Nobody Asked Me…

Andy Jampoler, the author, is a former P-3 pilot and squadron commander. He’d also been there, done that, and paid for the t-shirt.  This was released on the 25th anniversary of the crash (26 Oct 1978).  


AF586 was on a PARPRO mission off Russia when things went “South” as we say…


I read this yesterday on the flight out, and in irony of ironies, we flew almost directly over the crash location enroute to NRT.  Even more ironic, three of the four pilots yesterday were former P-3 pilots…  I flew with Hawk and Pinger in the 70s, and Frito in the 80s  in different squadrons.  I was up when Hawk and Frito came out of the cockpit,  and we ended up standing in the galley talking.  When Hawk mentioned where we were, I immediately said 586 and we ‘relived’ our incident (prop fail to feather, prop overspeed) in 1975 off Vietnam, but the difference was we completed the fails to feather checklist, which was NOT done on AF586.  


Frito had heard the ‘story’ but never read the book, so I handed it off to him.  I don’t think the FAs were very comfortable with us talking about plane crashes for some reason…  Pinger came out later, and he also came back and mentioned it to me.


Anyway, the book looks at the situation that developed, the subsequent ditching, the problems with the survival suits, the rafts, and the problems with weather that impacted the ad hoc rescue attempts by a variety of folks, ending up with the survivors being picked up by a Soviet fishing trawler.  Jampoler went back through the records, the AIC, and interviewed various people on all sides to  put together a comprehensive look at the whole picture…


LCDR Grigsy and the FE in the seat never reset the oil tank circuit breakers for unknown reasons, and ironically, they were two of the five that did not survive, so no one actually knows ‘why’ they did what they did.  This directly contributed to the engine fires, and led to having to ditch the airplane in the North Pacific 140+ miles short of Shemya.  


The rescue and subsequent mis-communications as to whom had done what probably contributed to the loss of the three AWs who died due to exposure (among other things).  IF someone had actually gone and found the Soviet fishing trawler earlier, they would have probably survived.  


Jampoler also digs into the politics of the Navy and P-3 community at the time, and makes some valid points about who was and was not supportive of various folks.


This was a really bad period in the P-3 community, with multiple crashes over a couple of years, and the highest losses of life during the entire history of the aircraft.  This crash was the ONLY one where anyone survived…


In a small way, I had an impact going forward, as I designed a revision to the way the life rafts were secured in the P-3 and after two years got the mod put in every P-3 in the Fleet.  When VP-47 ditched in Oman, HERE, they got all the rafts out without a problem. 


It’s worth reading if you want to understand what folks go through when their lives are on the line, and get a look into the reality of what goes on when things go South… And it IS a tribute to those who climbed on that airplane, built by the lowest bidder, and went out and did the missions day after day in all kinds of environments…