PR-26, EC-121M , BUNO 145927.
March 16, 1970, crashed at DaNang AFB Vietnam after flight from Tainian, Taiwan. Aircraft had engine #1 trouble and was returning to DaNang, while landing another aircraft taxied into the runway, forcing an attempted overshot. The aircraft appeared to bank and go out of control as it was about to land. It crashed into a revetment and large maintenance hangar on the airbase, destroying the hangar and an F-4 Phantom. It then burst into flames and was destroyed, 23 of 31 killed.
Fatalities:
LCDR. Harvey C. K. Aiau, LCDR. Harry C. Martin, LT. George L. Morningstar, LT. Robin A. Pearce, LTJG. James M. Masters, Jr., LTJG. Charles E. Pressler, LTJG. Jean P. Souzon, ADRC William John Risse, ADR1 Arthur Simmons, ADR1 Donald W. Wilson, AT1 Larry O. Marchbank, AE2 Floyd E. Andrus III, ADR3 Gregary J. Asbeck, AMS2 William P. Bletsch, ATN2 Guy Thomas Denton, ATR2 Joseph S. Saukaitis, ATN2 John S. Schaefer, ADR2 Stuart J. Scruggs, ATN2 Barry M. Searby, ATN3 John Macy Birch, ATN3 Thurle E. Case, Jr., ATN3 Ben Allen Hughes, Jr., ATN3 Ralph S. Purdum.
Survivors:
CPO Robert K. Ishler, LT. Delivan Young, ATR2 Don Holder, LTJG. Val S. Watkins, ADR2 Hugh G. Shannon, AEAN Charles M. Bingham, ADR2 Stephen E. Westacott, AE2 Dean A. Merrill
The Mission
The EC-121 was a radar flight following and communications/electronics surveillance aircraft, a variant on the civilian Super Constellation. EC-121s from the Air Force and Navy routinely operated over the Gulf of Tonkin providing support to combat aircraft "over the beach" in North Vietnam. The EC-121 Warning Star was a large aircraft, far too big to operate from carriers, and was based ashore in Vietnam and/or the Philippines.
Chief Petty Officer Risse was a crewman aboard a Warning Star of Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron ONE (VQ-1). At 11:25 AM on 16 March 1970, his aircraft attempted a landing at Da Nang Air Base, RVN. It was a windy day, and the aircraft's number four engine was dead. The pilot banked while flying over a concrete revetment and caught the tip of the left wing on a shelter. The EC-121 immediately cartwheeled, striking a revetment containing an RF-4C, causing an explosion. The explosion's force broke the EC-121 into three sections. One of these flying sections hit a tar truck, knocking it into two power poles. The poles were severed and live power lines were strewn over the area.
Although ground personnel made heroic efforts to rescue the 31 men aboard the EC-121 - braving gasoline and jet fuel fires and the risk of electrocution - 23 men were either dead or fatally injured.
Chief Petty Officer William Risse was one of the 23 dead.
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