HOW TO LAND A CH-47C CHINOOK INVERTED by Mike Maloy
	How to Land a CH-47C Chinook Inverted (and live to crawl away from it) By: Mike Maloy, former CWO-2 I arrived in country on December 31, 1968 and the Chinooks from Pachyderms, A Co. 159, ASHB, 101st Airborne picked us up at Danang and dropped us at Phu Bai at about 2350 hrs. just in time to watch the perimeter light up like the 4th of July. I was with C Co. 159 ASHB, 101st. Playtex. We spent the next couple of weeks building hootches and bunkers and filling sand bags, and of course, constructing our company O Club, a top priority, and getting AO orientation from the guys in Pachyderms and Varsity. The last week in January a bunch of us were sent TDY to Dong Ha and eventually the Rockpile up by the DMZ to support the Marines in the north end of the Ashau. On February 10, 1969 Captain Kelly Williams was the A.C. and I was the pilot. I believe our aircraft number was 67-18501. We had been flying combat re-supply missions all day into LZ Erskine in the north end of the Ashau valley in I Corps and on the last three or four approaches we were getting mortar fire when we approached the LZ and had to break off our approach and go around several times because of sporadic enemy fire. We were delivering ammo and food into the LZ and taking out wounded. At approximately 1700 hours we went back to Dong Ha to refuel and all the Chinooks were going to head back to Phu Bai. While refueling we were notified by Marine Division at Vandergriff (or the Rockpile---I’m not sure which it was) that they had one more load of 105mm ammo to go out to Erskine and four Marines who needed a ride back to Erskine. Williams told them that we would take the passengers and the load and then head for Phu Bai from LZ Erskine. After refueling we picked up the four Marines and then picked up the load of approximately 10,000 pounds of 105mm ammo in a sling load and headed back to Erskine. During the day we had problems with the beep sticking several times but it always seemed to fix itself before it became a serious problem so we continued to fly missions. At approximately 1750 hours we were on final approach into Erskine with the slingload and Marine passengers and me at the controls, when we saw a puff of smoke and dust on the LZ and the Marine on Erskine told us to go around because they were taking mortar fire. We circled out into the Ashau valley and made a second approach with me at the controls in the right seat. We still had the four Marine passengers on board. I shot my approach to the ground with the slingload and set the load down but didn’t get it where they wanted it and they asked us to move it. Because of the altitude, the heat, the 10,000 pound slingload, and the fact that we had just refueled, we were very heavy and we had to shoot the approach to the ground rather than bringing it to a hover. At that point Williams took the controls and said he would move the load. He told me that with the periodic enemy fire he didn’t want to stay over the LZ any longer than necessary. We took off from the LZ with the slingload and made a tight 360 degree pattern to come back to the LZ. I doubt that we ever got above 60 or 70 knots during that 360 and we were never very far from LZ Erskine and had it in sight the entire time. As we approached Erskine the third time with the slingload, and while on short final (about 150 yards from the perimeter of the LZ and at about 35 knots) we experienced a beep failure on No. 1. I followed through with emergency procedures for a beep failure and Williams said he was going to dive down the side of the mountain to try and gain airspeed and save the load. As we dove down the side of the mountain I saw that we were losing rotor rpm to the point that it was critical. When the rpm hit about 200 I yelled at Williams to punch the load off, and almost immediately afterwards I told the flight engineer to release the load and at the same time I hit the emergency release switch. When nothing happened and we still had the load I recycled the switch 3 or 4 times. To this day I can recall all the way through flight school being told that if a switch doesn’t work, recycle it. Unfortunately, with the emergency release switch, it operates on compressed air and by recycling it all I was doing was bleeding off a little bit of air pressure each time so it never blew the hook open. I was told some months later that the Army made an amendment to the TM-55 Chinook operator’s manual advising pilots not to recycle the emergency hook release switch for this reason. The flight engineer was never able to reach the manual release handle on the hook because we were bouncing around so much due to extremely low rotor rpm. The load never released and according to the report I saw back in 1969 when I got out of the hospital it stated that the load finally caught in the tree tops and pulled us into the ground nose first. My last recollection of the rotor rpm was that it was passing through 170 and going down fast. When I regained consciousness I was hanging upside down in my shoulder harness and the entire cockpit was gone except for my seat and Williams in his seat. The instrument panel, cyclic stick, pedals and center console and overhead console were all gone. I couldn’t see or talk very well because I had a lot of blood in my eyes and all over my face and I was choking on blood and bone in my throat. I tried to take my flight helmet off but it took me several tries because my left jaw bone was sticking out through my neck and the chin strap was tangled around the bone. Once I got the helmet off I looked back through the companionway and all I could see were flames. I knew we had almost a full load of fuel so I yelled at Williams and told him we had to get out immediately. I saw him undo his shoulder harness and fall down into the jungle and then I did the same. Kelly got up and ran and I tried to but when I got to my knees the nerves in my back were pinched and I fell flat on my face. I tried several times to get up and couldn’t so I started crawling away from the aircraft. I made it about 20 feet from the aircraft and then the crew chief saw me and came back and dragged me away as the aircraft blew up. WO-1 Gene Collings from Playtex was notified by the Marines on Erskine that we had gone down in the jungle and he came back from somewhere near Camp Eagle and tried to pick us up from the jungle but couldn’t get to us because of the trees. We crashed about 300 yards down the mountain from the LZ and the marines sent a squad down to us to provide cover from the VC. They set up a small perimeter around us and I recall hearing them firing at the enemy occasionally while we waited for a rescue aircraft. We were so far away from the LZ that the Marine squad opted to stay there with us rather than try to carry us back up the mountain to the LZ. After what seemed like a couple of hours a Marine CH-46 was able to get in and pick us up and take us to the hospital ship Repose. The entire crew got out alive with me being the most seriously injured. Unfortunately three of our four Marine passengers were killed when they were thrown from the aircraft before impact due to violent gyrations caused by extremely low rotor rpm. Apparently they were not strapped in. I suffered simple fractures of the upper and lower right jaw, simple fracture of the upper left jaw, compound fracture of the lower left jaw, compression fractures of six vertebrae in my lower spine, loss of a tooth, and numerous cuts, and burns. They had me in surgery all that night and when I came to the sun was just coming up and I could see the beginnings of daylight through the porthole in our room on the ship. Four days later I was transferred to Danang and about 12 hours later was flown to Trippler Army hospital in Hawaii. I was there for 30 days and then transferred to Brooke Army Medical Center in Ft. Sam Houston where I stayed until May when I was released for convalescent leave. After getting out of the hospital I was stationed at Ft. Benning, Georgia for two weeks at which time I called the Pentagon and requested immediate reassignment back to Vietnam. I arrived back in Vietnam on July 4, 1969 and completed my second tour with Playtex “C” Company, 159th ASHB, 101 Airborne Division.