KC135 Accident - Walker AFB (near Roswell NM) Feb 3rd, 1960

[Robt]

Similar experience. B-47 crashes on base at Pease AFB, 1960-1963, 100th Bomb Wing. We lived at 31 Birch Drive in base housing. On two occasions there were terrible explosions and the night sky lit up. On both occasions my Pop was due home from what they called Reflex Missions to Brize Norton AB, England. They were sent out and came home in a Vee formation of three aircraft. Both times my Mom shot to the phone and called base operations to see who crashed. My Pop wasn't one of them but she would begin to cry because she learned which of her friends lost their husbands. We, as kids (I was 8 years old) learned which of our friends lost their Pops and knew they would move away. My Mom absolutely hated the military never saying one kind word about it. That early jet age killed many of her friend's husbands due to accidents and she lived in constant fear of my Pop being one of the statistics. Twenty years of living in fear like that are seldom chronicled in military journals. Military wives and families are different kinds of veterans, but veterans nonetheless.

There were subsequent investigations of the above crashes, which I learned the results of years later from my Pop, with the key findings that, 1) Fast jet bombers required the skills of fighter pilots with regard to reaction times and keeping their heads out in front of the (high speed) airplanes. Transitioning reciprocating engine pilots should be transitioned in T-33s before moving to the new bombers and, 2) At the time pilots were ordered to follow the commands of tower controllers who were not trained in the controller procedures for that particular high performance jet bomber, their higher approach speeds and slower power (turbine spool up times) recovery for aborting. A controller directed one aircraft onto the "runway" on one fogged-in night. The "runway" was, in reality, the base golf course. IOW, it crashed short of the runway killing all 3 crew members. The investigation determined that due to the conditions of that night the pilot could not have recovered.

I remember seeing the burned out wreckage of one in the base golf course the morning after.

Military wives and families are different kinds of verterans... My dad was a 509th pilot from'47 to '58, recalled to the Air Force in 1947 to Walker. B-29's, B-50's, then transitioned to B-47's. We lived on Pontiac, Lea and Missouri in Roswell, then 177 White Birch at Pease. Although my asthma and eyesight kept me out of the military I remember it all, and I miss it. But for wives it must have been Hell. If dependents can have PTSD, I've got it. The number of crashes was brutal. Pop was flying one night when he said the whole sky lit up - an F-86 had crashed and lit up the horizon. Another night on reflex leaving for Great Britain the sky lit up again and he looked down to see a B-47 skidding across the desert on fire. He said he nearly threw up in his mask. The CP had retracted the flaps prematurely and hit a telephone pole, which actually saved the crew, since it ripped the main fuselage tank out of the aircraft. When the plane stopped the crew jumped out. The navigator had forgotten to unhook his mask and was hanging from outside the aircraft until he got it loose. The year before we moved to Pease a B-47 crashed at the end of the runway at Pease killing the crew. Pop tells me the investigators found the pilot had not turned on the forward boost pump for takeoff. At a high gross weight only the aft boost pump was used in order to shift the C.G. forward. The crash crew asked my dad if there were animals on board... "no, he said." They said they could hear barking coming from the aircraft. It was the crew, who had survived the crash. My dad never forgot it and now I don't, since he related these things to me... Dad had to escort the bodies from the Black Mountain crash in Arizona. He had to take shoes with him so they could be used to identify the bodies. Sometimes all they could find was feet. The Black Mountain crash killed 2 KC-97 crews and I think 3 B-47 crews, including my dad's best friend. The mission was to "slow fly" a new low-level B-47 training route across NM and Arizona but the weather was worsening and evidently the crews did not want to have to repeat the long mission. In trying to stay under the weather the aircraft ran into the mountain. That's the story my pop told me. In February 1965 we were at Schilling when the KC-135 crashed in Wichita. We drove down the next day and I can still remember the smell. JP-4 everywhere, and a huge crater with a crane pulling aluminum out of the hole. We had to walk across a vacant lot to the crash and followed the trail of jet fuel that was being dumped while the pilot tried to get back to McConnell. There were rumors the jet engine had injested a parachute off the runway but pop told me the aircraft had been at Boeing for a rudder modification. It most likely was a "rudder jam" case. Then at Carswell the year I started college a KC-135 crashed when the student pilot stalled the aircraft. My mom and I saw that aircraft on the runway, burned out. The crew were all found at the door. Aircraft can be unforgiving. I seem to remember all these things. They don't seem to leave you.

 

[Gordon Scott]

I have no connection to this accident other than I was born 90 miles northeast of it, eight months later. But I had done some reading on Walker AFB, especially on the Atlas missile deployments there in the early 1960s. Walker was home to the -F model of the Atlas. This differed from earlier models in that the -F was stored upright in the silo instead of lying on its side. This meant that the missile could be fueled underground, and then raised on an elevator to the surface for launching.

The Atlas was a fussy missile, with very very thin fuel tank skins (to save weight). If I remember right, they were kept pressurized with an inert gas, as the weight of the payload above could crush the missile if the tank were not rigid. Modern missiles are solid fueled, eliminating the need to fuel the booster before flight (the Titan II used liquid fuels but was stored fueled).

What is amazing to me is that the Army Corps of Engineers put out bids to build the 12 silos, and bids were opened a month later. 18 months after that, the silos were finished. Imagine trying to do that today, with that kind of speed! The Air Force started bringing in the missiles in early 1962. It didn't take long for that fussiness to show up; in mid 1963 a fueling mishap caused one of the missiles to blow up in the silo. In 1964 two more blew up the same way within a month. Fortunately, none had a warhead. But there are stories of the crews running for their lives before the silo erupted, and one airman was injured when he ran into a barbed wire fence.

The missiles were removed in 1965, and Walker closed a year later. Growing up near it in the 1960s I remember driving past one or two of the abandoned silos on US-70, and the former air base being used to test the Boeing 747, as Walker's runway is very wide, and very long. But I am always surprised how dangerous life in the Air Force was in the 1960s, compared to what I remember serving in the 1980s.

 

[Roger Holien]

Hello folks, my name is Roger A Holien, and I live in Albuquerque, New Mexico. My father was Roger G Holien from Cannon Falls, Minnesota, and I was stationed at Walker AFB at the same time as the dates of this fire.

He met my mom, Charlotte Gonzalez, at Roswell, and they were married 12 years before Divorce. She remarried my stepfather, Leo Gonzalez, who was also in the Air Force. I wanted to post this story because it is fascinating and the gospel truth. I am a minister and have worked in ministry for over 40 years at a local nonprofit called Faith Comes By Hearing.

My dad years ago told me this story and had never told it to me as his son, think I was in my late teens. He said, "Tony" (I am called that by my family as its middle name). "Years ago, I was working on a jet or airplane, and something told me to get up and run out of the hangar."

So, I asked him, so what did you do dad, and he responded, " I got up and ran out of the hangar! So, what happened? He said an airplane or jet hit the hangar and killed his buddies. I was shocked, but that's all he said. Years later, I brought it up to him, and he couldn't remember telling me this story, so I searched and searched and couldn't find anything online.

So one day I was talking to a good friend who happens to know New Mexico history and has contacts all over the state, I mentioned this story and right away he said "Oh yea that happened in the old Walker AFB when a KC 135 was taking off and hit the hanger and killed a bunch of military personal.

So it was true, the story my dad told me, and I found this post and some pictures as well. What's wild is when I looked at the date of this horrific accident, it was Feb 3rd, 1960, and I was born May 17, 1961. I would not have been born if my dad had not listened to this voice, which I believe was God or an angel. It just wasn't my dad's time, is the way I see it, but I am sure one day in Glory, I will see the story behind the story as they say.

Lord bless you all and all the families affected by this accident at Walker.

thanks for allowing me to tell this testimony of my dad and I's live Would love to get some 8mm footage and restore it ( I restore video and pictures as a hobby)

 

[SaparotRob]

Hi Roger and welcome!