Pilot recalls successful, harrowing flight during the OEF operations
GRAND FORKS AIR FORCE BASE, N.D. (USTCNS) --- It was an October evening, the first night of missions for Operation Enduring Freedom that saw coalition aircraft start to hit targets on Taliban and al-Qaeda targets in Afghanistan.
It turned out to be a night in a KC-135R Stratotanker that Capt. Al Pichon, an aircraft commander for the 911th Air Refueling Squadron, along with his fellow 911th ARS crew members - co-pilot 1st Lt. Robert Slanger and boom operator Staff Sgt. Max Morkin - would never forget.
"This was my first flight of the war," Pichon said. "This was a night sortie and initially each plane was going to take off in single ship increments to different receivers, but what ended up happening was once we got on the flight line, the order was switched where the receivers wanted two tankers in a formation for our refueling run."
Pichon said that somewhat changed the mission at the last minute, but they were going to push forward and do what needed to be done.
"The receivers needed their gas," Pichon said. "They needed their gas, and we knew we had to get it to them."
It was decided that the other aircraft would be the lead aircraft and Pichon would pilot his aircraft immediately afterward.
"We had a very quick version of a formation briefing," Pichon said.
The pilot of the lead aircraft had switched aircraft prior to this mission because of maintenance problems, Pichon said. But that didn't affect the mission. Both the lead aircraft and Pichon's plane hit the taxiway and their take-offs on schedule. It wasn't until they were heading down the runway that the tale of this story really begins.
"On take-off, the pilot of the other plane lost usage of all of his instruments," Pichon said. "He didn't know what instruments he lost until he was nearing the end of the runway."
Pichon said that in a hot environment, on a long runway with a fully loaded plane, performance could sometimes suffer. The pilot of the lead plane was able to get his plane off the ground, but didn't know what altitude he was at or how fast he was going and his aircraft lights were out for tactical reasons.
Pichon, who was flying less than 30 seconds behind the lead plane, was up in the air trying to find his lead plane.
Over the radio he could hear his lead plane's pilot calling to him, but the signal was breaking up, and it wasn't until he straightened out from his turn that he understood what the other pilot was saying.
"He was calling 'Al, Al' on the radio," said Pichon, "and you don't hear a call like that unless there is some serious trouble. He told me, 'Al, I've lost everything; we need you to take the lead on our right.' "
Once Pichon located the second aircraft, he passed him and started passing along instrument readings from his aircraft to help guide the second.
"I was passing on information like throttle settings, altitude and any other information I could," Pichon said. "The other pilot did know what his engine readings were so I set mine to a certain setting, set my pitch and then I found him and told him I was passing him because he couldn't find me."
Immediately after Pichon passed the second aircraft, that plane formed up "visually" behind Pichon's plane. Once formed up with Pichon now as the lead plane, Pichon continued to feed information to the second plane and they decided to stay on course and do their mission.
"We started getting to the area where we were going to meet our receiver planes and it turned out they were apart so we had to wait until they got together," Pichon said. "Additionally, with the other plane having its instrument problems, that plane wasn't going to be able to give the receivers their gas as fast as usual. Because of that, we ended up flying farther along their route that took them to their objective."
Pichon said the second plane wasn't able to offload as much gas to the receivers as anticipated so his plane offloaded a little bit more than they normally would have. That effort then brought up another issue - would Pichon and his crew have enough gas to get back to base?
"Between the two of us we were able to give the receivers all the fuel they needed to complete their mission," Pichon said. "And as it turned out, my plane had just enough fuel to make it back."
After turning around the plane, Pichon and his crew helped to guide the second plane back to Base X.
"I guided him back to the five mile final approach," Pichon said.
"We did the descent together, we configured our aircraft together, and I just called out exactly what we were doing."
Even though they were flying back into an airfield they weren't very familiar with yet, Pichon's guidance of the other plane helped it get into position where it landed safely.
"It was a scary night and it was the only time I held my breath watching another plane land," Pichon said. "When we shut down engines and got out of the aircraft, both aircrews literally ran over and hugged each other. We thanked God that everyone made it home safely."
(FROM AIR MOBILITY COMMAND PUBLIC AFFAIRS)
It turned out to be a night in a KC-135R Stratotanker that Capt. Al Pichon, an aircraft commander for the 911th Air Refueling Squadron, along with his fellow 911th ARS crew members - co-pilot 1st Lt. Robert Slanger and boom operator Staff Sgt. Max Morkin - would never forget.
"This was my first flight of the war," Pichon said. "This was a night sortie and initially each plane was going to take off in single ship increments to different receivers, but what ended up happening was once we got on the flight line, the order was switched where the receivers wanted two tankers in a formation for our refueling run."
Pichon said that somewhat changed the mission at the last minute, but they were going to push forward and do what needed to be done.
"The receivers needed their gas," Pichon said. "They needed their gas, and we knew we had to get it to them."
It was decided that the other aircraft would be the lead aircraft and Pichon would pilot his aircraft immediately afterward.
"We had a very quick version of a formation briefing," Pichon said.
The pilot of the lead aircraft had switched aircraft prior to this mission because of maintenance problems, Pichon said. But that didn't affect the mission. Both the lead aircraft and Pichon's plane hit the taxiway and their take-offs on schedule. It wasn't until they were heading down the runway that the tale of this story really begins.
"On take-off, the pilot of the other plane lost usage of all of his instruments," Pichon said. "He didn't know what instruments he lost until he was nearing the end of the runway."
Pichon said that in a hot environment, on a long runway with a fully loaded plane, performance could sometimes suffer. The pilot of the lead plane was able to get his plane off the ground, but didn't know what altitude he was at or how fast he was going and his aircraft lights were out for tactical reasons.
Pichon, who was flying less than 30 seconds behind the lead plane, was up in the air trying to find his lead plane.
Over the radio he could hear his lead plane's pilot calling to him, but the signal was breaking up, and it wasn't until he straightened out from his turn that he understood what the other pilot was saying.
"He was calling 'Al, Al' on the radio," said Pichon, "and you don't hear a call like that unless there is some serious trouble. He told me, 'Al, I've lost everything; we need you to take the lead on our right.' "
Once Pichon located the second aircraft, he passed him and started passing along instrument readings from his aircraft to help guide the second.
"I was passing on information like throttle settings, altitude and any other information I could," Pichon said. "The other pilot did know what his engine readings were so I set mine to a certain setting, set my pitch and then I found him and told him I was passing him because he couldn't find me."
Immediately after Pichon passed the second aircraft, that plane formed up "visually" behind Pichon's plane. Once formed up with Pichon now as the lead plane, Pichon continued to feed information to the second plane and they decided to stay on course and do their mission.
"We started getting to the area where we were going to meet our receiver planes and it turned out they were apart so we had to wait until they got together," Pichon said. "Additionally, with the other plane having its instrument problems, that plane wasn't going to be able to give the receivers their gas as fast as usual. Because of that, we ended up flying farther along their route that took them to their objective."
Pichon said the second plane wasn't able to offload as much gas to the receivers as anticipated so his plane offloaded a little bit more than they normally would have. That effort then brought up another issue - would Pichon and his crew have enough gas to get back to base?
"Between the two of us we were able to give the receivers all the fuel they needed to complete their mission," Pichon said. "And as it turned out, my plane had just enough fuel to make it back."
After turning around the plane, Pichon and his crew helped to guide the second plane back to Base X.
"I guided him back to the five mile final approach," Pichon said.
"We did the descent together, we configured our aircraft together, and I just called out exactly what we were doing."
Even though they were flying back into an airfield they weren't very familiar with yet, Pichon's guidance of the other plane helped it get into position where it landed safely.
"It was a scary night and it was the only time I held my breath watching another plane land," Pichon said. "When we shut down engines and got out of the aircraft, both aircrews literally ran over and hugged each other. We thanked God that everyone made it home safely."
(FROM AIR MOBILITY COMMAND PUBLIC AFFAIRS)
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