“ John Preedom , TX account on Feb07:

I was on the flight deck of USNS Spica 22 Oct 87 when A/C 12 (Buno #152518 I think) control ditched into the North Arabian Sea. I was one of 2 Air Det personnel from H-5 Det 105 playing "hook up man", the other was AT3 Kevin Holley. It seemed like just another early morning "vert rep". We had already transferred over a few passengers to Ranger and had just vert repped a few loads to Ranger when A/C 12 coasted into a hover facing the starboard side of Spica. I wasn't really paying attention since it wasn't my turn to hook up the load to the helo. As AT3 Holley hand the pendant off to the aircrewman in the "hell hole" and runs out from underneath, I heard a very distinct sound that I remember to this day. An engine shutting down. I start to back up because I didn't know where the pilot was going go. Like I said, we had just started to vert rep and the Spica's flight deck is very small. We had pallets stacked 2 high from the very aft edge, all the way to the forward foul line. I figured if the pilot tried to land on the flight deck, it was going to get really nasty and I was going to jump over the side to save myself. As I start backing up, the pilot noses the helo over the starbord side. It clears the loads on the flight deck and continually loses altitude until it lands in the ocean. As the pilot tries to restart the malfunctioning engine, the other is trying to lift out of the sea. after several attempts, they "burn up" the good engine and are forced to shut it down. All crew, except the pilot are already out of the helo before he shuts down the engine. After the rotors stop, it tips over, the pilot escapes, and A/C 12 slowly slips beneath the waves. All crew are rescued by our other helo, aircrat 02, buno # 150938. All were uninjured except 1 air crewman who suffered a bruised knee when the "hell hole" door came open as he was trying to secure it on initial imapct with the water. Very scary but with all concerned virtually unscathed, we said our prayers, thanked our lucky stars and finished the last 2 months of the cruise with 1 aircraft.

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