unit history information
for AIR AMERICA LAOS

For date 650122


AIR AMERICA LAOS was a Air America unit
Primary service involved, Air America
Laos
Location, Thakhek
Description: The following is an extract from Across the Mekong by Charles O. Davis starting on page 31. This special mission was part of my Air America check-out as a new helicopter pilot. Capt. Clarence Abadie, chief of operations at Udorn, briefed me using very careful words, as if he was reading a thrifty man’s telegram. From what he did say plus the addition of other things I have heard, I conclude that we are going far east of Thakhek - near the Ho Chi Minh trail and probably go into North Vietnam. We are taking a team of less than a dozen soldiers into a LZ and bringing out a similar group. The purposes of these teams is to watch for movements of enemy troops and supplies and, if needed, to coordinate bombing strikes. Ab did not mention this latter activity. We are leaving Udorn for Nakhon Phanom and will be further briefed there. The flight takes close to an hour. We refuel our helicopters and get a bite to eat. Around twilight we make a quick 15-minute flight across the Mekong to Thakhek where we shut down again and are given a briefing by an American in civilian clothes. He shows us on our maps the location of our destination. The mission is a four-ship operation with two pilots in each chopper. I am with Jack Conners, a veteran of almost three years with the company. He carries himself in a manner that commands immediate respect. He says he will be doing most of the flying and for me to keep my eyes open and stay alert from the copilot’s seat. I meet some of the other pilots. The two pilots who will be flying in the lead helicopter, Billy Zeitler and Ed Reid, who like Conners, are veterans with Air America. I find out later from our Filipino flight mechanic, Naval, that this is going to be one of Billy’s last missions flying helicopters. Some months earlier, he had been shot down and had suffered some serious injuries and burns. I am told he was extremely fortunate to escape with his life and that he spent several months recovering from this accident. Zeitler has had enough helicopter flying and will be flying the Caribou out of Vientaine. Ed is a wiry and likable Carolinian, who has a sharp and dry wit. He acts like a man who could operate under strain. He has been flying for the company for almost three years and says he is leaving this job soon to return to the States. Jack Conners mentioned earlier that he also plans to return to the States. Both men figure three years is about enough and want to pack up and head home in the next few months. Julian ‘Scratch’ Kanach and Steve Stevens are piloting another helicopter. I did not have a change to talk with the pilots of the fourth helicopter. By now the twilight is almost completely displaced by darkness, so we load up and head east with our ‘cargo’ of eleven troops with all their gear. All four helicopters are in the air and we are the number two ship following Reid and Zeitler. With Conners at the controls, we climb up to 8,500. We remain mostly silent for the next hour. I can see a few stars here and there, but no moon is showing. I faintly see a few mountain peaks below us but they are very vague and murky. While we are not in the clouds, we are relying on the instruments inside the cockpit to keep us straight and level. Our course is not a straight line. We fly almost due north for about 20 minutes and then turn east. After almost half an hour on this course, we turn to a southeasterly direction. We are following the helicopter in front of us but I am trying to keep my bearing and directions straight. Conners is flying while occasionally puffing on a cigarette. The silence is broken when Zeitler announces on the radio that he sees the landing area. I scan the ground in the distance, and faintly see what might be lights. A few minutes later, faint lights become a group of smudge pots in a heart-shaped circle. Zeitler says they are leaving altitude to go in for a landing. Soon thereafter, they land and drop off their load, reload with outgoing troops, and are back in the air. We and the other two ships do the same thing, one at a time. In a matter of no more than 20 minutes, we are back in the air, heading to the northwest. We fly the same three-leg route as before, but in reverse, to backtrack our flight to Thakhek. I am relieved when I see a few lights of the town of Thakhek in the distance and know that we will soon be landing to drop off our troops and then will be crossing the Mekong into Thailand. Scratch Kanach breaks the silence with a frantic announcement that his engine has backfired and that they are losing power. By then, we are only a dozen miles from the airport at Thakhek and Kanach says he still has some power and is going to try to make the airport. A few miles away the engine loses more power and they are forced to autorotate into a rice paddy, only two or three miles from the airport. One of the other helicopters follows him down and lands beside the crippled machine. Luckily, they quickly discover that the carburetor heat door is stuck in the full-hot position and the flight mechanic quickly wires it to the correct position. They do a several minute hover check with the engine running perfectly, then fly the remaining miles to Thakhek. I am in one of the first two helicopters to land at the airport and we unload our troops. Within 15 minutes, the other two arrive and also unload. We all climb back into the air to fly across to Nakhom Phanom. We shut down and troop into the chow hall for a long-awaited late snack before heading back to Udorn. There is a jovial atmosphere here tonight as we relax from this special mission. I learn that earlier in the day, Jim Rhyne, a Helio-Courier pilot, had scouted this mission with Billy Zeitler in his copilot’s seat. Zeitler was onboard to get a good look at the route and the terrain as he was to be in the lead helicopter later. They flew east out of Thakhek and passed over a bamboo house at a fork in the road. It looked out of place as there was nothing around it to indicate anyone lived there, but the house appeared well kept. They pointed it out to each other and proceeded to fly over the scheduled landing area where they dropped several canisters with directions for the soldiers on how to lay out the smudge pots. This would show us where to land at night. They retraced their route back toward Thakhek. When they passed over the bamboo hut they had observed before, they noticed the roof was partially removed. Closer inspection revealed an anti-aircraft gun. The ‘homeowners’ were in the process of removing the roof for use. Rhyne and Zeitler circled long enough to confirm the sight and then they headed quickly to Nakhom Phanom air base. The anti-aircraft gun was on the scheduled helicopter route. The path of flight was changed to stay north of the area of that hut and that was the reason we changed directions twice during the mission. The keen observation by these two pilots saved all of us from a real disaster. The fourth helicopter also had a problem. One of the sliding windows beside the cockpit had slid off its track and was removed before the flight so it would not fall off while in the air. The outside air temperature was nippy at flying altitude at this time of night, and the two pilots were very cold during the entire mission. Zeitler had just seen them at their helicopter trying to repair it before the return flight to Udorn. He says their teeth were still chattering. After eating and catching up on the aspects of the mission, we all return to our helicopters and fly back to Udorn. My respect for this outfit, and the people I am working for, is growing with each experience. No one talks much. I believe the whole picture will get clearer after I have been here a while and see every part of this operation. Each experience exposes another facet of Air America.
Comments: CPT Abadie, Clarence; chief of oprations - helicopter pilot; ; FO Davis, Charles O.; pilot; ; CPT Conners, Jack; pilot; ; CPT Zeitler, Billy; pilot; ; CPT Reid, Ed; pilot; ; CPT Kanach, Julian; pilot; CPT Stevens, Steve; pilot;

The source for this information was Across the Mekong by Charles Davis P:31


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Date posted on this site: 05/13/2023