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Lucky escape from fire

Posted: 19 Sep 2007, 17:20
by Garry Russell
Fortunately they were still in a position to land and escape

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a26_1190194748

Garry

Re: Lucky escape from fire

Posted: 20 Sep 2007, 18:20
by Techy111
If anyone is interested this was in the comments.....

This happened in Sept of 1998 aboard the
"Bonhomer Richard", pronounced with a
french dialect. My squadron was HMM-164 and I was
a CH-46 Helo Mech. We were supporting Operation
Urban Warrior off the Monterey coast in
California. This bird was taking media crews back
and forth from land to the carrier all day and at
this moment they were leaving to go back to shore.
I was in the chow hall aboard the Bonhomer
"Dick" when this happened. CH-46
crewchief Sgt. Beyers received smoke inhalation
while saving these people and was treated at the
scene. For his actions "under fire", no
pun intended, he received a Certificate of
comendation and a "NAM". After
investigating, it was found that a pinhole in one
of the aft transmission lines was
atomizing(spraying) fluid and the spray was being
sucked into the aft generator and this caused the
fire. Transmission fluid is not flammable in large
quantities but when atomized it is very flammable.
The aft portion of this bird was completely
destroyed and had to be removed and replaced.
After 9 months of rebuilding this bird was put
back into the fleet and renumbered. Before the
fire it was #07 and after we got it back it was
#15.


Techy

Re: Lucky escape from fire

Posted: 21 Sep 2007, 06:05
by Chris Trott
Not to correct the guy writing that or anything, but the name of the ship is the Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6), the 6th (of 8 ) LHD-1 Wasp class helicopter carriers built for the US Navy. The origin of the name is "Bon Homme Richard" or, "Good Man Richard" which was a play on "Poor Richard's Almanac" published by Ben Franklin and originally given to a French-built frigate given to John Paul Jones in 1779 (yes, pointless trivia, but the 'Big Dick' was the focus of a documentary about 5 years ago and I remember that piece of it).

http://www.lhd6.navy.mil