Dear Garrett..

by Ted Bedell,

Here’s the best of my recall on that stormy night (dramatic right?)
I drew the early mission that day with a new pilot, Capt X who had just finished his required training flights with Mr. Haliburton.  I was training NCO at that time, and I was privilaged to be the first TO most new in country Vietnam Mohawk pilots flew with. We had recently acquired IV corps for some of our missions, and we were heading there.  As we took off and turned toward our target, you couldn’t help but notice the huge storm directly in our path. I’m sure some thunderheads exceeded 35,000 ft, and it was so dark under the clouds I could see street lights on. I advised Capt X that we had time, and why not fly around the storm. He looked over at me and said, “Bedell, you operate the SLAR, and I’ll fly the plane..got it?”
Well, he flew right into the storm on our climb out to 8500 ft.  Immediately, we began to get bounced all over the sky, and lightning was all around us. We must have been hit with the lightning because our instruments went out.  We kept climbing, so I tightened my lap belt up and suddenly felt the plane roll over!

I looked over at Capt X and saw that he was staring at his wing indicator which had gone to a level position when the instruments went out. The standby attitude indicator came on and immediately showed our attitude relative to the ground.  I looked at Capt X and hit him on the shoulder and pointed to the standby.  He immediately looked back to the failed instrument.  I figured he had vertigo.  We were really in the thick of the storm. I hit him again and got his attention this time…he immediately tried to right the aircraft.  Now we were heading down like a Kamikazee pilot, building up airspeed on the way. He was really struggling to pull the aircraft up, so I leaned over and helped him as punching out was not a good thing.  We broke through between 300 to 400 ft, I hit the auto pilot, hit the live pilot again and told him to relax which he did.

We were slowing down to regular air speed when I called in to Saigon on guard frequency.  They picked up our transponder and replied, “We thought you went down!” I took up a heading given to me, and we headed back to Bearcat. I mentioned to Capt X that I had landed (practice of course) at the Saigon Ton Son Nhat airport before with the auto pilot, and that if he would brake and steer after landing, we would be ok. He was recovered enough that he took us to our home base and landed.

Because of using guard frequency, practically my whole platoon was waiting for us to land.  Capt X got all cocky again, and said to me, “Let’s get another plane and finish our mission.”  I was insubordinate, and merely looked at him and said, “F— YOU, SIR!  You are not safe to fly with others, and you don’t listen to instruction.” He yelled something about putting me on report.  He went into TAC,  Capt Fluff, our unit TAC officer and our Commanding Officer, LTC Holt were standing there.   After I explained to LTC Holt how Capt X wouldn’t listen to my training instruction, he couldn’t wait until I walked through the door.   He took CPT X into a cubicle and proceeded to dress him down pretty severely.  When LTC Holt came out, he winked at me! (it probably helped me that I was the TO that took LTC Holt up usually twice a month to get his flight time in).

I admit, I was pretty shook up .  I had been in country for over 9 months, and never came that close to buying it!  I asked for reduced flight time after that, cause I was a short timer, had a wife and kid waiting to see me when I got home.

Side-note:   I was sitting in the back of a duece and a half, getting ready to leave Bearcat for my flight home.  Capt X was walking nearby, and I yelled out his name, snapped his picture, and said I always would remember him, He gave me a disgusted look and walked off.