No Reason For Fuel Loss Before Crash Why Engines Shut Down Remains Unanswered

“Uh, King 56 I’d like to declare an emergency at this time and reverse course, uh, back toward the coast. We’ve shut down No. 1 engine and it looks like we might be losing No. 2.”

Thus began the final contact from a doomed Air Force Reserve C-130 the night of Nov. 22, when it crashed off the coast of Cape Mendocino, Calif., killing 10 of the 11 men on board.

From the time the first engine shut down, only 2 minutes, 46 seconds elapsed before all four were out of commission, the fuel supply choked off for reasons that may never be known, Air Force Col. Rick Davis said Thursday.

The Portland-based crew was headed to San Diego on a weekend training mission when trouble developed about 85 miles off the coast.

Investigators know that fuel was cut off to the four engines, but nobody can say why. Davis ruled out human error or sabotage.

Davis, commander of the Air Force 939th Rescue Wing, said C-130s around the world have logged some 29 million hours of flight without a similar incident.

After the last engine quit, he said, the rescue plane had no generator to run the cockpit and flight data recorders since those recorders were run by engine-driven generators.

Davis said it has been recommended that the recorders be supplied with independent power sources.

“We have data up to the point where the last engine dropped off the line,” he said.

Since the turboprop engines on a C-130 are fed fuel separately by gravity, there is no explanation for why all four would be choked off within a few minutes.

“It did not run out of fuel. There was plenty of fuel on board,” he said. “Every bit of equipment that was recovered was soaked in fuel.”

“The experts tell me there is no way you could prevent fuel from going into those engines even if you tried,” Davis said.

He said the plane was at 22,000 feet when it headed toward the shore and the last engine quit.

“They became a four-engine engineless glider at that point,” he said, adding that the plane dropped into clouds at 4,000 feet, dropped below the clouds at about 800 feet and hit the water less than 30 seconds later.

He said crew had time to put on anti-exposure suits.

“They probably didn’t see (the water) coming because it was black outside and they didn’t have any electricity,” he said.

He said the plane disintegrated when it hit the water going just under 200 mph.

The one survivor, Tech Sgt. Robert Vogel, of Albany, Ore. was picked up by the U.S. Coast Guard about two hours later. The others, Davis said, were killed on impact. Only three bodies were recovered.

The wreckage is 5,000 feet deep and spread over three square miles of ocean floor “and there are no plans to salvage any more. They believe that what they have right now will tell them everything that they’re going to know,” Davis said.

He said he shared the concerns of family members who had hoped for more specific information.

“Everybody wanted the smoking gun, so to speak, but it just isn’t there,” he said.

The last cockpit conversation with the air station at Humboldt Bay, Calif., was transcribed as: “Ah, standby, we’re, ah, this is a precautionary measure. We’re just, ah, have, ah, an electrical problem at this time. Ah, we’ll keep you advised of what’s going on.”

When asked to confirm the electrical problem, there was no answer.