Information on U.S. Army helicopter UH-1C tail number 66-15154
The Army purchased this helicopter 0667
Total flight hours at this point: 00000483
Date: 08/01/1968 MIA-POW file reference number: 1244
Incident number: 680801221ACD Accident case number: 680801221 Total loss or fatality Accident
Unit: 240 AHC
The station for this helicopter was Bear Cat in South Vietnam
UTM grid coordinates: YT467986 (To see this location on a map, go to https://legallandconverter.com/p50.html and search on Grid Reference 48PYT467986)
Number killed in accident = 4 . . Injured = 0 . . Passengers = 0
costing 502914
Original source(s) and document(s) from which the incident was created or updated: Defense Intelligence Agency Reference Notes. Defense Intelligence Agency Helicopter Loss database. Army Aviation Safety Center database. Also: 1244 ()
Loss to Inventory
Crew Members:
AC WO1 FERNAN WILLIAM KIA
P CPT RUSSELL PETER JOHN BNR
CE SSG HASTINGS STEVEN MORRIS BNR
G SP6 FOWLER DONALD RANDALL BNR
REFNO Synopsis:
South Vietnam Donald R. Fowler
Steven M. Hastings
Peter J. Russell
William Fernan
(1244)
On August 1, 1968, Warrant Officer Fernan, First Lieutenant
Russell, Specialist Fourth Class Fowler and Specialist Fifth Class
Hastings disappeared while on board a UH-1C helicopter during a
flight through bad weather in Song Be Province. A search for them
was unsuccessful.
On August 6, 1971 local woodcutters discovered the helicopter
wreckage. Partial remains belonging to Warrant Officer Fernan were
recovered, but none were recovered of the other three crewmen. The
possibility that the other three crewmen might have survived arose
due to the condition of the wreckage.
The four crewmen were initially declared missing and, after the end
of hostilities, were declared dead/body not recovered. They were
not reported alive in the Vietnamese prison system.
In June 1989, U.S. field investigators in Vietnam located six
individuals who witnessed an American being captured after he was
injured in an aircraft crash in 1968. The American was taken first
to Bu Dang District Headquarters and then to the Phuoc Long
Province POW camp. As a result of malaria, the prisoner was taken
to Hospital 370 where he died one week later and was buried nearby.
This report is viewed as possibly correlating to the fate of one of
the aircraft's survivors. Additionally, a doctor recently
interviewed in Vietnam identified the photograph of Lieutenant
Russell as the patient brought to his hospital from a nearby POW
camp. He stated that the American died at the hospital and was
buried nearby. No reports correlated to other survivors.
Accident Summary:
The aircraft was on a combat support mission when it encountered a weather condition and went IFR. While trying to home on the command and control aircraft radio, contact was lost and the aircraft was never heard from again.
This record was last updated on 05/25/1998
This information is available on CD-ROM.
Additional information is available on KIAs at http://www.coffeltdatabase.org
Please send additions or corrections to: The VHPA Webmaster Gary Roush.
KIA statistics
Return to the KIA panel date index
Date posted on this site: 11/13/2023
Copyright © 1998 - 2023 Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association