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3AD MOHAWK FATAL CRASH
of November, 1963

By LTC William S. Perrin, USA, Ret.
with an Introduction by Otto Machacek, 503rd Avn Bn, 1963-64

 

Introduction: The crash occurred on November 7th, 1963, north of Hanau, West Germany, which is east of Frankfurt. Pilot 1LT Eugene J. Taylor and observer SP5 William F. Collins, both of Co B, 503d Avn Bn, were killed. The Mohawk flew full bore into a grove of oak trees on top of a mountain. As I recall the only intact piece of the aircraft was one wing. What was left of the bodies was removed before the battalion got there. It was a real tragedy. Both men left widows and multiple children. I was 503rd's Information Specialist and S-2 clerk at the time, and the battalion was engaged in a field problem. The day before, I had been taking pictures at the airfield, including a Mohawk taking off. Little did I know that on the next day I would be helping to police up what was left of a Mohawk on a mountain. I've been trying to track down the names of the casualties since I joined the OV-1 Mohawk Association. Vickie Hendrix, FOIA Officer, USASC, spent countless hours searching through microfilm records to find the names for us. She deserves a very special THANK YOU. - From Otto Machacek, 16 May, 2001

Subsequently, more details of the crash have been provided below by LTC Bill Perrin, Ret., formerly of 503rd Avn Bn, and aka Hornet-6:

On that morning, I was the S-2 of the battalion and was leading the ground convoy back to Hanau. The weather was drizzling light rain at the forward airfield where the Hawks were. There were low clouds in the mountains between the forward airfield and Hanau. I suspect that some of the pilots were going to try to make it back to Hanau VFR if possible and, if they ran into real weather, file an Instrument Flight plan in the air and go on into Hanau IFR.

Lt. Taylor was flying VFR when he encountered the low visibility and the mountain area about the same time. He flew down a valley and ran into reduced visibility and made a 180-degree turn to come back out of the valley but entered into IFR conditions. He cleared a hilltop by 10 feet but ran directly into a grove of large hardwood trees that he could not see. The Hawk disintegrated as it went thru the trees.

I have wondered all these years why, when he went IFR, he didn't add full power, pull back on the stick and climb up until he broke out into VFR conditions? On that day the low clouds were such that he would have broken out at 1500-2000 ft. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, he may have been afraid that, if he did climb, he might have a collision with one of the other aircraft going back to Hanau. That same thing happened to me in Vietnam. Without hesitation, I pushed in full power and climbed up thru the low clouds and broke out into bright clear sunshine at less than 2000 ft, and flew back to Anke VFR.

Lt. Col. Davenport, our Bn. CO, was in another Jeep in the convoy behind me. I called him and asked if he had been monitoring the FM traffic about an OV-1 crashing in the mountains? He replied that he had. We made several calls and determined that one Hawk was indeed down. He asked for my recommendation as to who the accident investigation office should be? I replied, Capt. Drexel E. Sanders, who at that time was the ASTA Plat Ldr. in B Company.

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