Dick Couch - Out of the Ashes

“Very well,” Williams replied. “Your people ready?”

“Yes, sir. Aaron and his team are standing by to neutralize the Saudi military’s air traffic control system any time.”

Williams nodded. “All their aircraft up and ready?”

“All’s green, boss. They’re ready to go. All we’re waiting for is nightfall.”

“There it is, Sandee, there it is!” Laurie Phillips exclaimed as they approached the coordinates of the missile site. It was right where Charlie Bacon had said it would be.

They had climbed to five hundred feet several minutes earlier and slowed their airspeed to eighty knots.

“Where? Where is it? I can’t see it.”

“Down there, about ten o’clock,” Laurie replied. “About two miles away. Come left just a bit to put it on your nose.”

Sandee did as Laurie asked and pressed forward, scanning ahead, slowing her airspeed further, down to sixty-five knots now.

Finally, after a tense thirty seconds, Sandee saw it.

“Yes, yes, I have it. God, it looks like they have layers of camouflage netting over it. I’m not surprised. Do you see any concrete pads yet?”

“No, but I think I will as we get closer.”

After another fifteen seconds, Sandee all but shouted, “There, there at one o’clock. I think I see one of the pads! Anything on your side yet?”

“Looking … looking … are you going to slow a bit?”

Sandee pulled back slightly on the helo’s cyclic stick, slowing the bird further. Time seemed to stand still.

“Down there, I see another pad. Right on the nose, Sandee. Can you see it?”

Several seconds of searching, time now on a slow crawl. “Yes, yes, I do!”

“This proves it, Sandee. This proves it. We were right!”

“You were right.”

“What now? Are we going to get the FLIR picture?”

“Yes, but this angle is lousy, and I’m too low. Just keep a sharp eye out, OK?” Sandee replied as she maneuvered the aircraft, setting up a small circle around the blockhouse and pads as she tried to line up for good FLIR shots. They were only doing this once. She wasn’t coming back again. She had to get it right the first time.

In the blockhouse below, Jawad Makhdoom had heard a helicopter approaching from several miles away. He knew the prince wasn’t coming to the site today. He went outside to see what it was.

Seconds later, he was back in the blockhouse and rushed up to his second in command. “It’s an American helicopter circling us!”

“Are you certain?” the man asked.

“Yes. I think it’s from their Navy. It’s matte gray and I see a star on the side of the fuselage.”

“Call the prince. Call him now!” the man exclaimed.

“Sandee, I can’t be sure, but I think I just saw someone come out of the blockhouse, and then run back in again.”

“I figured there would be someone in there. They probably weren’t going to leave those missiles just sitting out here in the desert unattended, and they probably don’t have helos flying over their building all the time, either.”

“Can I do anything?”

“This FLIR is acting a little finicky today and I’m having trouble bringing it on line. My head is going to be mostly in the cockpit while I circle the blockhouse. Just keep a sharp eye out.”

“Will do, Sandee.” I know we’re doing the right thing, but I can see Sandee is beyond nervous. Oh God, please let that FLIR work.

Minutes passed as Sandee Barron continued to circle the blockhouse and work with the FLIR.

“Sandee, I see two men coming out of the blockhouse now, and one of them looks like he’s holding some kind of long cylinder.”

“Where?” Sandee asked, popping her head up.

“What!” Sandee shouted as she saw a flash of light at her four o’clock position, a flash that came from where the two men were standing. Seconds later, a thin trail of smoke connected the two men on the ground with the helo.

“BANG!” A loud explosion rang out from the back of the helo.

“Sandee?” Laurie exclaimed.

“God, we’ve been hit!” Sandee cried out.

The sound of the explosion when the rocket-propelled grenade hit them was ear-splitting, and now the sounds coming from the tail boom of the MH-60R were deafening.

“What’s going on, Sandee?”

“We’ve been hit. I think it was an RPG!

“Master caution light. Warning lights. Tail rotor gearbox, oh shit!” Sandee yelled out.

An eternity passed in a second. Sandee Barron knew what was happening. Whatever had hit them had struck near the tail pylon of their MH-60R. Either the drive train leading to the tail rotor had been severed, or the tail rotor gearbox itself had been hit. As the tail rotor slowed down, Sandee pushed harder and harder on the left rudder pedal trying to keep the bird pointed straight ahead.

Finally, she jammed the rudder pedal to the stops. It was no use.

“I’ve lost tail rotor authority … no, wait … I’ve totally lost thrust!” shouted Sandee. All right, Sandee, you think you’re such a hot shit pilot. Get through this. Get through this. Get on the deck in one piece.

As the vibrations increased in intensity, the helo started to turn to the right more rapidly, now deprived of the antitorque normally provided by the tail rotor. No matter how many times she had practiced this in the flight simulator, the real thing was a hundred times worse. Reflexively, Sandee bottomed the collective, taking torque off the blades and entering an autorotation. This stopped some, but not all, of the helo spinning.

“MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY, Swampfox 248 hit by an RPG. Crash landing in the desert,” Sandee said as she instinctively keyed her radio.

The MH-60R dropped out of the sky and plummeted toward the desert floor below. In the left seat, Laurie was gripped with fear and held on to the glare shield in front of her for dear life. As Sandee rode the mortally wounded bird toward the ground the nose of the MH-60R wandered up and down and kept drifting to the right more rapidly now that the tail rotor had completely stopped. The vibrations increased in intensity and the two women were getting bounced around in their seats. As the helo continued to head toward the desert floor looming up below, Sandee pulled the power control levers and killed the bird’s two engines, trying to take as much torque off the rotor blades as possible and stop the helicopter from spinning. The vibrations increased as Sandee fought to keep the nose from drifting farther right, but her efforts were futile.

Laurie was transfixed on the desert floor now filling their cockpit window. She wanted to help, do something, anything, rather than just sit there, but she was in a completely alien environment when the helicopter was operating normally. Now that it was plunging to the earth she was in sensory overload. She just prayed.

Sandee’s focus was now completely outside the aircraft, measuring their rate of descent by how fast the ground was coming up at them, following her procedures as best she could, and praying silently she would do this right.

Now the moment of truth, just feet above the desert floor, Sandee pulled the nose of the aircraft up progressively, first about ten degrees above the horizon, then fifteen degrees, and ultimately to thirty degrees up as she slowed the MH-60R’s progress over the ground to near zero. At the last moment, she rocked the nose forward so the helo was level and yanked the collective up into her armpit, slowing their rapid rate of descent as much as she could.

Still it wasn’t enough. The bird hit hard. The landing gear struts stroked all the way but the G-forces on the aircraft were too great and the landing gear collapsed unevenly and the helicopter started to tilt to the right. Laurie just hung on. Once the helo had tilted far enough, the rotor blades hit and started chewing up the desert floor, shaking the helicopter violently. Finally, all motion stopped.