More detail on this person: AH-1S accident at
LZ Runkle at Ft. Rucker.I knew Carey Beavers at
the Aviation Development Test Activity (ADTA) at
Ft. Rucker. He arrived there sometime in 1983 or
1984 and was a service test pilot. He was married
to a Eurasian girl from Korea and they had one
child. She was 7 months pregnant when Cary
died. This information was last updated 05/18/2016
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Date posted on this site:
03/10/2024
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Carey had been to Vietnam as a WO1-CW2 in the
1972-73 time frames and had flown for the Four
Party Joint Military Team during the last part of
his tour. That team was an instrument of the
Paris Peace Accords and had the treaty sanction to
resolve MIA and dead BNR cases for the four
parties involved in the conflict. He at times
flew for BG Mike Healy. I know all of this
because I was involved in the same effort though
not with Carey.
At some point after his tour Carey accepted a
direct appointment to LT. When I met him he was a
1LT. We flew AH-1S's and Hueys a lot at ADTA,
5-7 hours/day. Carey was well liked by nearly
everybody around him. His wife was strikingly
beautiful.
Carey was flying an AH-1S on a routine
lead-the-fleet test with Cpt. Tim Jensen in his
front seat. Tim was not a rated pilot but was
slated to go to flight school very soon. He was
married to Patricia (Patty) who was an Electrical
Engineer at ADTA and worked for me in the
Systems Test Division at ADTA. Although Tim was
not assigned to ADTA he and Patty were still part
of the ADTA family, and we were always connected
during the social functions as well as work.
On Feb 14, 1985, Valentines Day, they were in an
AH-1S (Bearcat 26) on approach to LZ Runkle on
the west side of the Ft. Rucker. The aircraft
rolled inverted while on long final, hit a tree
then rolled into front of barn/shed. "Flat Iron",
the Ft. Rucker Medevac was launched and had
some difficulty finding the crash because of it
being at least partially inside the shed. I am
not sure how they were able to locate them. The
cause of the crash was swash plate bearing failure
due to a combination of bad lubrication and K747
rotor blades that caused greater than expected
forces on the pitch links downward to the swash
plate. This forced the swash plate to fail in a
downward direction cutting through the left
(lateral cyclic) pitch horn on the non-rotating
portion of the lower swash plate. Basically,
Carey had no control of the aircraft as it
performed an un-commanded roll or wing over and
crashed.
Having been at ADTA for 8 years and losing a
number of pilots in various crashes, this loss
hurt the worst because we all were connected much
like a family. Carey and Tim's loss took a long
time for all of us to deal with. If you ask the
older men and women still left at ADTA or in the
Ft. Rucker area about the aircraft losses they
will always remember this one as the one that hurt
the worst. Cary was buried in his hometown of
Noonan, Georgia and Tim's remains were sent to
his home. Please forgive my lack of memory
concerning Tim's disposition.
Before I retired in 1988 I flew all over the local
flying area and tried to land at each LZ. There
were two LZ's on the southwest side of the Ft.
Rucker flying area named for Carey and Tim.....LZ
Beavers and LZ Jensen.
These two young men were just like the heroes we
have today in Iraq and Afghanistan. They
possessed the best qualities found in soldiers and
are still missed.
From: Dave Anderson, LTC (ret)