Greetings! Enjoyed reading your site. Brought back many memories of my assignment to Shemya (Jan '81-Jan'82). Same mission was going on then, Cobra Dane and Cobra Ball were keeping track of the Russians. This was the apex of the Cold War. Not long before, '75-'78, I'd been in Germany at a nuclear weapons facility. We expected almost daily for something very bad to happen. We were in Northern Germany (Buchel), and the bad rumor was that a MIG could be over our location in literally minutes with some kind of nuclear weapon of their own.
I just wanted to relate an aircraft accident that happened while I was assigned at Shemya. My friend, John, and I were sitting in my room around evening time drinking coffee. There was a total white-out blowing outside and visibility was zero. All of a sudden we heard a very loud explosion, a short pause, and then 2 more rapid explosions that were less violent in nature. The snow filled air outside turned a bright orange with each explosion. John and I could not believe that any aircraft would be flying in this weather.
At the time, I was living with the base's air traffic controllers. Here's what I learned from one of my ATC friends. That night he was stationed at the cliff side of the base in one of the glide slope huts. He was in radio contact with the pilot the entire time the pilot was making his approach to the base. He said that he repeatedly told him his glide was too low and to adjust accordingly. The pilot never did and at the end, my friend was screaming into his radio to "pull up, you're too low, pull up, you're too low!!!" The RC135 crashed into the cliff, but was high enough to skip over it, and then skidded along for a while before dropping off to the right side of the tarmac and coming to rest down the hillside off the runway. Many of the aircrew died in this accident. We helped all we could with the aftermath of the crash.
Colonel Griffin, do you know anything more about this aircraft crash? I've always wondered why they would have been trying to land in weather that terrible. You, having flown over there, would know more than most folks what was going on. Any light you could shed would be greatly appreciated.
Respectfully,
Lamar Miller, MSgt, USAF (Ret '88)
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