Helicopter OH-6A 67-16556

Information on U.S. Army helicopter OH-6A tail number 67-16556
The Army purchased this helicopter 1268
Total flight hours at this point: 00001319
Date: 04/09/1970
Incident number: 70040999.KIA
Unit: B/1/9 CAV
This was a Combat incident. This helicopter was LOSS TO INVENTORY
This was a Recon mission for Unarmed Recon
While On Target this helicopter was Attacking at 0020 feet and 060 knots.
Cambodia
UTM grid coordinates: XU575822 (To see this location on a map, go to https://legallandconverter.com/p50.html and search on Grid Reference 48PXU575822)
Helicopter took 1 hits from:
Small Arms/Automatic Weapons; Gun launched non-explosive ballistic projectiles less than 20 mm in size. (7.62MM)
The helicopter was hit in the Armament system causing an Explosion.
Systems damaged were: ARMAMENT
Casualties = 01 KIA, 02 INJ . .
The helicopter Crashed. Aircraft Destroyed.
Both mission and flight capability were terminated.
Original source(s) and document(s) from which the incident was created or updated: Defense Intelligence Agency Helicopter Loss database. Survivability/Vulnerability Information Analysis Center Helicopter database. Also: OPERA, LNNF, CRAFX, CASRP, FM385, JSIDR (Operations Report. Lindenmuth New Format Data Base. Joint Services Incident Damage Report. Crash Facts Message. Casualty Report. )
Loss to Inventory

Crew Members:
G SP4 HARRIS PHILIP ANTHONY KIA

War Story:
Editor's note: The DA2496 for Harris, puts him in D/1/9 Cav rather than B/1/9. Further it says that he was handling a grenade which exploded, and that the helicopter did NOT crash. Harris's TAGCEN complementary cause of death is "Grenades". TAGCEN and CACCF both says Phuoc Long Prov while VHPA record says Cambodia. MACV Summary TT 7390209001a.pdf p32 says an OH-6 went down "14 miles NW of Loc Ninh in Binh Long Province, killing one man". Depending on how you define "miles" (statute? nautical?) and "northwest" the MACV location could be across the Cambodian border. Presuming statute miles, the location would be somewhere between 290 and 340 degrees from Loc Ninh and about 20 KM or so distant. The VHPA UTM XU575822 is probably wrong; that location is way inside Cambodia and about 74 KM N-NW of Loc Ninh. If the UTM were XU575"222" instead of "822" the location would be 307 degrees at 21 KM from Loc Ninh - within MACV's "14 miles NW of Loc Ninh". Then there's the crash/no-crash question and the cause - SA/AW fire or an accidental grenade detonation? So we would appreciate help to clarify this record. GBR December 2010.

This record was last updated on 12/03/2010

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Date posted on this site: 11/13/2023