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Lt. Col. Robert L. "Viper" Brown, USAF (Ret.)
(15 March 2009)
Suddenly, it was so quiet I could hear the turbines in engine pods three and four winding down, and then I smelled the fuel pouring out of the ruptured tanks and engines. We weren't on fire yet, but something was ready to blow any second. I yanked open my seat belt, took a deep breath, and jumped up to exit out the front. Whatever happened, I was going to try and keep going until I could get out. There was no panic and little talking. You would have thought we were going through a practice drill. It was as dark as a well, but I could vaguely make out forms clustered around the front exit trying to get the door open. The pilots were moving and trying to get out of their harnesses and free themselves from the twisted rudder pedals and loose gear. Everybody seemed OK, but we were trapped. The pilots' windows were jammed and Reid and Dodds couldn't get the front entry hatch open. Dodds was hanging on the door handle, putting all of his small frame and weight on it, but nothing moved. Capt. Casey, the front navigator, then said "Blow it!" and reaching over Dodds yanked down the door's bailout release bar. The hatch exploded out of the airplane with Dodds still hanging on. In about 1.2 seconds everybody in front of me disappeared through the black hole where the hatch had been. I grabbed the side rail and jumped, expecting a long drop, but immediately hit the dirt as the nose of the airplane was jammed into the ground. The smell of fuel was now very strong and I found myself running through the stuff trying to get clear. I ran about fifty yards or so before turning around to look back. Reflected in the ice and snow, I could just make out the shape of the airplane angled down off the end of the runway. The impact collapsed the left wheel assembly and nose wheel, jammed the left engines into the dirt, ripped off the nose radome, and broke the airplane's back.
In a few seconds there was a small group of us clustered together, stunned at what had happened. We started counting heads and trying to see who was missing. Our group consisted of the two navigators, the two photo sergeants, and a few Ravens, but we knew that the rest of the crew would have gone out the back exit and were probably on the other side of the wreck. Then we realized the pilots were missing and must still be in the airplane. A few of us started back toward the wreck, shouting for the pilots to get out, but for the first time I really felt scared and was dragging my feet every inch of the way. I damn well didn't want to go back toward that black, hulking shape we had just escaped from. We all feared fire, and any second now I expected that thing in front of us to erupt in a mass of flame. About this time I saw Russ Howard, who had escaped out the back exit, come around the front of the airplane and start jumping up to look into the cockpit windows, shouting for the pilots to get out. Gort was tall and lanky, and he almost looked comical jumping up and down in front of the wrecked nose like a berserk scarecrow come to life. But it was all he could do. His hands had been badly cut sliding down the exit rope and were now almost useless. It took a lot of guts for him to stay there in the spreading pool of fuel, and I'll never forget that image of human frailty and courage, frantically trying to help his fellow crew members. But there was an even greater drama going on inside the wrecked airplane.
About this time the copilot stumbled out the front hatch, barely able to stand on his injured feet. He told us that Achor was going back through the airplane to see if everyone had gotten out. This took more guts than I can imagine. We landed with eight thousand gallons of fuel onboard, and Achor knew that the whole damn thing could blow up any minute. Still, he worked his way through the ruined aircraft reeking of fuel, swinging his flashlight beam from side to side and calling out if anyone was still inside. It had to be a nightmare trip. He finally reached the back without finding anyone, then turned around and started back toward the front where he had left the copilot struggling to free a boot pinned in the twisted metal. Then he heard the copilot and the rest of us yelling outside, so he grabbed the rope dangling out the open rear hatch and slid down the fifteen feet to the ground. Free of the airplane and sure all eighteen on board had gotten out, Achor zipped up his light weight flight jacket against the wind and tried to light a cigarette, but found his legs giving way. Two of us grabbed him as he started to collapse and got him into a rescue vehicle for the ride to the infirmary. What no one knew at the time, including Achor, was that his back had been severely injured in the impact, yet somehow he had made it through the tangled mass of wrecked equipment to be sure no one had been left behind. Later there would be a lot of second guessing about this night, but for those of us who were there, Major John Achor did all the right things, before and after the crash. In our book, he was the best of the best.
