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T-Tail-Tall-Tail:
A VERY MESSY C-141
Dave Cooke
I worked on the Charleston flightline with the best
bunch of
guys you could imagine. Every one of was, and still
is, a treat. One particular
day my boss assigned me to an inbound down on Able
row. After the crew door
opened and the gears were pinned. the LM came down
the ladder mumbling
something about a gas mask. I brushed it off as a
rant from a tired crew
member.
As I went up the ladder and looked to my right, I
saw the biggest mess I'd ever
seen in a aircraft. The tube was end-to-end trash,
almost a foot deep. Empty
MRE's, flight lunch boxes, ketchup, laundry,
cigarette packages, GI blankets.
You name it, it was in that pile of s**t. Just a
freakin' disaster area.
My boss came by for the 781's and saw the pigsty. He
scheduled the aircraft to
go straight to the wash rack, for sanitizing, so to
speak. Why the crew didn't
open the back of the aircraft and dump it anywhere
above FL300 was beyond me.
This was 1975 and the evac of Saigon had caught this
aircraft off station at
Clark. I never found out for sure but my guess was
the aircraft might have
brought their evacuees to the left coast somewhere.
I now wonder why it wasn't
quarantined after coming stateside.
After realizing that their Vietnamese money was now
without value, the PAX left
it on the floor with all the other trash. I
collected a bunch of this 'loot'
before I left shift and divided their booty up with
the other guys on the line
that day. This scans below are the front and back of
the only bill I have
remaining. The stuff is worth only memories now, but
I thought it might be an
interesting item for C141Heaven.
