Re: engine troop sucked into the engine of a b-66/j75 engine
I was a recip engine mechanic with Base Flight when this happened and I think of this terrible accident often. That night I was returning to the barracks after a late night on the town and found my bunk neighbor sitting upright and crying profusely. As I remember it, he was one of the men in the cockpit during the run. I do not recall his name. I also remember that within a very brief time there were many cages available as if magic - where did they come from? As a side note, when I was later stationed at Dyess AFB in Abilene, TX I was sent out to work at the Jet Shop Test Cell. I would reach out to touch the tremendous rush of air being sucked in to the inlet at max power. This "tickling the tail of the tiger" for me brought back morbid images of that night in Thailand. As in Thailand, we had no cages at the test cell at Dyess. I did not know that the EB-66 that landed in the red mud between the runway and the taxiway was the same aircraft.
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