Justin Betz Sends This Shot of 148891 in Indo

Tony Villa Send's ThisPhoto of 148891 and Crew With the Story of Rescue Mission Below

Thanks Again Tony

We were on a two
week deployment in support of the USAF 56th Air Rescue Squadron in July 92.
On this day we were involved in the rescue of a Lithuanian sailor from a
fishing trawler about 250 miles off the coast. We tanked the H-60's 2-3
times and acted as radio relay as the trawler had only HF capabilities. Sgt
Keith Duggan (RO) was able to communicate with them despite not speaking
Russian (one of the sailors kind of understood English). We had to get them
to lash down various antennas in order to lower rescue personnel onboard.
One of the PJ's struck a mast on the way down and was hurt pretty bad. The
second guy made it and all went well after that. Turns out the sailor had an
infected pancreas. A week later we did it again with another Russian
trawler. This time we brought an interpreter. It was a lot easier. The
bright side of this story was that after an actual mission you were off duty
for 24 hours. We got to drink a few beers. The crew: Capt Bernie Lavalley,
1stLt Mitch Bell, 1stLt Hugh "Huge" Worden, SSgt Tony Villa, Sgt Keith
Duggan, Sgt Mark "Buffy" Mattox, Sgt Mark "Peaches" Anliker.

A Special Thank you to Ben Garcia, Formerly VMGR-252 For This Photo of 148891

Anyone with stories about this plane are encouraged to send them to Nick for postings.  Also any other photo's of this plane or the crew's that flew her.  Nick@kc130.com