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PLEASE RESCUE ME!

The miracle landing of a two-seat Cessna – with a family of seven aboard – on the deck of USS Midway

By Robert H. Sproule, Vietnam Magazine, 12/09 Issue

As the small plane buzzed in low, a tiny object plummeted to the flight deck like a bomb. But this was no high explosive. It was a flight navigational map with a note scrawled across it that read: “Can you move these helicopters to the other side, I can land on your runway, I can fly one hour more. We have enough time to move. Please rescue me. Major Bung, wife and 5 child.”

In one of the last dramatic events of America’s Vietnam War, a South Vietnamese air force pilot and his family, on a one-way flight over the ocean, pleaded to make an emergency landing on the aircraft carrier Midway. Major Bung Ly’s desperate attempt for freedom was in a stolen single engine Cessna O-1 Bird Dog observation airplane – barely large enough for two – with seven people aboard.

In late April 1975, the North Vietnamese Army had advanced to the outskirts of Saigon. With the passing of each hour, the prospects grew darker for the South Vietnamese military and civilians who had been loyal to the United States. Thousands were now frantically trying to escape before the North Vietnamese overran the capital city. As part of Operation Frequent Wind, Midway and about 50 other U.S. Navy ships cruised off the coast of South Vietnam with orders to rescue as many people as possible.

I was Midway’s aviation fuels officers, a 26-year-old lieutenant reporting to the ship’s air boss, Commander Vern Jumper. Normally, my division refueled the ship’s air wing of more than 70 fighter and attack jets. But many of our aircraft had been offloaded to make room for 10 Air Force CH-53D Sea Stallion helicopters. Also known as Super Jolly Green Giants, these were huge aircraft, almost 100 feet long, and capable of carrying up to 55 passengers. The Sea Stallions’ crews had orders to fly into Saigon, load up with as many evacuees as they could carry, and bring them back to Midway. Our job was to keep the Sea Stallion fueled.

While our Sea Stallions ran their shuttle operations, Midway became a magnet for fleeing South Vietnamese UH-1 Huey helicopters that filled the horizon, lined up like airliners on final approach to LAX, hoping to find an open spot on the carrier’s crowded flight deck. With dozens of uninvited helicopters streaming in, the flight deck soon filled to capacity. Pouring out of many of the Hueys were fully armed South Vietnamese soldiers, quickly disarmed by Midway’s Marine detachment. Initially, the Marines carefully stowed their weapons, but as the helicopters continued to land at a breakneck pace, the Marines began to simply toss the confiscated arms into the ocean.

For the past several days nothing but helicopters had filled the sky, so the little fixed-wing Cessna looked strangely out of place when it started making low passes over the ship. I was inspecting the two-dozen fueling stations located in the nearby catwalks when Major Ly’s message fell to the flight deck about 100 feet away. I raced over to retrieve it, but a Midway crewman beat me there. Curious to find out what had come close to beaning me, I walked over to the nerve center of flight deck operations – flight deck control – a small room next to the flight deck on the bottom of the ship’s island. I typically spent a lot of time there during normal aircraft fueling operations.

Inside the tiny room, the aircraft handling officer sat talking on the phone with a concerned look on his face. I could tell by all of the “yes sirs” that peppered his conversation, he was probably talking to the air boss. The handler spent most of his time in a large leather chair next to a window that looked out onto the flight deck. He had the unenviable task of planning the movement of every aircraft on the flight deck. But now, instead of moving the carrier’s jets, he scrambled to find room for all of the Vietnamese helicopters that were filling the flight deck. Finally, the handler hung up the phone. “What’s going on?” I asked.

“Someone onboard who speaks Vietnamese is going to get the pilot on the radio and tell him to ditch into the water, and then we’ll pick them up,” said the handler. No one knew that the major’s tiny plan didn’t have a radio – a fact that probably turned out to be fortunate for the seven people in the Bird Dog. If we had somehow convinced the major to intentionally ditch into the ocean, many of those aboard would have likely drowned in their sinking airplane.

But letting the major attempt his first carrier landing posed a threat to Midway – its flight deck now jammed with fuel-laden helicopters – and its 4,000 crewmen. I could visualize the catastrophic fire if Major Ly made a slight mistake and crashed into one of the nearby choppers. A few years earlier, flight deck fires on the aircraft carriers Oriskany and Forrestal had killed hundreds of crew members and had endangered the safety of both ships. No one wanted a repeat of those disasters.

An unsuccessful carrier approach posed a huge risk to the major and his family. If they came in too low, they could hit the back edge of the carrier deck and their airplane would turn into a deadly fireball. If they came in too high and landed long, their plane would simply roll off the end of the deck, and nose-dive into the water 60 feet below.

Minutes passed as Midway’s captain, Lawrence Chambers, decided what to do. He would have to take full responsibility if the landing ended in disaster – either for the Ly family, or for Midway. I knew Captain Chambers, and although he was a stickler for safety, he wouldn’t allow an entire family to drown if he could help it.

Suddenly, word came down from Midway’s air boss to prepare to take the Cessna aboard and clear the angle – the landing area that forked off from the left side of the flight deck. The excited flight deck crew sprang into action. We all wanted to save this brave man and his family but time was running out. The major had about 45 minutes of fuel left before he would have to ditch into the ocean, but dozens of helicopters packed the flight deck. Captain Chambers made a quick call – start pushing helicopters over the side until enough space had been cleared for the Cessna to land. Dozens of Midway crewman eagerly joined in pushing these half-million dollar machines over the side in what was fast becoming a very expensive recovery operation.

As the flight deck crew worked frantically, the little Cessna circled anxiously overhead, staying below the hovering overcast sky. Luckily the rain had stopped, but Major Ly would still have to land on a wet deck. After about 30 minutes, the angle was clear and the captain ordered Midway to turn into the wind. The carrier began to shake as its engines strained at full power to pick up speed. I figured Major Ly had less than 15 minutes of fuel remaining.

I hiked up the ladder to Vultures Row at the rear of the ship’s island overlooking the flight deck, an excellent place to observe aircraft landing. I hoped I would soon be witnessing an historic event, along with dozens of other crewmen. I looked over at the empty landing signal officer platform located adjacent to the flight deck just forward of the ramp. Typically, Navy aircraft landing on the carrier are under the control of a landing signal officer (LSO) who stands on the platform and radios instructions to the pilots during their approaches to the deck. This Cessna had no LSO – the major would fly this carrier approach on his own.

While waiting for Major Ly to begin his approach, I did some quick calculations. About 30 knots of wind blew down the flight deck. If the major could fly an approach speed of around 75 knots, then his landing speed on Midway would only be about 45 knots. I didn’t know how much runway a Cessna O-1 needed when landing at 45 knots, but knew it better be less than 600 feet – the approximate length of the angled deck. He could stop in time if he didn’t land too far down the angle. I wondered if Ly had done the same calculation before taking off from South Vietnam that morning.

Although the ship couldn’t communicate with Ly, he saw from our frantic efforts to clear space for his Cessna that we had granted him permission to come aboard. From Vultures Row, not comfortable with the odds, I watched the Cessna make a shallow turn onto final approach. Below, the crash crewmen were in their fire retardant suits, hoses at the ready. Midway’s rescue helicopter waited close by in the event the airplane ended up in the water. The flight deck crew in their yellow and green jerseys flapping like tiny flags in the strong wind that blew across the deck stood farther forward, well clear of the landing area and ready to assist in any flight deck emergency.

As I watched the plane complete its turn onto final approach, it looked low to me. I was accustomed to watching F-4 Phantoms fly their steep, high-speed approaches down to the deck, and forgot that a tiny Cessna aircraft almost glides in when landing. I gave Ly a silent instruction to add power and pull up, but he continued his shallow approach. Luckily he couldn’t hear me.

Approaching the ramp, the airplane dipped slightly. Then its wings rocked. I wondered if the major realized that the large downdraft at the back of the ship could easily fling his tiny airplane into the ramp. But his plane seemed to float across the ramp, oblivious to the danger just beneath it. Once he cleared the ramp, Ly cut the engine and his airplane dropped quickly onto the deck, bouncing slightly before softly returning, its wheels straddling the long white line that marked the center of the landing area. Fortunately, the strong headwind grabbed the tiny plane like an air brake, stopping it faster than one of Midway’s jets catching an arresting wire.

It was a perfect carrier landing.

The jubilant flight deck crew surrounded the Cessna as Ly climbed out of the pilot’s seat, followed by his wife from the tiny rear seat. The couple was surrounded by about 50 cheering Midway crewmen trying to shake the major’s hand and slapping him on the back. Then, astonishingly, several small children scrambled out from a storage compartment in the side of the airplane. Apparently, this was the only place left in the airplane for the rest of his family. I couldn’t imagine being crammed inside a tiny, windowless box on a flight out to sea. I realized then that Ly would never have agreed to ditch into the water. I wondered what would have happened if he had run out of fuel and been required to ditch. What were the chances that he and his family could have escaped their sinking airplane? Could they have opened the baggage compartment door against the weight of the ocean to free those small children? As those thoughts raced through my head, I realized how truly desperate they must have been.

We had witnessed an extraordinary act of courage – a man and his family embarking on a one-way trip in a flimsy plane with no radio, gambling they would find a place to land. We also had witnessed an impressive aeronautic feat, the unarrested landing of a fixed-wing airplane on an aircraft carrier by a pilot with no carrier landing experience. It was the final act of courage and skill of a South Vietnamese air force officer who had fought bravely for his country.

Some three decades later, I returned to Midway’s flight deck, but this time as a tourist. My former ship now rested quietly, a floating museum permanently docked in San Diego harbor. As I sat on the flight deck having dinner, I thought about Major Ly and his family, now living in Florida, and his old Bird Dog airplane, sitting in a museum far away in Pensacola. At the same time I listened to my former air boss Vern Jumper, now a Midway docent, talk about what was the highlight of his Midway service – the day our ship steamed off the coast of South Vietnam and Jumper barked orders through the ship’s loudspeakers to clear the flight deck in preparation for Major Ly’s landing. Wouldn’t it be great, I thought, if Major Ly and his Bird Dog could be here with us today?

Later that evening, as Jumper and I strolled through the old ship reliving Midway memories, we agreed that some of our best days were in April 1975 when the carrier took a pause from its normal duties as a war fighter and became a rescue ship. It felt right that Midway had become a museum. The carrier now not only honors all of the men who served on it during its 47-year career, but it also serves as a reminder that while humanitarian efforts do not end wars, they do plant the seeds for healing.