The warbled tone of the hand-held radio alarm sounded first, followed by the urgent voice of the radio operator in the battalion’s tactical operations center: “Medevac! Medevac! Medevac!” In an instant, the thunder of boots echoed down the boardwalk as half of the aircrews sprinted to their parked Black Hawks, while the other half scrambled to the containerized housing unit (CHU) that now served as the Medevac operations cell.
It had been a typical August 2007 morning for the 4th Platoon of C/2-135th Medevac at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Normandy in Diyala Province, Iraq. At least as typical as any morning in an active war zone can be. The unit was in the process of a scheduled relief in place (RIP) before handing over the mission to the incoming unit, and regular left-seat/right-seat rides with mixed crews had begun. But for me and the two crews now responding to the radio call, this ride would be anything but regular.
Destination Baghdad
As the “first up,” I was scheduled to pilot the lead UH-60—call-sign Cutty 75. My crew would include a copilot, crew chief, and medic. Accompanying us would be a chase aircraft—Cutty 76—led by an experienced chief warrant officer 4 (CW4).
“What do we got?” I asked the noncommissioned officer (NCO) managing the operation as I quickly strapped on my flight vest.
“Two Iraqi police with gunshot wounds from the Miqdadiyah Hospital,” he replied.
“Where are we taking them?” I followed.
“Baghdad.” I had been to Baghdad before, but it had been several months; and things tend to change quickly and significantly in this environment.
The CW4 then appeared out of nowhere next to me (as CW4s often seem to do when needed). “You want me to lead?” he asked.
“Yeah, you better,” I replied. “What’s the weather like?”
“It’s 1,000-3 [1,000-ft ceilings and 3-mile visibility] here,” he said, “700-2 in Baghdad. Not sure if it’s going to get better or worse.”
We continued discussing the degraded weather conditions with our crews, ultimately deciding to fly but agreeing to continue to monitor the weather via radio communications with the operations center. If things got too bad, our contingency plan would be to follow the emergency GPS approach back to FOB Normandy, a route we’d rehearsed regularly.
We hurried to our awaiting Black Hawks and verified the weather conditions again with our local visual guides. We then cranked the helos, got the patients loaded (one on each aircraft), and took off southwest toward the Baghdad Combat Support Hospital.
Into the Storm
As agreed, Cutty 76 took the lead, and we became the chase aircraft, flying slightly behind and above the lead. Soon after we became airborne, I attempted to call back to operations to log us off, but neither FM radio would connect. So, I used the UHF to contact the CW4 and adjust our communications plan. By now, visibility had dropped to 2 miles, but it wasn’t bad enough to abandon the flight. The patients desperately needed to get to the Baghdad hospital, and we were determined to get them there.
After flying on without incident for several minutes, I checked in with the crew members, who each had varying degrees of combat experience. When I called back to the medic, his news on our patient wasn’t good; his blood oxygen level was dangerously low. “We need to go to Balad,” he said.
“Got it,” I replied and immediately radioed Cutty 76 that our patient’s condition was worsening and we needed to divert to Balad Air Base, about 50 miles north of Baghdad.
“Roger,” came the quick reply. “Turning for Balad.”
As we rolled wings level, I noticed the weather, like our patient, had worsened too. As a result, my copilot, who had the controls, had begun to slow the helicopter and stack higher than normal behind the lead aircraft. “I need you to come down and stay on him,” I instructed. “I don’t want to lose sight of him or the ground.” The copilot quickly corrected our position, and we were in a steady state once again. But not for long.
“Cutty 75,” the radio cracked, “Baghdad is closed for weather.” A few seconds of silence passed before he followed with “Balad is closed for weather too.”
These closures explained the eerie silence I had noticed on the common traffic frequency; there had been no callouts by anyone. Visibility was now down to a little more than a mile with unlimited ceilings. Nonetheless, we pressed on for several more minutes. Just after crossing above the Diyala River, however, the radio cracked again.
“Cutty 75, 76—Hey, boss, it’s bad up here. We need to go home.”
“I concur,” I answered. “Let’s go home.”
Headed for Home
Though there was no delay in making this decision, it’s the kind of decision that is a tough one for a medevac pilot to make. A turn for home, I realized, could be a fatal one for our patients, who were in dire need of treatment. On the other hand, if we crashed or were unable to make it back to a safe area, all the lives on both helicopters could be lost.
I didn’t see Cutty 76 when it began its right turn, so I asked my copilot, who was still on the controls, if he could still see the aircraft. “I have them,” he confidently replied, though we were higher and further away than we needed to be to make our turn safely.
“Don’t lose sight of them,” I said. I then noticed the copilot slowing and climbing the aircraft even further. I also noticed him lean slightly to the side as he peered into the thick haze before us. “Do you have them?” I asked more urgently.
“I have them,” he again replied, though his response was now less convincing. A few seconds of silence passed before he relented, “You have the controls.”
“I have the controls,” I immediately replied, recognizing the copilot may be experiencing some spatial disorientation. At this point, I knew we weren’t in a good situation; we were flying in low-visibility conditions and in close proximity to the spinning blades of another UH-60. I also suspected, however, that the lead aircraft was not likely to increase its altitude in this degraded visual environment. So, I held the aircraft’s speed and altitude steady and anxiously waited for Cutty 76 to appear in my right-side chin bubble.
And after what seemed like an eternity, it did! I quickly pushed forward on the cyclic and tucked in as close as I could behind the lead Black Hawk, probably no more than a rotor disc away. Visibility had improved slightly by this time, but I dared not let down my guard. In this kind of environment, there’s always something else.
“Isn’t This the Place . . . ?”
We continued on in silence for a while as we flew at low level across the flat, blending terrain. Our altitude was just high enough to keep the weather from being too much of a problem but not quite enough to keep the enemy at bay. Nonetheless, the palpable tension of the situation slowly began to ease with the passing of each uneventful mile. Light conversation even began to pick back up in the cockpit. But then the unthinkable happened.
I’ve never been a superstitious person, but there are some things one just doesn’t do in a combat helicopter during a mission. One of them is reminisce about past incidents and near misses. Nevertheless, the copilot looked down at the Electronic Data Manager (EDM) and then turned to me and asked, “Hey, isn’t this the place you got shot at last time?”
Just as the words left his mouth, the “plink! plink! plink!” of impacting bullets echoed through our Black Hawk, accompanied by several bright flashes of light. A half second later, both the “plinking” and the flashes stopped, providing a second of calm before the reality of the situation set in.
My eyes were first drawn to the master caution panel. I reset it and then moved my attention to the caution advisory panel. It was lit up but didn’t appear to have anything too pressing. I then noticed a #1 primary servo caution light. With this indicator, I knew I now had some limits that I had to stay within, but that was okay. “We’re still good,” I told myself. “We’re still flying. Just keep going.”
As far as the feel of the controls went, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. However, I couldn’t say the same for my left leg. It felt as though it had been “frogged”—the childhood prank where someone knuckle-punches an unsuspecting person in a muscle, causing a temporary cramp or “goose egg.” But both of my feet clearly still worked, so I put them back on the pedals. I then noticed the glove on my left hand was wet with blood, even though my hand itself didn’t hurt. To test it, I lifted my hand off the collective and squeezed it. Everything seemed functional, even though my glove was now completely blood-soaked from the knuckles down.
Out of the corner of my eye, I then noticed the copilot’s windscreen, which looked as though Darth Vader had cut a path through it with his lightsaber (see Figure 1). As for the copilot himself, his eyes were as wide as saucers, and everything between his visor and shirt collar was covered in blood. It looked as if he’d been spray-painted with red paint. Twice.
I reached for the radio selector switch, squeezed the push-to-talk (PTT) button, and began my distress call. “Mayday! Mayday!” Mayday!” I declared. To be honest, I’m not sure what I said next, but I know now that I didn’t stop talking—and unfortunately forgot to let go of the PTT switch—for quite some time. Thus, all of Iraq and anyone else listening to the common traffic frequency were treated to a running broadcast of everything happening in my aircraft (and in my head) for several minutes. No one could’ve gotten a word in edgewise, even if they’d wanted to.
I then noticed Cutty 76 was no longer in front of us; I wouldn’t see the aircraft again until we were back on the ground. Still unknowingly squeezing the PTT switch—and now experiencing some tunnel vision as well—I redirected my focus back inside my cockpit to keep working my situation.
“Where are we?” I asked the copilot, hoping he could locate us on the map. As I kept barking questions and commands to him on the intercom system, the frustrated look on his bloodied face quickly convinced me he wasn’t able to respond verbally. (I later discovered he could hear my transmissions, but his microphone was broken.) So, I reached for the GPS, which now flickered with random numbers and dashes. I thus had no idea of our location and, more importantly, no contact (or so I thought) with the other Black Hawk, which I assumed was still flying somewhere dangerously close. The negatives were clearly starting to pile up, but I again reminded myself of the all-important positive that remained in our favor: we were still flying.
Enough Already
After a momentary lull in the excitement, my right hand began to ache. Looking down at it, I then realized I was still squeezing the PTT switch with an iron grip. And as soon as I let go of it, I was met with yet another pain in the form of an expletive-laced tongue-lashing by a familiar voice. “Get off the radio!” yelled the CW4. “I’m trying to talk to you!”
After my brief but well-deserved scolding, I filled him in on my situation—multiple master caution alarms, no working GPS, one working radio, one bloody copilot, and one bloody me. As I proceeded down the list, my crew chief then chimed in from the cabin. “Hey, we’re on fire back here!”
“Of course we are!” I thought, as I added another item to my damage report and told the CW4 I was going to look for a place to land.
I then heard the fire extinguisher discharge several times, followed by a call declaring the fire was now out. It was good to finally get some good news.
“Cutty 75,” said Cutty 76, “you should start to see the Two Towers at your 12.”
I scanned the skies and terrain in front of me. We were still in just over a mile of visibility, so I couldn’t see much. The Two Towers he named were a common landmark we often used to reference our location. They were nothing fancy, just two old, unlit radio towers that blended in with the background. Their location, however, signaled a sort of sweet spot of several miles of open country through which we could safely travel to get back to the FOB. But that sweet spot was pretty small. Flying too far past the towers would put us closer to Iran than we wanted to be; flying not far enough would put us farther over “bad-guy” territory.
I wouldn’t normally fly directly toward tall structures in low-visibility conditions such as this, but I knew that finding these towers was critical to us finding home. Fortunately, both the weather and my tunnel vision cleared a bit at just the right time. And suddenly, right there in front of us, appeared two of the most beautiful ugly old radio towers one has ever seen.
“I have the towers” I called. “Right turn.”
“Clear right,” answered the crew chief.
There was now just one more landmark left to locate—a place called Retrans Hill—before we could turn for the landing zone. At first glance through the tunnel vision and bad weather, Retrans Hill was likewise nowhere to be found. And to make matters worse, while we were looking for it, another call came in from my crew chief. “We’re on fire again back here!” he said.
“Alright, I’ve had about enough of this,” I thought, as I radioed another update. “Cutty 76,” I said, “I’m on fire again, and I can’t find Retrans Hill. I’m putting it down here.” I peered through my chin bubble and decreased my collective as I searched for a decent, defensible position to land.
“Turn right, right now!” replied the CW4. I immediately looked out my door and saw the sight of the familiar hill, which was much closer than normal. Greatly relieved, I could now turn my attention to our much-anticipated parking spot. We were almost home.
One Thumb Is Enough
After completing all the verbal pre-landing checks, I briefed the copilot on the landing itself. “Alright,” I said, “I’m gonna do a roll-on into the pad because I don’t know what kind of control I’m going to have when we get down there. Once we’ve stopped, I want you to do an emergency engine shutdown of both engines.”
The copilot, still with a broken microphone, raised both fists with his thumbs pointing upward. Unfortunately, this is the same hand motion a UH-60 aviator would use if reaching for the power control levers and executing an immediate emergency engine shutdown complete with follow-on autorotation. Now it was my turn for my eyes to be as wide as saucers. We were on final and slowing to a 60-kt ground speed; an autorotation now would not be a pleasant experience.
“No! No! No!” I yelled. Startled, the copilot flailed both hands in front of him. “Wait until we’re on the ground!” I said. He tucked his hands in his armpits and stared at me. He later told me he was only trying to give me two thumbs up to signal he’d heard and understood my instructions. I accepted his explanation but added, “In the Black Hawk, one thumb is enough.”
I then landed the aircraft, and the copilot shut down the engines as planned. Concerned about a potential additional fire, I said, “I’ll hold the controls until the blades stop. Get out! Get out! Get out!” As the blades coasted down, a team of battalion aid station trucks, medics, and other aircrews rushed out to assist us and unload the patients.
Damage Assessment
Upon exiting myself, I (at the request of a medic) took a seat on the ground several feet away from my shot-up helicopter and surveyed the damage. Cutty 75 was bleeding out fuel on the tarmac. The aircraft had received numerous bullet impacts, including hits to the windscreen, center console (see Figure 2), cabin, and fuselage. The medevac carousel was also hit, which set the nylon backboard on fire. Still, that the helicopter remained airborne throughout the ordeal and was able to safely land (see Figure 3) is a testament to both the manufacturer and all the survivability researchers, testers, modelers, and others who’ve continued to work to make the Black Hawk one of the toughest rotorcraft in the U.S. inventory.
As for the crew of Cutty 75, the copilot sustained multiple cuts across his face and neck from the bullet tearing through the glass windscreen, and the medic had a minor shrapnel injury to one arm. Fortunately, these injuries were able to be treated at the FOB’s battalion aid station. My shrapnel injuries—to my left hand, left calf, and back of my left leg—earned me my own ride as a medevac patient, first with the second-up Balad crew, who took me to the new hospital later that evening, and then with the U.S. Air Force, who took me back to the good old U.S. of A. But for these flights, I was more than happy to let someone else drive.
About the Author
COL Bryan Munsch currently serves in the Colorado Army National Guard and is a student at the National Defense University College of Information and Cyberspace. During his 23+ years of military service, he’s completed three deployments (two to Iraq and one to Kosovo) and logged more than 1,500 hr of flight time in the UH-60. He holds a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and a master’s degree in systems engineering from Colorado Technical University. He is also a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and is Space Operations Qualified (FA40).
