Information on U.S. Army helicopter UH-1H tail number 67-17167
The Army purchased this helicopter 0168
Total flight hours at this point: 00000741
Date: 02/05/1969
Incident number: 69020555.KIA
Unit: 45 MED CO
This was a Combat incident. This helicopter was LOSS TO INVENTORY
This was a Rescue and Recovery mission for Medical Evacuation
Unknown this helicopter was at Level Flight at UNK feet and UNK knots.
South Vietnam
UTM grid coordinates: YT551003 (To see this location on a map, go to https://legallandconverter.com/p50.html and search on Grid Reference 48PYT551003)
Helicopter took 1 hits from:
Explosive Weapon; Non-Artillery launched or static weapons containing explosive charges. (RPG)
causing a Fire.
Systems damaged were: PERSONNEL
Casualties = 04 DOI . .
The helicopter Crashed. Aircraft Destroyed.
Both mission and flight capability were terminated.
Burned
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, CASRP, CRAFX (Operations Report. Lindenmuth
New Format Data Base. Crash Facts Message. Casualty Report. )
Loss to Inventory
Crew Members:
MD SP4 JOHNSON GARY MORGAN KIA
CE SP4 MCNISH JAMES RONALD KIA
P WO1 HIX WILLIAM COLQUETH JR KIA
P CPT POOLE OTHA LENSEY KIA
War Story:
The two Army Aviators killed on this mission were CPT Poole and WO1 Hix from the 1st Platoon of the 45th Med Company in Long Binh. They were flying 1st up on Feb 5 when they received a night hoist mission in support of the ARVN in the vicinity of Xuan Loc. The Crew Chief was SP4 James McNish who had named it "The Red Barron" and decorated with appropriate decals and paint. Gary Johnson was the medic, and there was not a better maintained ship or a more efficient crew in the whole company.
I was not on the investigation team which recovered the bodies, but was informed by our S-3 that the aircraft was apparently hit by a B-40 RPG and exploded while at a high hover while attempting extracting personnel with their hoist. The aircraft and crew were torn to pieces and scattered over a large area. It was difficult to identify which pieces went with which corpse. Positive ID's were able to be made from dental records.
The crew had made two previous attempts to execute the extraction, but were driven off by ground fire. The next day a small clearing, large enough for a pick-up zone was discovered about 150 yards away from the wreckage site. John Temperelli was the XO and did the investigation. He told me that DUSTOFF 13 had been driven off from making that pick-up twice by small arms fire prior to being blown out of the sky with a B-40 RPG. Submitted by Dwight McCain CPT USA Ret. 5/98.
This record was last updated on 08/10/1998
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Date posted on this site: 11/13/2023
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