Pearl crew was A Pearl Harbor-based destroyer and a P-3C Orion sub hunter out of Kaneohe Bay were instrumental in the rescue of four crewmen who had to eject from their crippled B-1B Lancer bomber in the Indian Ocean 60 miles north of Diego Garcia.
all business on rescue
A textbook operation brings back
4 downed crewmen off Diego GarciaBy Gregg K. Kakesako
gkakesako@starbulletin.comCmdr. Hank Miranda, commander of the destroyer USS Russell, said his crew was patrolling the waters off Diego Garcia when it lost radar contact with the B-1B around 9:30 p.m. yesterday (7:30 a.m. Hawaii time).
The B-1B, participating in Operation Enduring Freedom, had reported an in-flight emergency roughly 100 miles north of the British air base at Diego Garcia after it had departed the island and was trying to return. Diego Garcia is about 2,500 miles from Afghanistan.
In a conference call arranged by the Navy, Miranda said that a few minutes after the report, his crew "got track of a distress beacon" and, with the help of a KC-10 jet tanker and a P-3C from Patrol Squadron Four out of Kaneohe, were able to find the crewmen in the water.
However, it took the 500-foot destroyer about an hour to reach the crash site. By then the P-3C, piloted by Lt. Bill Pennington, was circling above, marking the spot with its searchlights.
"We were just pleased to be able to assist in bringing these men to safety," Pennington said.
The crew of the P-3C had established communications with two of the B-1B aviators and assisted the Russell in locating their exact position. "The seas were very good. ... Visibility was unlimited," Miranda said.
Miranda said his "crew was ready. They were very professional, and they did a perfect job in rescuing the pilots."
When the Russell was about seven miles from the crash site, Lt. Dan Manetzke, the destroyer's weapons officer, was dispatched in a rigid-hull inflatable boat. He was drawn to the aviators by the blinking strobe lights on their lifesaving equipment. Miranda said the area in which the plane's crew members were found was especially shallow, so he had to navigate carefully to get the ship close enough to launch the small boats for the rescue.
"Two of the pilots had linked their life rafts together," said Manetzke, 41. The third could not get to his strobe and had to fire a flare to mark his spot, while the fourth crewman was not able to inflate his life raft and was being kept afloat by his personal survival gear, Manetzke said.
He estimated that the aviators were separated by at least 1,500 yards. Miranda estimated that the downed crew was in the water for at least two hours before they were rescued.
"They were in pretty good condition," Miranda said, "bruised, but in good condition. One crewman had a minor back injury."
But they were well enough to walk off the Russell onto a tugboat nearly seven hours later which returned the crew to Diego Garcia.
"We had multiple malfunctions; the aircraft was out of control," Capt. William Steele, the B-1B's pilot, said later at a news conference.
"Going through an ejection like that is about the most violent thing I've ever felt," Steele said in a telephone interview with reporters arranged by the Pentagon. "We're all pretty bruised up and have some cuts. But overall, we're doing very well."
The crew managed to land safely in close proximity to each other after ejecting at 15,000 feet.
"We didn't see any hazards, no sharks or anything like that," Steele said. "It was actually kind of comfortable. It was nice warm water."
Describing the moment when the Navy boat crews found them, Steele said: "I don't think we said too much. We shook hands with the crew members on the boats. We're all professionals here, so we just didn't have too much to say besides big smiles."
The Russell, with its crew of 25 officers and 300 enlisted sailors, left Pearl Harbor Oct. 25 and is not expected home until April.
Chief Petty Officer Gil Kualii, a Hilo resident, added that "we are out here to do a mission, and we are doing God's work. It was a great thing that we were able to bring the Air Force guys back."
Petty Officer Tui Kalapa of Waianae said training that the crew underwent before beginning this six-month deployment "helped to save the lives of four people. ... It all paid off."
Star-Bulletin news services contributed to this report.
