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Earlier this month, (3-23) I officially retired after 30 years of service and the memories of the past can be sometimes hard to deal with. I have struggled with my emotions off and on since retiring, but today was more intense. I woke up and immediately felt off.?I couldn’t place it, and just kept battling. Then I saw the date.

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March 23, 1994, 1994 - JD 82 - Pope AFB, NC - Mostly Cloudy 78/35

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I was a load crew member assigned to Weapons Crew 23 in the 74th Fighter Squadron (FS).?I was approaching one year from graduating out of the 323d Basic Military Training Squadron and had just returned from what would be the first of many TDY’s to Nellis AFB (Vegas baby!). ?Life was good, and today was a typical spring day in North Carolina, cloudy and cool in the morning with the temps rising to the 70s by afternoon. It was gonna be an easy day for us, the squadron had a scheduled training/safety day and we had just one jet on the schedule; an incentive flight for a “banked” pilot.?This meant a day of “training” while also prepping jets for the next day’s flying schedule.

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In typical “Fitts” fashion I spent more time “smokin-n-jokin” than training that day.?Just before 1400 I followed another load crew out to the line to help them prep a jet for the next days flying; partly because I was in the middle of telling a story, but mostly because my expediter yelled at me to get in the truck.?As we were loading practice bombs on one of our jets, one of the guys dropped his bomb and pointed at the sky.?As we let out a collective WTF at him dropping his bomb, we turned and saw what he had reacted to. There, on approach was a C-130, 2 orange and white parachutes and one of our F-16Ds (2-seater) sans nose or canopy.?The F-16 was rapidly losing altitude and veering toward us on the ramp (parking apron) …

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Shortly after 1400, two 23d Wing aircraft were on final approach to runway 23.?Aircraft 88-0170, an F-16D from the 74th FS was conducting a simulated flameout (SFO) approach when it collided with aircraft 68-10942, a C-130E from the 2d Airlift Squadron at an altitude of around 300 feet. ??The radome (nose) of the F-16 was severed and C-130's right elevator split and broke off.?The F-16 pilot applied full afterburner to try to recover the aircraft (also in the hopes of getting it to clear Pope's small airfield), but it began to disintegrate, showering debris on the runway and a road that ran around it and it became clear that the aircraft was a dead stick. ?Both F-16 crewmembers ejected, but their aircraft, still on full afterburner, began an arc that would take it toward the parking apron and Green Ramp. At the same time, the C-130 crew took their aircraft away from the airfield and checked to ensure it could safely land. They had no idea the extent of the damage to their aircraft and narrowly made it back to Pope and landed on the debris-littered runway…

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As me and the guys tried to make sense of what we were seeing (it seemed like it was happening in slow motion) it became clear that we were witnessing something awful, and that our lives were now in imminent danger.?With landing gear down, the pilotless F-16 was on path right at us while losing altitude and cruising at around 300kn (340mph+). ?There was little we could do but duck behind our metro truck and pray. The aircraft cleared our heads by about 25 feet (it felt like I could grab the main gear) and hit the ramp around 100yds away. ?We watched in horror and disbelief as its momentum carried it into a parked C-141 causing a massive explosion. There was a mass of 82nd Airborne paratroopers on Green Ramp preparing to board the C-141, and the explosion ripped through them, injuring over 100 and killing 23 (another would die months later to bring the total to 24). ?

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As a 20-year-old, with only a year in the service I was obviously shook up. ?I went home and called my family (collect of course) and my grandfather was the one who comforted me the most. He was WWII vet with over 34 combat missions as a gunner over Europe, in the B-24 (8 missions) and B-26 (26 missions).?With the 34th Bomb Squadron he was shot down twice and taken POW the second time. The eerie thing is, that final mission in which he was taken POW was 49 years earlier on that same day, 3-23, 1945. He would also pen me a letter that put things in perspective, and I cherish it to this day (you can read the letter in the photo). ?

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The Green Ramp disaster is the largest loss of non-passenger life in an accidental aircraft crash on U.S. soil. It was also the worst peacetime loss of life suffered by the 82d Airborne since the end of World War II. Every year, 3-23 is a complex day for me…maybe this one has been more difficult because it is the first one since the event that I am no longer wearing the uniform. So today I remember those who lost their lives that day and others who were casualties of this awful event; I remember all those I served with and all veterans who have lost their lives, sacrificed, and still deal with scars (both visible and not). What we do is inherently dangerous, one’s safety is never guaranteed in war or peacetime training events…it is the price we pay for being the best.

Cheers, J

#service #sacrifice #82d #AllAmerican #Pope #Flyingtigers #74FS #GreenRamp

Above is just my account, you can read more about the heroes from that day here: https://history.army.mil/html/books/070/70-55/CMH_Pub_70-55.pdf