Mayday Over Wichita (3 page)

Among the others were SSgt. Reginald Went from Baltimore, Maryland, whose wife and child were expecting him home soon. Thirty-four-year-old Reginald was the second-oldest member of the crew and had the tedious job of operating the “boom,” an innovative mechanical probe attached to the rear of the KC-135 used for refueling planes.

SSgt. Joseph W. Jenkins, twenty-nine, was a crew chief from Middlesboro, Kentucky, with five children and a wife waiting for him back at Clinton-Sherman. A2C John L. Davidson, twenty-one and single, grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was an assistant crew chief. Both Davidson and Jenkins, along with Danny Kenenski, were the ground crew for the KC-135—responsible for basic maintenance.

With less than twenty-four hours to go, having spent nearly a week at McConnell, these seven men were ready to get back to the wives, fiancées, families and friends who were all anticipating their arrival. On Friday afternoon—to take their minds off the disappointing week and ease the melancholy—Sullivan, Widseth and Went headed for a movie in downtown Wichita. The glowing marquee above the Orpheum Theater at 200 North Broadway Street broadcasted the blockbuster movie
Goldfinger
, the third and most popular film in the James Bond series with a young Sean Connery portraying the suave MI6 agent.
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Not up for a movie, Davidson, Szmuc, Kenenski and Jenkins relaxed at a private bottle club adjacent to their hotel.
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With the first clear day of the week finally appearing on Saturday morning, they were rested, relieved and ready to complete their mission. They were all due home that Saturday.

2

A ROUTINE SORTIE

A light northeast wind chilled the morning air, rustling against their thin flight suits as they marched. Steamy clouds—created by steady breaths issuing forth from their lungs—surrounded them. The cadence of thick leather boots pounding the concrete ramp beneath them echoed down the flight line. Their rhythmic footsteps told the story of men who walked with purpose and resolve. Above them was an unblemished Kansas sky; behind them, a disappointing week. The hulking mass in front of them—their ride home—bore broad, black numbers, reading, “1442” on its tail. They were glad to see it.

Capt. Szmuc, Capt. Widseth, 2
^nd
Lt. Sullivan and SSgt. Went, bags in hand, arrived at Base Operations well before 7:30 a.m. to begin the morning briefing and obtain weather reports. Having received a thorough briefing the day prior at Operations, this morning was only a refresher and took little time. By 7:50 a.m., the briefing had concluded. Foregoing the ten-minute wait before their scheduled 8:00 a.m. release time, Szmuc and his men chose to head toward 1442 and begin preflight inspections. “They elected to go to the airplane and stand by,” said Capt. Buswell, the tanker scheduler assigned to 1442, “to give them ample time for preflight checks, et cetera.”
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Crew Chief SSgt. Jenkins, A2C Davidson and A1C Kenenski were already at the plane performing their own preflight inspections.

The steadfastness of the entire crew was evident that morning. Those who witnessed them in action described Szmuc and the others as being “alert,” “confident” and punctilious in their behavior.
²⁴
Though not a combat mission, the aerial refueling of a B-52 was not to be taken lightly. Their plane was, after all, bloated with highly flammable jet fuel. The stately tanker was loaded with approximately thirty-one thousand gallons of JP-4 jet fuel for the mission, stored in six wing and four fuselage tanks.
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In the days prior, the mission planners had already designated the amount of fuel, where it was going and how much was to be distributed. Now, the crew focused on meticulously inspecting the vessel that would carry them home—a tedious procedure requiring due diligence.

The technical orders carried by Jenkins, Davidson and Kenenski included an aircraft inspection checklist. It required them to examine the outside of the plane—brakes, wheel and tire assembly, paint—and to search for hydraulic leaks, corrosion of parts and rivets or anything that looked irregular. On the engines, they studied the rotor blades, looked for dents, breaks or bends caused by birds. Inside the plane, they inspected the oxygen systems, breathing regulators and checked the lights on the boom. Arriving after the crew chiefs, Szmuc, Widseth and Went performed their own operational checks, placing a second set of eyes on the plane—looking through the checklist forms for any discrepancies and performing a walk-around inspection of Raggy 42—ensuring it was mission-ready. Inspection took about an hour.

T
HE
N
INETEENTH
M
ISSION

The proposed experimental flight was the nineteenth conducted under Operation Lucky Number. At first, when they received their orders the week before, it looked to be another routine mission: they were to “go up, make a hook-up or two” and return to base in a couple of days.
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Clinton-Sherman had just received a safety award from SAC for six years without a flying accident. Nothing suggested this mission would be anything other than prototypical, like the previous eighteen had been.
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At 4:20 p.m. on Tuesday, January 12, 1965, the crew departed from Clinton-Sherman headed for McConnell. After a scheduled refueling in the Boothhill Air Refueling Area, they reached McConnell at 9:50 p.m. Boeing Operations handed them their flying orders shortly after arriving, and the men bedded down at a local Holiday Inn for the evening.
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With nothing on the schedule for Wednesday, the crew rested.

But then, much to their disappointment, they were grounded due to weather on Thursday, January 14, and Friday, January 15. As is the case so often in Kansas, the caprices of weather could not be avoided. Subzero temperatures gripped the nation that week. Northern states—Minnesota, South Dakota, Montana, Michigan and even Iowa—recorded freezing temperatures and snow. In Kansas, a cold front set in on Tuesday afternoon with winds up to forty miles per hour. “Partly cloudy and colder” became the weekly forecast for Wichita.
²⁹
The crew would not see a clear sky until Saturday, and even then, temperatures remained algid.

KC-135 refuels a B-52.
22
^nd
Air Refueling Wing
(ARW)
History Office
.

On Friday, January 15, when Szmuc was calling back to Clinton-Sherman to gain approval to run the mission on Saturday, McConnell was busy activating a new air rescue detachment. The turbine-powered Kahman HH-43 B Husky—a portly helicopter with intermeshing rotors, used primarily for rescue and aircraft firefighting in proximity of air bases—was on alert “to rush to military and civilian plane crashes in the Wichita area.”
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The plan called for the Husky to “use rotor blast to help control fire and protect persons” after ferrying the rescue team to the crash site.
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The rescue team, however, only went on alert when McConnell's F-105 Thunderchiefs were flying, not the KC-135s. Szmuc and his men would receive no such support from the newly formed aircraft firefighting unit.

T
HE
L
AST
-M
INUTE
S
WITCH

If it were a normal training mission and not a TDY, four airmen would have sufficed: two pilots, a navigator and a boom operator. But because they were completing this unique refueling mission, the additional airmen were necessary to help perform any maintenance the jet might need once they arrived at their destination.
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The original orders, according to Chief Master Sergeant R. H. Grant, the noncommissioned officer in charge of the tanker flight line at Clinton-Sherman, were to fly to the Pacific for a fighter-refueling mission named “Flying Fish.” However, because 1442 had mechanical trouble with its boom, there was a last-minute switch, and they were reassigned to Wichita before they left Oklahoma. Grant later testified about why the switch occurred:

1442 had had trouble with his boom and he was still in the air on Thursday and we were told that 040 would take the “Flying Fish” mission
[to the Pacific]
instead of 1442 because of this boom trouble to make sure he didn't have trouble on this “Flying Fish” mission…
[The]
crew for 1442 took 040 on “Flying Fish” and the crew that was assigned to 040 took over 1442 while 040 was gone on the “Flying Fish” mission
.
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Despite the mechanical problems of 1442, the last-minute switch in crews (a common occurrence even today) and repeated delays in weather, the crew pressed on.

T
AKEOFF

During preflight inspections that morning, the crew detected a problem with the number one engine on 1442 and technical problems with the autopilot. KC-135s, new as they were, often experienced such mechanical problems. The B-52 pilot scheduled to follow Raggy 42 on the mission, James M. Adams, commented, “I assumed if [Capt. Szmuc] got trouble we won't go; if he doesn't have trouble, we will go. He is certainly capable of isolating and treating his own problems properly.”
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The “trouble,” in this instance, was only minor. Raggy 42's number one engine encountered a “hung start”—where, due to “icing of the burner pressure sense line,” the RPM remained at a low value (in this case, 40 percent) instead of increasing to the normal idle RPM—delaying the flight for ten minutes.
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Once the delay was over, Raggy 42 rolled south out of its parking spot to begin taxiing down the runway. Adams recalled how Captains Szmuc and Widseth were going through their normal checks while taxiing and stopped at the end of the runway on the west taxiway. Adams parked about 150 feet behind them, awaiting takeoff instructions. At 9:18 a.m., Szmuc radioed to McConnell Tower, “Standing by clearance any time you receive it,” and at 9:26 a.m., clearance was given: “[C]hange to departure control frequency 307.9 cleared for takeoff 36 left.”
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Raggy 42, its engines wailing, scuttled down Runway 36, picking up speed as it went.

The jet engines on Raggy 42, as with all KC-135s built at the time, were Pratt & Whitney (P&W) J-57-P-59W turbojet engines. They were extremely noisy, water-injected engines—sputtering out smoke and vapor but producing enough thrust (approximately 10,000 pounds when dry and 13,000 when wet) to ensure the aircraft could get off the ground safely.
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As the air force soon found out, however, “the capabilities of these engines imposed limitations on the takeoff maximum gross weight of the aircraft.”
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Climbing was difficult, and the weight didn't help. The nearly 31,000 gallons of JP-4 jet fuel carried by Raggy 42 was heavy, adding several thousand pounds to the plane, which, when fully loaded, would have weighed approximately 297,000 pounds (148.5 tons).
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According to Boeing Control Tower operator Kenneth McKee, he was surprised at Raggy 42's struggle to climb during takeoff. He picked up his glasses and took a closer look:

The reason I picked up the glasses was the fact that he had lifted off what I thought at the time was pretty low. However, he maintained that altitude clear on through and executed his turn to the west or northwest and started his climb. So then I laid the glasses down and thought no more about it…
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The FAA controller at the Municipal Tower, Delbert J. Massey, observed Raggy 42 departing as well and recalled, “Everything was normal. I tracked him out, and he went straight out on the runway heading. There was no deviation, and the takeoff roll was normal.”
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The flight plan called for a left turn toward Hutchison, Kansas, after takeoff. Raggy 42 made its initial climb and went approximately four miles north before asking permission to start the left turn. When permission was granted, and Capt. Szmuc steered Raggy 42 into the left turn, all hell broke loose. The next—and last—communication was eerily grim: