[OT] Blunders was Stupid Mistake

[Richard Brekne]

Ok... since you insist :)

You see, when in the Navy back in the early 70's I was a
helicopter rescue aircrewman/swimmer. A great job really.
Whilst all me mates were sweatering down in the heat of the
Gulf of Tonkin, I was on occasion buzzing around at 3000
feet delivering mail to the fleet, which was our secondary
job when not doing flight guard duty.

Anyways... we were highly trained proffesionals mind you.
Experienced in dealing with stressed and frantic pilots
who'd just hit the eject button minutes before and of course
forgotten to cut their parachutes after getting in the
water, causing all kinds of life threatening problems. But
we knew how to deal with this kind of stuff. How to hit the
water, swim up quickly and confidently with our jungle knife
in our teeth in case we needed to thrash through the cords
of the pilots chute. And we knew to stop short of the man
and assess the situation, talk him calm, get him cleared and
hooked and up in the chopper.

It was close to the end of the Vietnam era, and there werent
many flight opps of consequence left, moral was slipping and
the Captain thought it was time to do something about it. So
an air show was arranged. Each squadron was to demonstrate
its best doing what they each were trained to do. Flybys
with heatseeking rockets taking out flares, demonstrations
of arial acrobatics, a look see at the AWACS in action...
and at the end... the highlight of the show.. I real live
exhibition rescue !!

A simulated pilot in distress (a dummy) was placed in the
water about 1000 yards a port side, and the USS Coral Sea
came to a dead halt in the water and Stomboli 006 was called
in to do its stuff. I had not been chosen for the mission,
but begged my way into it, and by special permision of my
squadron commander was allowed to stand in as the swimmer.
It was to be my first rescue being rather fresh from
training.

I sat at the open door, hung my flippered feet out the door,
feeling the firm grip of the first crewman holding the
safety strap that kept me secure to the chopper, waiting for
his clap on my shoulder to release and jump. We saw the
stern of the ship come up even and the pilot pulled us up
and brought us down for our swoop 10 meters above the water.
I grabbed my mask with my left hand, and my nose with my
right and felt the first crewman slap my shoulder and so...
I JUMPED....

The chopper immediatly pulled quickly upwards and banked
left... and I began to fall... then... suddenly.....
JEERRRRK !!!... I had forgotten to release my safety strap.
3500 sailors, their gapping Captain, and a few aghast
dignitaries and the Admiral watched as I dangled helplessly
at the end of that 3 meter strap....flaggeling my flippered
feet frantically. The pilot of course quickly reacted as it
was actually a dangerous situation, and leveled out, lowered
the chooper to hover just over the water and gave the order
to cut me free. PPLLLLLAAASK !! Face first in the water in a
Gedigen Belly flopp.... I found my self face to face with
the Dummy I was sent to retrieve.

Not really being capable of fathoming the magnitude of my
blunder, I (with tears wallowing up inside) grabbed hold of
the thing, hooked him on and signaled for the cable, and all
proceeded as otherwise it should have.

I suppose by now you can imagine what a deep hole I wanted
to find for myself upon landing back on the ship. I can
laugh about it now.... but Gawwd... did I want to die that
day... :)

True story... and funny thing is... 6 months later I got
picked as crewman for the Primary Recovery Helicopter on the
very last Sky Lab mission.

Live does take one on strange journeys.

Cheers

RicB


--
Richard Brekne
RPT, N.P.T.F.
UiB, Bergen, Norway
mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no
http://home.broadpark.no/~rbrekne/ricmain.html