Tense Copter Rescue : Stranded Navy Jet Plucked From Airfield on Island

It wasn’t nearly as daring as Navy pilots intercepting a planeload of hijackers over the Mediterranean, but the Navy’s rescue Friday of a stranded TA-3B reconnaissance plane provided some tense moments for the crew aboard the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson and a Super Stallion helicopter.

Navy pilots lifted the plane, which crash-landed in August on this desolate island, off the runway and carried it three miles offshore to the Vinson. The most difficult part of the complex salvage operation occurred moments before the 16-ton plane was dropped on the carrier’s flight deck as the aircraft began swaying in 100 m.p.h. downwinds generated by the helicopter’s seven rotor blades.

Although the actual landing lasted only three minutes, the wind gusts forced the helicopter pilots to make several attempts before they could gently set the plane on an elevator platform. At one point, they came close to sending the plane over the edge of the carrier.

“They had obviously planned it very, very extensively,” said Vice Adm. James Service, commander of the Navy’s Pacific Fleet Air Force, who observed the entire operation from a second helicopter perched above the ocean. “It went off exactly as briefed. It could have been a complete flop if they had not handled it so beautifully.”

Perhaps the most dramatic moment came after the CH-53E helicopter finished the mission and attempted to land next to the plane. As the helicopter came within a few feet of parking on the Vinson’s deck, the TA-3B began to rock in the wind.

“This is not bright,” Cmdr. Ed Brown said while watching the plane tremble from his front-row seat in the Vinson’s air operations control tower.

Then, before the helicopter pilot could touch down and blow the plane off the deck, Capt. Rich Wolter barked: “Move it off! Take it up!”

The helicopter then lifted up and landed about 15 yards away from the wrecked plane.

The salvage operation marked the first time in recent memory that the Navy has hoisted a plane from a remote location to an aircraft carrier, said Navy spokesman Tom Jurkowsky. When planes crash, they usually are either retrieved on land or lost at sea.

But Navy officials were left scratching their heads on Aug. 23 when a pilot flying training missions out of Miramar Naval Air Station landed the TA-3B six feet short of the runway on the island. The plane skidded 3,000 feet before it came to a stop, resting on the tip of its right wing.

The plane suffered severe damage to the landing gear and the right wing. Built 25 years ago by Douglas Aircraft Co., the TA-3B Skywarrior was designed as the most powerful Navy attack bomber to be based on aircraft carriers. As more modern attack planes have been introduced in recent years, the Skywarrior has been used primarily for electronic surveillance.

At first, Navy engineers were not sure they could save the plane. The rocky terrain, poor visibility and shallow water around the island made it impossible for Navy ships to haul the plane back to the mainland. And the plane, nicknamed “the whale” by Navy fliers because it is among the largest in the Navy’s carrier-based fleet, weighs so much that it was unlikely that a helicopter could safely haul it away.

After several meetings, engineers decided to reduce the plane’s weight to 16 tons by stripping both engines, the landing gear, the fuselage and the tail section. The new configuration meant that Navy engineers had to recalculate the center of gravity in order to lift the plane with two heavy-duty slings.

On Oct. 1, crews from the Vinson and Helicopter Combat Support Squadron 1 at North Island Naval Air Station, and naval engineers converged on the island to conduct practice lifts using a giant crane. They attached padded wooden pallets and five used airplane tires to the bottom of the plane as a precautionary measure to protect the Vinson’s flight deck from suffering any damage.

Initially, the salvage team attempted to lift the plane using hoist points built into the aircraft. But because of the heavy weight, they decided to use a pair of “belly bands” or slings, said Lt. Cmdr. D.C. Ray, flight deck officer of the Vinson. The crews had to move the bands several times so that each sling carried the same weight, to prevent the plane from tipping.

Based on the test lifts, it was decided to use the powerful Super Stallion helicopter--powered by three turbo engines--to pick up the plane at 7 a.m. Friday and drop it off on the Vinson, which passed through on a one-week training exercise while en route back to San Francisco Bay. During the trip, film crews from Paramount Pictures spent two days shooting footage of F-14 fighter planes for the coming movie “Top Gun,” starring Tom Cruise.

Mechanical problems delayed the Super Stallion’s flight from North Island to San Clemente by two hours, which meant the flight crews aboard the Vinson had to squeeze the rescue mission around their flight operations.

The TA-3B will be taken to the Navy rework facility in Alameda, where engineers will put the plane back together.

“In the old days before the new technology, we would have had to abandon the plane,” Service said. “Now we’re able to return it to service.”