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T-Tail-Tall-Tail:
Near Miss
Eddie Davis
We were returning from a west trip, in late 1972 or
early 1973. We picked up a
Dover aircraft in the stage at Elmendorf and had an
early morning take-off.
I can only remember one other member of the crew and
that was the co-pilot, Lt.
Edwards. He was known as Bubba to everyone.
We were at FL290 in the soup all the way across
Canada and had just passed
Niagra Falls under the control of Cleveland Center.
They notified us of
traffic, a 707 at FL290, but the co-pilot called
back that we were in the soup.
A few minutes past Buffalo we received another
notification, a 737 at FL310.
Co-pilot informed them we were still in clouds. We
broke out around
Phillipsburg, PA and the co-pilot (Lt. Edwards)
looked out his window and
slammed us into a dive. I was at the engineer's
panel and immediately looked up
front just as the belly of the 737 flashed across
the top of the windshield. It
is hard to describe the noise but it was loud. I
thought it hit the T-Tail but
using the sextant we decided it wasn't damaged.
Lt. Edwards or the AC called Cleveland Center and
informed them we had left
FL290 to avoid a collision with a 737 and had
recovered at FL250, and were
climbing back to FL290. The controller came back
with "Get back to FL290! You
are not cleared for FL250!". The tone of his voice
basically said "I don't care
that I screwed up and put two aircraft in the same
spot".
Then he passed us off to New York center, who also
didn't seem to care.
Everyone got to experience zero gravity (in fact
one-G negative). Lt. Edwards
and I estimated the 737 came within 40 to 60 feet of
our C-141. The A/C
notified Dover Command Post what had happened and
ask for them to have Flight
Safety meet us in ACP. We also declared an emergency
when we landed at Dover.
I walked around the aircraft before getting on the
crew bus, and there was no
apparent damage. When we arrived in ACP we were met
by a Bird Colonel, from who
knows where. His mission was to get us to not file a
Near Miss report. He said
the Air Traffic Controller could lose his job if we
pushed it. I was a hard
headed MSgt, wasn't buying into this line, so I told
him "I don't care, he
almost killed us and a plane load of civilians."
Then he tried to convince Lt. Edwards and I that our
estimation of the 60 feet
was not accurate. We stuck with our statement and
filed the report.
The investigation revealed that the controller had
confused the 707 and the
737's altitude. The 707 was at FL310 and the 737 at
FL290. I don't know if the
controller was fired or not.
When I read the report about 67-0006
breaking up in flight over England in a thunderstorm
I wondered if it was the same
C-141 and whether the stress of those negative G's
could have weakened it.