'The worst place in the world'

"Khe Sanh was a very bad place then, but the airstrip was the worst place in the world. It was what Khe Sanh had instead of a V-ring, the exact, predictable object of the mortars and rockets hidden in the surrounding hills, the sure target of the big Russian and Chinese guns lodged in the side of CoRoc Ridge, eleven kilometers away across the Laotian border. There was nothing random about the shelling there, and no one wanted anything to do with it. If the wind was right, you could hear the NVA .50-calibers starting far up the valley whenever an aircraft made its approach to the strip, and the first incoming artillery would precede the landings by seconds. If you were waiting there to be taken out, there was nothing you could do but curl up in the trench and try to make yourself small, and if you were coming in on the aircraft, there was nothing you could do, nothing at all."                             J. A. "Al" Chancey LtCol. USMC (Ret)

Khe Sanh airstrip too hot for landings

This loaded C-130 of VMGR-152 [photo above], machine-gunned during its final seconds in the air, skidded the length of the runway in a fireball of its own cargo - aviation fuel - and exploded, killing one crewman and five passengers. From this point on the C-130s and C-123s were, by in large, prohibited from landing on the airstrip.