On May 13, 1995, the control tower at Mountain Home Airforce Base received a call from the cockpit of a C-130 Hercules that was returning to Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs on a routine training mission. The crew reported an “in-flight emergency” that would divert them from their course to Mountain Home. The plane disappeared from radar before they could say what the emergency was.
The C-130 went down in a fiery crash at about 3 pm in the high-desert foothills about 12 miles north of Bliss, killing all six crewmembers. When first responders reached the crash site, they found wreckage scattered over a 3-mile area in pieces so small that sheriff deputies could not immediately determine the type of plane that had crashed.
The cause of the crash was later determined to be a faulty undertemp sensor on one engine. The sensor reading caused the crew to enrich the fuel mixture to bring the temperature up. Since the fuel was not at low temp, the adjustment overheated one of the fuel lines. It ruptured, causing an engine fire. The crew attempted to jettison the engine, but the release failed to work properly, causing severe wing and fuselage damage, leading to the crash.
Commemorating the crash on-site has become an annual event. Here’s a report on the commemoration on May 2024, the 29th anniversary of the crash from Rusty Faircloth, retired USAF MSgt.
“We made it out to the site on 4 May, and cleaned up the site while retiring the previous flag that was in place, we also added 6 small flags for the 6 members that perished, replaced the big flag with a flag that was flown during numerous combat support missions in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2003 through 2008 that was donated by CMSgt (Ret) Slappey. CMSgt (Ret) Wayne Slappey was a C-130 Chief Flight Engineer with the 189th Airlift Squadron/124th Wing Idaho National Guard @ Gowen Air Field (Boise, Idaho). He carried a few flags with him during all of those missions. The flags were flown on both C-130E & H models. He has held onto these flags all of these years waiting for the right moment to come along to present them in an appropriate format. He felt like this was one of those moments.
CMSgt (Ret) Slappey's unit (189th Airlift Squadron) converted to C-130's in Jan 1996. In preparation for the conversion, He was one of several members of the squadron who visited six different C-130 units to look at their programs and procedures, and the 302AW at Peterson AFB, CO was one of those units.
Names of Individuals who assisted
CMSgt (Ret) Wayne Slappey & Lynn Slappey
MSgt (Ret) Rusty Faircloth & Laura Faircloth
TSgt (Ret) Shawn Heckathorne & Darcy Heckathorne
Mr. Adam Kennedy & Jennifer Kennedy
The C-130 went down in a fiery crash at about 3 pm in the high-desert foothills about 12 miles north of Bliss, killing all six crewmembers. When first responders reached the crash site, they found wreckage scattered over a 3-mile area in pieces so small that sheriff deputies could not immediately determine the type of plane that had crashed.
The cause of the crash was later determined to be a faulty undertemp sensor on one engine. The sensor reading caused the crew to enrich the fuel mixture to bring the temperature up. Since the fuel was not at low temp, the adjustment overheated one of the fuel lines. It ruptured, causing an engine fire. The crew attempted to jettison the engine, but the release failed to work properly, causing severe wing and fuselage damage, leading to the crash.
Commemorating the crash on-site has become an annual event. Here’s a report on the commemoration on May 2024, the 29th anniversary of the crash from Rusty Faircloth, retired USAF MSgt.
“We made it out to the site on 4 May, and cleaned up the site while retiring the previous flag that was in place, we also added 6 small flags for the 6 members that perished, replaced the big flag with a flag that was flown during numerous combat support missions in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2003 through 2008 that was donated by CMSgt (Ret) Slappey. CMSgt (Ret) Wayne Slappey was a C-130 Chief Flight Engineer with the 189th Airlift Squadron/124th Wing Idaho National Guard @ Gowen Air Field (Boise, Idaho). He carried a few flags with him during all of those missions. The flags were flown on both C-130E & H models. He has held onto these flags all of these years waiting for the right moment to come along to present them in an appropriate format. He felt like this was one of those moments.
CMSgt (Ret) Slappey's unit (189th Airlift Squadron) converted to C-130's in Jan 1996. In preparation for the conversion, He was one of several members of the squadron who visited six different C-130 units to look at their programs and procedures, and the 302AW at Peterson AFB, CO was one of those units.
Names of Individuals who assisted
CMSgt (Ret) Wayne Slappey & Lynn Slappey
MSgt (Ret) Rusty Faircloth & Laura Faircloth
TSgt (Ret) Shawn Heckathorne & Darcy Heckathorne
Mr. Adam Kennedy & Jennifer Kennedy
Lockheed AC-130. (2024, June 26). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_AC-130
Left to right are TSgt (Ret) Shawn Heckathorne, CMSgt (Ret) Wayne Slappey. MSgt (Ret) Rusty Faircloth, Adam Kennedy at the memorial sight. They replaced the American flag and cleaned up around the memorial.
Also assisting with. refreshing the memorial were Lynn Slappey, Darcy Heckathorne, Laura Faircloth, and Jennifer Kennedy.
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