Mayday (2013) s07e05 Episode Script
Operation Babylift
NARRATOR: At the chaotic end of a bitter war .
.
the world's largest airplane is loaded with orphans and headed for safety.
We needed to get out of missile range.
But only minutes into their escape (EXPLOSION, ALARM BLARES) .
.
the plane is out of control and headed for the ground.
Prepare for emergency landing! (CRASH!) (BABIES CRY) And thenit was quiet.
South Vietnam, April 1975.
(BOOM!) (BOOM!) After more than 10 years of fighting, the United States is on the verge of defeat.
The end of the war is fast approaching.
The enemy is closing in on the capital.
On April 4 at a military base in the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon .
.
a strange cargo is being loaded onto an enormous C5-A Galaxy.
This is one of the largest planes in the world.
The C5-A is primarily a cargo plane.
Its hold is wide enough to carry tanks and tall enough to move buses.
Above the cargo area, there's a small number of seats.
Both the passenger area and the cargo bay are being pressed into service today.
Dozens of Vietnamese orphans are being loaded onto the plane to be flown to safety.
There are thousands of orphans to be flown out before the North Vietnamese take Saigon.
Barb Adams works for the American embassy.
She and her daughter Linda are also fleeing.
(BABIES CRY) LINDA ADAMS: On April 4, my mom came home and told me that I had one hour to pack one suitcase and that we were going to be escorting the orphans on an orphan airlift back to the United States.
When my mother and went upstairs to the troop compartment, there's traditional airline seats and all of the the seats were filled with babies.
Sergeant Ray Snedegar is in charge of loading the plane's massive cargo bay.
Make sure it's secure.
We've got people down there.
It was hard to control the situation.
So many people were there, so much news media, so many people from the orphanages, so many military people, that it was actually pure chaos.
Just the day before, American president Gerald Ford announced the start of this desperate mission of mercy, a remarkable effort called Operation Babylift.
I have directed that C5-A aircraft and other aircraft especially equipped to care for these orphans during the flight be sent to Saigon.
I expect these flights to begin within the next 36 to 48 hours.
Arnold Isaacs was covering the end of the war for the 'Baltimore Sun'.
We had transport aircraft flying into Saigon every day, unloading military supplies and going back empty.
And so it was decided that they could carry out the orphans on those returning flights.
There were a lot of cameras and reporters out there covering the loading and the departure of the plane.
Captain Bud Traynor is in charge of Operation Babylift's first flight.
I got a call from the command post back in the States.
And they said to me, "How many people could you take out of Saigon "if you were asked?" Because of the last-minute nature of the flight, they're running behind schedule.
The plane is already five hours late and Captain Traynor wants to be in the air.
He orders the cargo bay doors to be closed.
Tell 'em we want the doors closed.
Loadmaster, close cargo bay doors.
(BABIES CRY) The youngest of the 145 children have been crammed into the upper passenger section of the jet.
Ina.
Have a good flight, Ina.
There are 102 older children in the cargo area below.
A number of adults from the American embassy are also down here, keeping an eye on the orphans.
Getting out of Vietnam starts by leaving the safety of the US base.
Advancing throttles now.
Time.
Go.
Gear up.
I remember that we had to take off at a pretty steep angle.
And we didn't have seats, so we were to kneel on the floor between the seats during take-off.
The cargo plane is heading for Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines.
It's a 2.
5-hour flight.
From there, the orphans will be sent to adoption agencies in North America and Australia.
We needed to take off from Saigon and make a very rapid ascent to get out of missile range.
Cargo planes are easy targets.
They're slow-moving and large.
The possibility of an attack is very real.
How's the air in the troop compartment? It's alright.
The babies still squalling or they quieted down with all the noise? Most are asleep.
Just as well.
Then, shortly after take-off .
.
as the plane climbs through 23,000 feet (EXPLOSION, ALARM BLARES) TRAYNOR: When the rapid decompression occurred, the plane filled with this mist.
And so, until it dissipates, it'syou cannot see.
And there was this loud explosion, one quick bang.
What was that? And she said, "I'm not sure" and you could feel the plane heading downward.
Debris started flying around.
It's a classic decompression.
Somewhere there's a massive hole in the plane's fuselage.
The air inside the jet is rushing out.
At 23,000ft, there's barely enough oxygen to breathe.
So I looked over at the copilot and he was putting on his oxygen mask.
And I thought, "I'd better do that too.
" The oxygen masks have dropped automatically, but on such an overcrowded flight, there aren't enough to go round.
The ones that are available weren't designed to reach babies.
As I looked out the window, I saw the ocean and I said to my mom, I said, "We're crashing, aren't we?' At the back of the passenger compartment, Lieutenant Marcia Wirtz checks in with the crew.
From there, she can usually see down to the cargo bay below her.
Pilot, this is Wirtz.
I'm at the top grate of the troop compartment.
I can see the China Sea out the rear of the plane.
- What?! - The cargo door is gone.
With more than 300 people on board, Captain Bud Traynor's jet has lost its breathable air.
Somehow his massive aircraft has been badly damaged.
And he's a long way from a safe place to land.
The inaugural flight of Operation Babylift will not make it out of Vietnam.
The next few minutes will determine if anyone even survives.
Oxygen levels are dangerously low.
Unlike the passenger compartment above, there are only a few portable masks for passengers in the cargo bay.
My first priority after a rapid decompression is to get the aircraft back down to a breathing altitude for all the passengers, which is 10,000 feet.
I'm taking it back to the airport.
And so I turned 180 degrees and now I'm heading back for Saigon.
- But before he gets back to Saigon - Sergeant Snedegar! .
.
Traynor needs to know how bad the situation is.
The airplane is going down in a left bank.
At that particular point, I had sensed that we're going down.
I go to the cockpit.
- Sir! - See what's going on.
And Captain Traynor tells me to go to the cargo compartment to see what's happening down there.
When I was in my descent, I went to my maximum speed, which is what you're supposed to do to get to 10,000 feet.
I got to my maximum speed and I pulled back on the yoke and nothing happened.
I kept going faster and faster and faster.
Traynor's plane is diving to the ground and he can't get it to pull up.
At the back of the plane, Ray Snedegar descends into the centre of the storm.
When I came down, I noticed there was a lot of chaos in the cargo compartment - obviously people were frightened.
So I'm actually crawling and stepping over people that are combat loaded on the floor.
And I saw this huge gaping hole in the back of the airplane.
All daylight back there.
And then Snedegar spots what could be an even more serious problem.
Hydraulic fluid is pumping out.
Control cables are dangling in the breeze, flopping back and forward.
And it just reminded me of looking at some spaghetti.
That was the first thought in my mind.
The flight engineer also notices that the plane is losing its hydraulic fluid fast.
Pilot.
We've lost the number one hydraulic system.
We've just lost number two hydraulics.
Hydraulic fluid helps the crew move the massive control surfaces on the plane.
The rudder and elevator at the back and the ailerons and flaps on the wing.
There are four separate hydraulic systems on the plane.
Now two of them are completely empty.
And as Traynor dives towards 10,000 feet, his plane is going much faster than it should and he can't pull up.
TRAYNOR: And I kept pulling back on the yoke, thinking that I could slow it down.
Pulled back more and more and more.
I'm not getting anything out of the yoke.
- How about you? - Nothing.
And we were just totally puzzled.
What is going wrong? Pulling on his yoke should bring the plane's nose up and slow it down.
If he can't pull the plane up soon, it'll plough straight into the ground.
And I'm concerned at that point, we're still falling.
We're not levelling out.
In the belly of the plane, Ray Snedegar reports what he sees to the cockpit.
Pilot! Cargo bay! Go ahead.
I told him part of the ramp was missing.
The pressure door was gone and hydraulic lines and control cables had been cut.
The problem is now much worse than we thought.
Declare an emergency.
Saigon, this is MAC 80218.
We're declaring emergency.
We require immediate return to base.
(BABIES CRY) Unlike commercial airlines, there was nobody that came onto the PA system and announced what was happening.
So I just kind of focused on the children.
After struggling with his crippled jet, Traynor's efforts finally seem to pay off.
And now the airplane levels itself off and I say, "Wow.
"Thank goodness that we're finally making it out of this.
" As quickly as it levelled off, the plane begins to climb again.
The nose of the jet begins pulling up into the sky.
And so I relax the yoke.
And what happens? Nothing.
I'm still going straight up now.
Unless Traynor can gain some speed, his plane will soon stall and tumble from the sky.
And it got higher and higher.
And pretty soon, I'm going almost straight up.
In desperation, he dips one wing, forcing the nose down.
I am now in a very, very steep dive and there's nothing I can do, seemingly, to bring the nose up.
And so, counterintuitive, I added power.
And when I did that, the airplane pulled itself out of the dive and I started to go back up again.
But this time, I stopped it at 10,000 feet and rolled out and I realised I had learned how to control the airplane.
Traynor can't control his plane's pitch as he usually does, by pushing and pulling on his control column.
Instead, by gently increasing and decreasing power to his engines, he seems to be able to keep his plane level.
At that point, I realised that my only pitch control was the throttle.
The plane has descended to 10,000ft.
There's now enough oxygen to breathe.
100.
It is safe to remove our masks.
Gear down.
Perform landing checklist.
I headed directly for Saigon and began a descent and began positioning myself for a final, much like you would in a glider.
Don't worry.
They're taking care of it up in the cockpit.
We're gonna be out soon.
I'm trying to provide comfort to these passengers.
At the same time, I know we're in serious trouble because the airplane is still going down.
Captain Traynor has coaxed his injured jet down to just over 4,000ft.
11km from the airport, he turns his jet to line up with the runway when his plane surprises him again.
TRAYNOR: In the final turn to the runway, when I banked the airplane, the nose dropped and I couldn't continue my turn.
I had to level the wings so that I had enough lift that the nose didn't keep descending.
Captain Traynor had to stop turning before he could line up with the runway.
He's now losing altitude fast and his prospects are becoming increasingly grim.
SNEDEGAR: While we were working in the cargo department, the loadmaster said to me, "We need to get upstairs "'cause we're gonna crash land.
" When I get to the top of the ladder, I've changed my mind and think, "I need to be in the cargo compartment "when this airplane does get on the runway "so I can help evacuate down there.
" As I try to leave, the flight engineer grabs me by my left elbow, throws me into a seat.
And about the time I hit the seat, I can hear the ground screaming.
(SCREECH!) It's a loud scream that's coming closer.
Prepare for an imminent crash landing.
Get down on the floor! Prepare for emergency landing! The plane is hurtling towards the ground at almost 500 kilometres per hour.
I reached down, grabbed my seatbelt.
Then when the seatbelt snaps (SCREAMING) (BABIES CRY) We touched the ground relatively easily and we popped back in the air.
The jump seat said to me, "Bud, we're gonna make it!" But I could see looming ahead of me was this huge, huge river.
So I added power.
(SMASH!) My whole life went into slow-motion.
The airplane was coming apart where I'm sitting.
All kind of debris is flying through the air.
And it went on and on and on.
It seemed like forever.
When I was going upside down, I remember saying goodbye to my wife a couple of times 'cause I was a goner.
And then .
.
it was quiet.
(BABIES CRY) At that point, it was all a little bit surreal that I didn't even really know what had just happened.
All I knew was that we needed to get the babies out of there.
Traynor and the rest of the cockpit crew have survived.
When I stepped out of the window, it was clear, after you looked around, the airplane broke up into its component parts.
The tail dropped off, the flight deck broke away, the troop compartment in the wings, they separated from the cargo compartment.
The cargo compartment itself disintegrated, essentially.
Behind the cockpit, the plane's wings, which hold the fuel tanks, are burning.
The passenger section of the plane is largely intact and separated from the scorching heat of the burning wings.
Lieutenant Wirtz and many others who had been in the passenger section survive.
Then we started bringing babies out.
And I could hear some helicopters coming.
At that point, I was not looking for my mother 'cause I had been assured that she was OK.
I was to go to the hospital and just wait for her there.
And then that's when I took a couple of the babies and walked over and got on.
A day that began with the promise of hope .
.
has ended in disaster.
Just minutes after the crash of the first Babylift mission, rescue workers are on the scene searching for survivors.
Almost everyone in the cargo area was killed instantly .
.
when the plane slammed down the second time.
The dead, the injured and the survivors are taken to hospitals in Saigon and Thailand.
Since I was not injured, I just took a seat and was waiting for my mother while they brought in a lot of the babies.
Then somebody came over to me and told me that my mother had died.
I remember holding on for dear life so she said, "Come over here and sit with me.
" Barb Adams' last decision was to be near her daughter.
Just as I sat down on the floor, we must have hit.
And she flew forward somewhere.
And that's the last time I saw my mother.
175 people survive the crash of the air force jet.
But more than 150 have been killed.
More than half of them were children.
No.
The investigation begins immediately.
The next day, along with the investigators, Captain Bud Traynor returns to the smouldering wreckage of his plane.
I had a very naive approach to what was going to happen next.
I kind of envisioned the guys in the silver helmets would put out the white rope.
This is going to be a secure site.
And that was when I got the shock that, "Hey, there are no guards out here.
" There's a Vietnamese soldier going through my suitcase, wearing my flight jacket.
And he had an AR-15 and I didn't.
That's my jacket.
I'm Bud Traynor.
And we established that my coat had the same name on it That's mine.
.
.
as my flight suit, and so the coat he was wearing was mine.
So he begrudgingly gave me my coat and then proceeded to go through the rest of my suitcase.
It's not only Traynor's jacket.
Looters are picking the plane clean.
Dave Scheiding is a structural engineer with the air force.
When we got to the site, we had some concern to begin with because there was a tremendous amount of civilian people out there actually picking up parts, which, of course, that didn't help us much as far as the investigation goes.
He's part of a team that goes to Saigon to try to figure out why the plane crashed.
This investigation was very unique from a couple of standpoints.
The first standpoint, of course, are the people taking parts away from us.
But second, the country was in extreme chaos.
It was essentially falling.
Frank Huskin is also part of the investigative team.
The MVA and the Vietcong are all around and we were only out there during the daytime but it was a very uncomfortable feeling.
Very uncomfortable feeling.
One of the first things we wanted to rule out was sabotage and a bomb.
So we brought in dogs from the Philippines, bomb-sniffing dogs.
Take them back there to the rear of the plane.
With North Vietnamese soldiers so close, a direct attack or sabotage are obvious theories.
During the rush to board the aircraft, personal luggage was loaded but not thoroughly checked.
This added to the speculation that a bomb may have been smuggled onboard.
The dogs find no trace of a bomb and investigators find no evidence of explosive residue on the plane.
It clearly wasn't attacked.
But something had caused the cargo door to fail.
We had to find the doors, if at all possible, to make sure that we didn't have a problem with other C5s that would cause this type of crash.
Soon, the massive C5-As will be desperately needed to get America out of Vietnam.
Finding out what happened to this one couldn't be more urgent.
Hey, guys.
As they examined the wreckage, investigators also try to find out why the crew had such difficulty controlling the plane.
Look at how this is sheared off.
The cables that Ray Snedegar saw leaking hydraulic fluid were the ones that controlled the plane's elevator.
Since the elevator controls pitch, Captain Traynor had no way of guiding his plane up and down.
- Cargo bay! - Declare an emergency.
Saigon.
An emergency.
An emergency.
When there's no control of the elevator which allows for up-and-down pitch, an airplane will set up an oscillation up and down.
His oscillation started as the nose was going down and it picked up speed and then it started pitching up.
A falling plane's aerodynamic properties will force it to follow a predictable pattern.
As lift increases, the nose naturally tilts upwards.
Without the elevators to counteract the motion, it will continue until the plane moves so slowly that it stalls, falling back to the ground.
It explains the strange motion of the giant C5-A.
By adjusting the thrust to his engines, Traynor was able to keep the jet from rising and falling.
Investigators believe the cables were sheared off when the cargo door exploded from the plane.
But they still don't know why the door failed in the first place.
In the end, we made the determination we were gonna have to try and find the doors.
But the doors are somewhere at the bottom of the South China Sea.
Our next problem was trying to figure out the ballistics of those doors.
Nobody had ever even thought of figuring out ballistics of two doors flying through the air from 23,000ft.
Relying on the airspeed and the altitude at the moment of decompression, investigators learn the plane was 46 kilometres from the coast of Vietnam.
When the doors went out, the airplane was moving across the water at about 600ft per second.
Therefore, we had to come down with a pretty good estimate for the Navy to even know where to look.
Ships from the US 7th fleet crisscrossed the South China Sea looking for the rear door.
For the first several days, they can't find anything.
The South China Sea has swallowed the evidence.
At the crash site, investigators are becoming increasingly frustrated.
A great deal of wreckage has been stolen by scavengers.
An important clue could be among the pieces taken away.
To retrieve these parts, the air force offers to buy them back.
The strategy was to provide leaflets throughout the city of Saigon and the surrounding area.
"We want every piece of material from the aircraft back "and we will also pay you if you will turn this in to us.
" 11 days after the crash, flyers are delivered to local officials and distributed throughout the city.
Another piece of the wreck turned in during the buyback program is just what they're looking for.
We were trying to get the black boxes back because that's the thing we really wanted.
All C5-As are fitted with a computer system that records vital information about the plane's operation.
It records engine settings, airspeed, altitude and hundreds of other parameters onto a magnetic tape.
The system is called MADAR - Malfunction Detection, Analysis and Recording system.
It wasn't found at the crash site.
The MADAR is eventually returned for a reward, but it proves to be a disappointment.
It didn't identify the reason for the doors and the ramps failing but it did provide us a sequence of events in a lot of areas including altitude, airspeed, uhthe performance of the aircraft itself during that time frame.
As investigators continue to look for the cause of the crash, the situation in Vietnam gets worse.
Two days after they receive the MADAR, the South Vietnamese president resigns.
On April 23, 100,000 North Vietnamese troops approach Saigon.
The noose around the city is tightening quickly.
While we were out in the rice paddy you could see burning hamlets and villages and in the distance they were on fire.
You could hear the explosions and so forth of mortars.
While the situation in Vietnam continues to unravel, the US Navy finally has some success at sea.
On April 26, they find the cargo ramp and part of the pressure door of Traynor's plane.
If investigators don't find the answers here, they may not find them anywhere.
They're running out of time and they're running out of leads.
When the ramp is examined, investigators make a disturbing discovery.
On that ramp, two of the stirrups were in great condition - They were perfect.
They had not failed so obviously it told us that at least two of the locks had just unlocked themselves.
The C5-A has 14 locks holding the rear cargo door shut - 7 on each side.
The door recovered from the sea tells investigators that for some reason, three of the locks designed to hold it shut had either unlocked in flight or had never locked at all.
This flight was actually like a ticking bomb.
When they closed the ramps, all those locks would look like they were in a locked position.
When it took off, a fuse was lit, and as the aircraft climbed up, the fuse kept burning.
As the plane climbed away from Saigon, the pressure outside the jet dropped.
The air inside pushed with increasing force against the cargo door.
Then as the plane passed through 23,000ft, with three latches unlocked, the pressure on the door was too much.
- (BANG!) - (SCREAMING) With the three locks that failed all in a row, it was just too much load for the other four locks to actually pick up, which resulted in the catastrophic failure of the ramp itself.
But investigators still don't know why the locks failed.
Before they can find the answer, the situation in Vietnam deteriorates completely.
Saigon is under siege.
On April 27, the investigators take all of the evidence they can and leave.
It's simply too dangerous to stay.
When we left Saigon, we were the last two C-141s to leave Tan Son Air Base.
They were essentially losing their country at that time and after that, it was only helicopters that got out.
Investigators hope they have all the clues they need to solve the mystery of the crash.
They know they won't be coming back to Vietnam to look for any more.
(GUNFIRE) April 30, 1975.
The war in Vietnam ends.
From the rooftop of the American Embassy, the last remaining Americans in Vietnam are flown to safety.
Back in the United States, investigators continue their work.
Since the C5 is in service around the world, they need to know why three locks on the cargo door failed.
Investigators discover something potentially alarming about the cargo plane's rear door.
Parts from the C5-A were actually removed from the plane, cannibalised to service another cargo plane.
The locks on the rear door of the C5-A are connected to each other by a series of tie rods.
The rods can be lengthened or shortened to ensure the locks are completely closed.
It's these tie rods which were removed from the Babylift plane.
At the time, the enormous cargo planes were in constant demand.
The air force was very short of parts and so they came up with a standard practice for maintenance that they could cannibalise parts off of aircrafts that are not being flown.
It's authorised and it's a good operation if you respect it and treat it properly.
The tie rods were replaced before the Babylift plane left for Saigon, but for some reason they hadn't held.
To try to figure out what happened, investigators rebuild one of the locks that was supposed to keep the rear door closed.
We essentially built a working model of that ramp and we had to do that, because we didn't get all the parts back because the people picking them up, parts out in the ocean and everything that we never got back.
Investigators aren't convinced that the problem is in the basic design of the lock.
They suspect that before the plane left California, the engineers who replaced the rods didn't follow the proper procedures.
When we're talking about the locks, the distances that we're talking about are very, very small.
We could be talking about a 16th, 32nd of an inch difference between being locked and unlocked.
The re-rigging was done before the plane left the United States.
Show me how you re-rig it.
After the locks were re-rigged, they should have checked to make sure they were working.
That wasn't done.
Without the check, no-one would have noticed that the re-rigging was done improperly.
When the door was opened and shut in Saigon, there was a warning that not everything was perfect.
We had some difficulty getting it to lock so we had to open and close it three or four times.
But it seemed to be routine and in the heat of the moment, we didn't we didn't think anything about it.
But 12 minutes after lift-off, as the plane continued to climb, the three improperly closed locks were forced open by the building air pressure.
The remaining locks could not take the extra load.
(BOOM!) The cargo door burst open and was torn off the fuselage.
You just can't take short cuts.
And if it's pulling a couple of rods out, run out and put 'em back in, that's not gonna hack it.
The investigators have found their answers and in their final report, make specific recommendations that will make the C5-A safer.
We essentially Murphy-proofed it by putting steel pins in there so that when the lock is in the over-centre position, if you can insert the safety pins, then you know that the system is properly rigged.
After 28 years of service, Bud Traynor retired from the air force as a colonel.
I think everyone second-guesses themselves to see if there was something else that they could do.
I am very fortunate in that I never found something that I said, "I sure wish I had done X.
" Surviving crew members, including Captain Bud Traynor and Sergeant Ray Snedegar, were awarded medals by the air force for heroism and extraordinary achievement.
(BABY CRIES) One of the orphans that survived was baby Ina.
April 4, 1975.
It's definitely a pivotal point in my life .
.
where I left part of myself behind in Vietnam.
When Operation Babylift resumed, Kelly, along with hundreds of other orphans, were flown to the United States.
She was eventually adopted by a family near Seattle, Washington.
There was a 25-year anniversary in April of 2000 and it brought together all of the adults that were adopted from Vietnam and I've ended up meeting someone who was very special and actually ended up marrying.
Chris Brownlee and his wife Kelly were both airlifted out of Vietnam on April 5, 1975 - one day after the crash.
Supertext Captions by Red Bee Media Australia
.
the world's largest airplane is loaded with orphans and headed for safety.
We needed to get out of missile range.
But only minutes into their escape (EXPLOSION, ALARM BLARES) .
.
the plane is out of control and headed for the ground.
Prepare for emergency landing! (CRASH!) (BABIES CRY) And thenit was quiet.
South Vietnam, April 1975.
(BOOM!) (BOOM!) After more than 10 years of fighting, the United States is on the verge of defeat.
The end of the war is fast approaching.
The enemy is closing in on the capital.
On April 4 at a military base in the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon .
.
a strange cargo is being loaded onto an enormous C5-A Galaxy.
This is one of the largest planes in the world.
The C5-A is primarily a cargo plane.
Its hold is wide enough to carry tanks and tall enough to move buses.
Above the cargo area, there's a small number of seats.
Both the passenger area and the cargo bay are being pressed into service today.
Dozens of Vietnamese orphans are being loaded onto the plane to be flown to safety.
There are thousands of orphans to be flown out before the North Vietnamese take Saigon.
Barb Adams works for the American embassy.
She and her daughter Linda are also fleeing.
(BABIES CRY) LINDA ADAMS: On April 4, my mom came home and told me that I had one hour to pack one suitcase and that we were going to be escorting the orphans on an orphan airlift back to the United States.
When my mother and went upstairs to the troop compartment, there's traditional airline seats and all of the the seats were filled with babies.
Sergeant Ray Snedegar is in charge of loading the plane's massive cargo bay.
Make sure it's secure.
We've got people down there.
It was hard to control the situation.
So many people were there, so much news media, so many people from the orphanages, so many military people, that it was actually pure chaos.
Just the day before, American president Gerald Ford announced the start of this desperate mission of mercy, a remarkable effort called Operation Babylift.
I have directed that C5-A aircraft and other aircraft especially equipped to care for these orphans during the flight be sent to Saigon.
I expect these flights to begin within the next 36 to 48 hours.
Arnold Isaacs was covering the end of the war for the 'Baltimore Sun'.
We had transport aircraft flying into Saigon every day, unloading military supplies and going back empty.
And so it was decided that they could carry out the orphans on those returning flights.
There were a lot of cameras and reporters out there covering the loading and the departure of the plane.
Captain Bud Traynor is in charge of Operation Babylift's first flight.
I got a call from the command post back in the States.
And they said to me, "How many people could you take out of Saigon "if you were asked?" Because of the last-minute nature of the flight, they're running behind schedule.
The plane is already five hours late and Captain Traynor wants to be in the air.
He orders the cargo bay doors to be closed.
Tell 'em we want the doors closed.
Loadmaster, close cargo bay doors.
(BABIES CRY) The youngest of the 145 children have been crammed into the upper passenger section of the jet.
Ina.
Have a good flight, Ina.
There are 102 older children in the cargo area below.
A number of adults from the American embassy are also down here, keeping an eye on the orphans.
Getting out of Vietnam starts by leaving the safety of the US base.
Advancing throttles now.
Time.
Go.
Gear up.
I remember that we had to take off at a pretty steep angle.
And we didn't have seats, so we were to kneel on the floor between the seats during take-off.
The cargo plane is heading for Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines.
It's a 2.
5-hour flight.
From there, the orphans will be sent to adoption agencies in North America and Australia.
We needed to take off from Saigon and make a very rapid ascent to get out of missile range.
Cargo planes are easy targets.
They're slow-moving and large.
The possibility of an attack is very real.
How's the air in the troop compartment? It's alright.
The babies still squalling or they quieted down with all the noise? Most are asleep.
Just as well.
Then, shortly after take-off .
.
as the plane climbs through 23,000 feet (EXPLOSION, ALARM BLARES) TRAYNOR: When the rapid decompression occurred, the plane filled with this mist.
And so, until it dissipates, it'syou cannot see.
And there was this loud explosion, one quick bang.
What was that? And she said, "I'm not sure" and you could feel the plane heading downward.
Debris started flying around.
It's a classic decompression.
Somewhere there's a massive hole in the plane's fuselage.
The air inside the jet is rushing out.
At 23,000ft, there's barely enough oxygen to breathe.
So I looked over at the copilot and he was putting on his oxygen mask.
And I thought, "I'd better do that too.
" The oxygen masks have dropped automatically, but on such an overcrowded flight, there aren't enough to go round.
The ones that are available weren't designed to reach babies.
As I looked out the window, I saw the ocean and I said to my mom, I said, "We're crashing, aren't we?' At the back of the passenger compartment, Lieutenant Marcia Wirtz checks in with the crew.
From there, she can usually see down to the cargo bay below her.
Pilot, this is Wirtz.
I'm at the top grate of the troop compartment.
I can see the China Sea out the rear of the plane.
- What?! - The cargo door is gone.
With more than 300 people on board, Captain Bud Traynor's jet has lost its breathable air.
Somehow his massive aircraft has been badly damaged.
And he's a long way from a safe place to land.
The inaugural flight of Operation Babylift will not make it out of Vietnam.
The next few minutes will determine if anyone even survives.
Oxygen levels are dangerously low.
Unlike the passenger compartment above, there are only a few portable masks for passengers in the cargo bay.
My first priority after a rapid decompression is to get the aircraft back down to a breathing altitude for all the passengers, which is 10,000 feet.
I'm taking it back to the airport.
And so I turned 180 degrees and now I'm heading back for Saigon.
- But before he gets back to Saigon - Sergeant Snedegar! .
.
Traynor needs to know how bad the situation is.
The airplane is going down in a left bank.
At that particular point, I had sensed that we're going down.
I go to the cockpit.
- Sir! - See what's going on.
And Captain Traynor tells me to go to the cargo compartment to see what's happening down there.
When I was in my descent, I went to my maximum speed, which is what you're supposed to do to get to 10,000 feet.
I got to my maximum speed and I pulled back on the yoke and nothing happened.
I kept going faster and faster and faster.
Traynor's plane is diving to the ground and he can't get it to pull up.
At the back of the plane, Ray Snedegar descends into the centre of the storm.
When I came down, I noticed there was a lot of chaos in the cargo compartment - obviously people were frightened.
So I'm actually crawling and stepping over people that are combat loaded on the floor.
And I saw this huge gaping hole in the back of the airplane.
All daylight back there.
And then Snedegar spots what could be an even more serious problem.
Hydraulic fluid is pumping out.
Control cables are dangling in the breeze, flopping back and forward.
And it just reminded me of looking at some spaghetti.
That was the first thought in my mind.
The flight engineer also notices that the plane is losing its hydraulic fluid fast.
Pilot.
We've lost the number one hydraulic system.
We've just lost number two hydraulics.
Hydraulic fluid helps the crew move the massive control surfaces on the plane.
The rudder and elevator at the back and the ailerons and flaps on the wing.
There are four separate hydraulic systems on the plane.
Now two of them are completely empty.
And as Traynor dives towards 10,000 feet, his plane is going much faster than it should and he can't pull up.
TRAYNOR: And I kept pulling back on the yoke, thinking that I could slow it down.
Pulled back more and more and more.
I'm not getting anything out of the yoke.
- How about you? - Nothing.
And we were just totally puzzled.
What is going wrong? Pulling on his yoke should bring the plane's nose up and slow it down.
If he can't pull the plane up soon, it'll plough straight into the ground.
And I'm concerned at that point, we're still falling.
We're not levelling out.
In the belly of the plane, Ray Snedegar reports what he sees to the cockpit.
Pilot! Cargo bay! Go ahead.
I told him part of the ramp was missing.
The pressure door was gone and hydraulic lines and control cables had been cut.
The problem is now much worse than we thought.
Declare an emergency.
Saigon, this is MAC 80218.
We're declaring emergency.
We require immediate return to base.
(BABIES CRY) Unlike commercial airlines, there was nobody that came onto the PA system and announced what was happening.
So I just kind of focused on the children.
After struggling with his crippled jet, Traynor's efforts finally seem to pay off.
And now the airplane levels itself off and I say, "Wow.
"Thank goodness that we're finally making it out of this.
" As quickly as it levelled off, the plane begins to climb again.
The nose of the jet begins pulling up into the sky.
And so I relax the yoke.
And what happens? Nothing.
I'm still going straight up now.
Unless Traynor can gain some speed, his plane will soon stall and tumble from the sky.
And it got higher and higher.
And pretty soon, I'm going almost straight up.
In desperation, he dips one wing, forcing the nose down.
I am now in a very, very steep dive and there's nothing I can do, seemingly, to bring the nose up.
And so, counterintuitive, I added power.
And when I did that, the airplane pulled itself out of the dive and I started to go back up again.
But this time, I stopped it at 10,000 feet and rolled out and I realised I had learned how to control the airplane.
Traynor can't control his plane's pitch as he usually does, by pushing and pulling on his control column.
Instead, by gently increasing and decreasing power to his engines, he seems to be able to keep his plane level.
At that point, I realised that my only pitch control was the throttle.
The plane has descended to 10,000ft.
There's now enough oxygen to breathe.
100.
It is safe to remove our masks.
Gear down.
Perform landing checklist.
I headed directly for Saigon and began a descent and began positioning myself for a final, much like you would in a glider.
Don't worry.
They're taking care of it up in the cockpit.
We're gonna be out soon.
I'm trying to provide comfort to these passengers.
At the same time, I know we're in serious trouble because the airplane is still going down.
Captain Traynor has coaxed his injured jet down to just over 4,000ft.
11km from the airport, he turns his jet to line up with the runway when his plane surprises him again.
TRAYNOR: In the final turn to the runway, when I banked the airplane, the nose dropped and I couldn't continue my turn.
I had to level the wings so that I had enough lift that the nose didn't keep descending.
Captain Traynor had to stop turning before he could line up with the runway.
He's now losing altitude fast and his prospects are becoming increasingly grim.
SNEDEGAR: While we were working in the cargo department, the loadmaster said to me, "We need to get upstairs "'cause we're gonna crash land.
" When I get to the top of the ladder, I've changed my mind and think, "I need to be in the cargo compartment "when this airplane does get on the runway "so I can help evacuate down there.
" As I try to leave, the flight engineer grabs me by my left elbow, throws me into a seat.
And about the time I hit the seat, I can hear the ground screaming.
(SCREECH!) It's a loud scream that's coming closer.
Prepare for an imminent crash landing.
Get down on the floor! Prepare for emergency landing! The plane is hurtling towards the ground at almost 500 kilometres per hour.
I reached down, grabbed my seatbelt.
Then when the seatbelt snaps (SCREAMING) (BABIES CRY) We touched the ground relatively easily and we popped back in the air.
The jump seat said to me, "Bud, we're gonna make it!" But I could see looming ahead of me was this huge, huge river.
So I added power.
(SMASH!) My whole life went into slow-motion.
The airplane was coming apart where I'm sitting.
All kind of debris is flying through the air.
And it went on and on and on.
It seemed like forever.
When I was going upside down, I remember saying goodbye to my wife a couple of times 'cause I was a goner.
And then .
.
it was quiet.
(BABIES CRY) At that point, it was all a little bit surreal that I didn't even really know what had just happened.
All I knew was that we needed to get the babies out of there.
Traynor and the rest of the cockpit crew have survived.
When I stepped out of the window, it was clear, after you looked around, the airplane broke up into its component parts.
The tail dropped off, the flight deck broke away, the troop compartment in the wings, they separated from the cargo compartment.
The cargo compartment itself disintegrated, essentially.
Behind the cockpit, the plane's wings, which hold the fuel tanks, are burning.
The passenger section of the plane is largely intact and separated from the scorching heat of the burning wings.
Lieutenant Wirtz and many others who had been in the passenger section survive.
Then we started bringing babies out.
And I could hear some helicopters coming.
At that point, I was not looking for my mother 'cause I had been assured that she was OK.
I was to go to the hospital and just wait for her there.
And then that's when I took a couple of the babies and walked over and got on.
A day that began with the promise of hope .
.
has ended in disaster.
Just minutes after the crash of the first Babylift mission, rescue workers are on the scene searching for survivors.
Almost everyone in the cargo area was killed instantly .
.
when the plane slammed down the second time.
The dead, the injured and the survivors are taken to hospitals in Saigon and Thailand.
Since I was not injured, I just took a seat and was waiting for my mother while they brought in a lot of the babies.
Then somebody came over to me and told me that my mother had died.
I remember holding on for dear life so she said, "Come over here and sit with me.
" Barb Adams' last decision was to be near her daughter.
Just as I sat down on the floor, we must have hit.
And she flew forward somewhere.
And that's the last time I saw my mother.
175 people survive the crash of the air force jet.
But more than 150 have been killed.
More than half of them were children.
No.
The investigation begins immediately.
The next day, along with the investigators, Captain Bud Traynor returns to the smouldering wreckage of his plane.
I had a very naive approach to what was going to happen next.
I kind of envisioned the guys in the silver helmets would put out the white rope.
This is going to be a secure site.
And that was when I got the shock that, "Hey, there are no guards out here.
" There's a Vietnamese soldier going through my suitcase, wearing my flight jacket.
And he had an AR-15 and I didn't.
That's my jacket.
I'm Bud Traynor.
And we established that my coat had the same name on it That's mine.
.
.
as my flight suit, and so the coat he was wearing was mine.
So he begrudgingly gave me my coat and then proceeded to go through the rest of my suitcase.
It's not only Traynor's jacket.
Looters are picking the plane clean.
Dave Scheiding is a structural engineer with the air force.
When we got to the site, we had some concern to begin with because there was a tremendous amount of civilian people out there actually picking up parts, which, of course, that didn't help us much as far as the investigation goes.
He's part of a team that goes to Saigon to try to figure out why the plane crashed.
This investigation was very unique from a couple of standpoints.
The first standpoint, of course, are the people taking parts away from us.
But second, the country was in extreme chaos.
It was essentially falling.
Frank Huskin is also part of the investigative team.
The MVA and the Vietcong are all around and we were only out there during the daytime but it was a very uncomfortable feeling.
Very uncomfortable feeling.
One of the first things we wanted to rule out was sabotage and a bomb.
So we brought in dogs from the Philippines, bomb-sniffing dogs.
Take them back there to the rear of the plane.
With North Vietnamese soldiers so close, a direct attack or sabotage are obvious theories.
During the rush to board the aircraft, personal luggage was loaded but not thoroughly checked.
This added to the speculation that a bomb may have been smuggled onboard.
The dogs find no trace of a bomb and investigators find no evidence of explosive residue on the plane.
It clearly wasn't attacked.
But something had caused the cargo door to fail.
We had to find the doors, if at all possible, to make sure that we didn't have a problem with other C5s that would cause this type of crash.
Soon, the massive C5-As will be desperately needed to get America out of Vietnam.
Finding out what happened to this one couldn't be more urgent.
Hey, guys.
As they examined the wreckage, investigators also try to find out why the crew had such difficulty controlling the plane.
Look at how this is sheared off.
The cables that Ray Snedegar saw leaking hydraulic fluid were the ones that controlled the plane's elevator.
Since the elevator controls pitch, Captain Traynor had no way of guiding his plane up and down.
- Cargo bay! - Declare an emergency.
Saigon.
An emergency.
An emergency.
When there's no control of the elevator which allows for up-and-down pitch, an airplane will set up an oscillation up and down.
His oscillation started as the nose was going down and it picked up speed and then it started pitching up.
A falling plane's aerodynamic properties will force it to follow a predictable pattern.
As lift increases, the nose naturally tilts upwards.
Without the elevators to counteract the motion, it will continue until the plane moves so slowly that it stalls, falling back to the ground.
It explains the strange motion of the giant C5-A.
By adjusting the thrust to his engines, Traynor was able to keep the jet from rising and falling.
Investigators believe the cables were sheared off when the cargo door exploded from the plane.
But they still don't know why the door failed in the first place.
In the end, we made the determination we were gonna have to try and find the doors.
But the doors are somewhere at the bottom of the South China Sea.
Our next problem was trying to figure out the ballistics of those doors.
Nobody had ever even thought of figuring out ballistics of two doors flying through the air from 23,000ft.
Relying on the airspeed and the altitude at the moment of decompression, investigators learn the plane was 46 kilometres from the coast of Vietnam.
When the doors went out, the airplane was moving across the water at about 600ft per second.
Therefore, we had to come down with a pretty good estimate for the Navy to even know where to look.
Ships from the US 7th fleet crisscrossed the South China Sea looking for the rear door.
For the first several days, they can't find anything.
The South China Sea has swallowed the evidence.
At the crash site, investigators are becoming increasingly frustrated.
A great deal of wreckage has been stolen by scavengers.
An important clue could be among the pieces taken away.
To retrieve these parts, the air force offers to buy them back.
The strategy was to provide leaflets throughout the city of Saigon and the surrounding area.
"We want every piece of material from the aircraft back "and we will also pay you if you will turn this in to us.
" 11 days after the crash, flyers are delivered to local officials and distributed throughout the city.
Another piece of the wreck turned in during the buyback program is just what they're looking for.
We were trying to get the black boxes back because that's the thing we really wanted.
All C5-As are fitted with a computer system that records vital information about the plane's operation.
It records engine settings, airspeed, altitude and hundreds of other parameters onto a magnetic tape.
The system is called MADAR - Malfunction Detection, Analysis and Recording system.
It wasn't found at the crash site.
The MADAR is eventually returned for a reward, but it proves to be a disappointment.
It didn't identify the reason for the doors and the ramps failing but it did provide us a sequence of events in a lot of areas including altitude, airspeed, uhthe performance of the aircraft itself during that time frame.
As investigators continue to look for the cause of the crash, the situation in Vietnam gets worse.
Two days after they receive the MADAR, the South Vietnamese president resigns.
On April 23, 100,000 North Vietnamese troops approach Saigon.
The noose around the city is tightening quickly.
While we were out in the rice paddy you could see burning hamlets and villages and in the distance they were on fire.
You could hear the explosions and so forth of mortars.
While the situation in Vietnam continues to unravel, the US Navy finally has some success at sea.
On April 26, they find the cargo ramp and part of the pressure door of Traynor's plane.
If investigators don't find the answers here, they may not find them anywhere.
They're running out of time and they're running out of leads.
When the ramp is examined, investigators make a disturbing discovery.
On that ramp, two of the stirrups were in great condition - They were perfect.
They had not failed so obviously it told us that at least two of the locks had just unlocked themselves.
The C5-A has 14 locks holding the rear cargo door shut - 7 on each side.
The door recovered from the sea tells investigators that for some reason, three of the locks designed to hold it shut had either unlocked in flight or had never locked at all.
This flight was actually like a ticking bomb.
When they closed the ramps, all those locks would look like they were in a locked position.
When it took off, a fuse was lit, and as the aircraft climbed up, the fuse kept burning.
As the plane climbed away from Saigon, the pressure outside the jet dropped.
The air inside pushed with increasing force against the cargo door.
Then as the plane passed through 23,000ft, with three latches unlocked, the pressure on the door was too much.
- (BANG!) - (SCREAMING) With the three locks that failed all in a row, it was just too much load for the other four locks to actually pick up, which resulted in the catastrophic failure of the ramp itself.
But investigators still don't know why the locks failed.
Before they can find the answer, the situation in Vietnam deteriorates completely.
Saigon is under siege.
On April 27, the investigators take all of the evidence they can and leave.
It's simply too dangerous to stay.
When we left Saigon, we were the last two C-141s to leave Tan Son Air Base.
They were essentially losing their country at that time and after that, it was only helicopters that got out.
Investigators hope they have all the clues they need to solve the mystery of the crash.
They know they won't be coming back to Vietnam to look for any more.
(GUNFIRE) April 30, 1975.
The war in Vietnam ends.
From the rooftop of the American Embassy, the last remaining Americans in Vietnam are flown to safety.
Back in the United States, investigators continue their work.
Since the C5 is in service around the world, they need to know why three locks on the cargo door failed.
Investigators discover something potentially alarming about the cargo plane's rear door.
Parts from the C5-A were actually removed from the plane, cannibalised to service another cargo plane.
The locks on the rear door of the C5-A are connected to each other by a series of tie rods.
The rods can be lengthened or shortened to ensure the locks are completely closed.
It's these tie rods which were removed from the Babylift plane.
At the time, the enormous cargo planes were in constant demand.
The air force was very short of parts and so they came up with a standard practice for maintenance that they could cannibalise parts off of aircrafts that are not being flown.
It's authorised and it's a good operation if you respect it and treat it properly.
The tie rods were replaced before the Babylift plane left for Saigon, but for some reason they hadn't held.
To try to figure out what happened, investigators rebuild one of the locks that was supposed to keep the rear door closed.
We essentially built a working model of that ramp and we had to do that, because we didn't get all the parts back because the people picking them up, parts out in the ocean and everything that we never got back.
Investigators aren't convinced that the problem is in the basic design of the lock.
They suspect that before the plane left California, the engineers who replaced the rods didn't follow the proper procedures.
When we're talking about the locks, the distances that we're talking about are very, very small.
We could be talking about a 16th, 32nd of an inch difference between being locked and unlocked.
The re-rigging was done before the plane left the United States.
Show me how you re-rig it.
After the locks were re-rigged, they should have checked to make sure they were working.
That wasn't done.
Without the check, no-one would have noticed that the re-rigging was done improperly.
When the door was opened and shut in Saigon, there was a warning that not everything was perfect.
We had some difficulty getting it to lock so we had to open and close it three or four times.
But it seemed to be routine and in the heat of the moment, we didn't we didn't think anything about it.
But 12 minutes after lift-off, as the plane continued to climb, the three improperly closed locks were forced open by the building air pressure.
The remaining locks could not take the extra load.
(BOOM!) The cargo door burst open and was torn off the fuselage.
You just can't take short cuts.
And if it's pulling a couple of rods out, run out and put 'em back in, that's not gonna hack it.
The investigators have found their answers and in their final report, make specific recommendations that will make the C5-A safer.
We essentially Murphy-proofed it by putting steel pins in there so that when the lock is in the over-centre position, if you can insert the safety pins, then you know that the system is properly rigged.
After 28 years of service, Bud Traynor retired from the air force as a colonel.
I think everyone second-guesses themselves to see if there was something else that they could do.
I am very fortunate in that I never found something that I said, "I sure wish I had done X.
" Surviving crew members, including Captain Bud Traynor and Sergeant Ray Snedegar, were awarded medals by the air force for heroism and extraordinary achievement.
(BABY CRIES) One of the orphans that survived was baby Ina.
April 4, 1975.
It's definitely a pivotal point in my life .
.
where I left part of myself behind in Vietnam.
When Operation Babylift resumed, Kelly, along with hundreds of other orphans, were flown to the United States.
She was eventually adopted by a family near Seattle, Washington.
There was a 25-year anniversary in April of 2000 and it brought together all of the adults that were adopted from Vietnam and I've ended up meeting someone who was very special and actually ended up marrying.
Chris Brownlee and his wife Kelly were both airlifted out of Vietnam on April 5, 1975 - one day after the crash.
Supertext Captions by Red Bee Media Australia