gave me the list of stops we would be making and the projected fuel loads for the day. We would be making seven stops, swinging down to the gulf coast and up through the southern states, finishing up at home-station, Scott AFB. I left the briefing to open the jet and get it ready for flight. About 20 minutes later the medical crew arrived and began loading patients. After a bit the Pilots arrived ready to get underway.
Mid way through the day we arrived at Maxwell AFB AL., the mission was going smoothly, we were running right on schedule and the weather was clear. So far day two like day one was textbook. I guess this should have been my clue to watch out. We started our take-off roll down the runway, lifted off the ground and began our accent to 8,000 feet. I normally glanced at the engine instrumentation during climb-out looking for the basics, stable exhaust pressure ratio, good oil pressure, and no spikes on the exhaust gas temperature gauges. I don’t remember what caught my attention but I ended up not looking up from the gauges. At the same time the pilot was changing his charts for the next station and the co-pilot was changing the radio frequency from Montgomery departure to Atlanta
Well there must have been an angel looking out for us and the angel must have knocked on the center windshield because all three of us looked up at the same time to see the bottom of a Beechcraft twin engine King Air directly in our flight path. We were close enough that I could make out the screws on the belly panels.
The pilots reaction was immediate, he kicked full left rudder while pushing full foreword on the yoke with about 50% left bank. The Nightingale responded abruptly to the shift of the flight controls, nosing over and rolling to the left away from the king air. Again with only fractions of a second passing all three of us were braced expecting to feel the wing or tail section to catch the small aircraft. Seconds later with a sigh of relief, realizing we avoided a fatal accident the pilot leveled the jet out as the co-pilot contacted
At our next stop the pilots had to fill out the near miss report and report the incident to our home station command post. The medical crew still had their hands full calming the patients and passengers that took quite a bounce in the back of the aircraft during the nose over maneuver. Myself, I gave the jet a good once-over focusing on the exposed portion of the wing-root in the main landing gear wells and the flight control attach points, looking for any cracks or damage from the high stress maneuver. Luckily everything checked out good.
I’ll never know if the pilot of the king air ever saw us (I doubt it) or if he even found out how close he was to being a part of a tragedy… For myself, from that point on I kept my eyes outside the cockpit scanning for traffic until we were at cruse altitude. I think I even carry that habit with me when I drive, looking to side streets expecting the other drivers to pull out unexpectedly or the child in the yard to run out after a toy, even a deer popping out of the woods on the roadside. I guess as habits go, it’s not a bad habit to have.
Till next week keep looking out
them windows…
The TOMCAT
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