1972 — Dec 5, USAF C-130 Talon, 12 crew, collides with SC ANG F-102, ~Conway, SC– 13

— 13 Aiken Standard, SC. “13 Lost in S.C. Plane Collision.” 12-6-1972, p. A10.
— 13 Aiken Standard, SC. “Search For Crash Victims Continues.” 12-7-1972, p. B5.
— 13 ASN. Accident description. USAF Lockheed C-130E-1 Hercules N of Conway, SC.
— 13 Daily Capital News, Jefferson, MO. “Crash Victims Identified.” 12-8-1972, p. 19.
— 13 Florence Morning News, SC. “Air Force Investigates Collision.” 12-10-1972, p. 3.
— 13 Florence Morning News, SC. “`Fire All Over the Sky’…Horry County…” 12-7-1972, D1.
— 12 Aircraft Crashes Record Office (Geneva, Switzerland). South Carolina.*
— 12 Baugher, Joseph F. 1956 USAF Serial Numbers (56-957/6956). 1-4-2012 revision.
— 12 Baugher, Joseph F. 1964 USAF Serial Numbers. 1-16-2012 revision.

*Blanchard note: It is quite possible that the notes of 12 deaths in this and the Baugher sources refers only to the USAF C-130 Combat Talon plane.

Narrative Information

Baugher: “Convair F-102A-80-CO Delta Dagger….1517 (157th FIS/SC ANG) collided with C-130 64-0558 during night training mission Dec 5, 1972. All 12 occupants killed.” (Baugher, Joseph F. 1956 USAF Serial Numbers (56-957/6956). 1-4-2012 revision.)

History of the MC-130E: “In February 1972, 64-0558 was destroyed in a mid-air collision off the North Carolina coast during an ECM training exercise at night. Previously, this aircraft had been severely damaged during a nighttime TF (Terrain Following) training mission in January 1969, when it flew into trees on the top of a mountain near Blowing Rock, NC. The crew regained control of the aircraft, and managed to safely land at the Hickory, NC commercial airport. The aircraft required extensive depot repair, but was repaired, modified to the Mod 70 configuration, and returned to service.” (“History of the MC-130E Combat Talon I.”)

Thigpen: “….As the year ended, tragedy struck the squadron [318th Special Operations Squadron]. On 5 December 1972, while on a continuation training mission near Conway, South Carolina, Combat Talon 64-0558 collided with an F-102 aircraft assigned to the South Carolina Air National Guard during airborne intercept training maneuvers. The F-102 impacted the Talon in the area of the right external fuel tank, resulting in the loss of both aircraft and all souls on board.” (Thigpen. The Praetorian STARShip: the untold story of the Combat Talon. 2001, 70.)

Newspapers — Chronological:

“Conway (AP) — A jet fighter-interceptor plane with only the pilot aboard and a turboprop military transport plane with 12 aboard collided Tuesday [Dec 5] night on a training exercise in which the fighter was simulating catching and shooting down the transport. There were no reports of survivors. One witness said, ‘They looked like some Roman candles shooting, then there were pieces flying through the air, burning.’

“Sheriff’s deputies quoted other witnesses as saying the planes fell in flames and crashed three miles apart in the rural Bayboro section of Horry County in northeastern South Carolina, 15 miles north of Conway and 30 miles northwest of Myrtle Beach. Bayboro is a sparsely settled area of woods and of open fields in which tobacco, soybeans and corn are grown.

“The pilot of the singled-seat F102 delta-wing Delta Dagger fighter was Capt. Thomas G. Hagood Jr., 28, of Lexington, near Columbia, who was flying from the McEntyre Air National Guard Base near Columbia. He joined the Air National Guard seven years ago. In civilian life he was a pilot for Eastern Air Lines….

“The C130 Hercules transport was from Pope Air Force Base adjacent to Fort Bragg in the Fayetteville area of North Carolina. A spokesman at the McEntyre base said that on the training exercise the fighter was trying to intercept the transport and bring it down, with any hits recorded electronically on equipment in the fighter plane.

“A spokesman at the Myrtle Beach Air Force Base said the forward section of the F102 fuselage was found in the Pleasant View Church area near Bayboro and the rest of the plane was found three-eighths of a mile away. He said the seat was still in the forward section, an indication that the pilot had not been able to eject.

“The crash occurred about 7:25 p.m….

“State Highway Patrolman said bits of wreckage were scattered over parts of U.S. Highway 701 between Loris and Conway, but the roads were not blocked….” (Aiken Standard, SC. “13 Lost in S.C. Plane Collision.” 12-6-1972, p. A10.)

Dec 6: “Conway — The pilot of an Air National Guard plane was killed in the mid-air collision of two military aircraft over Horry County Tuesday night, and searchers were trying to determine the fate of the occupants of the other plane, a C130 from Pope Air Force Base, N.C. Capt. Thomas C. Hagood, of Lexington, an Eastern Air Lines pilot as a civilian, was the guard pilot who died the Air National Guard said.

“The Horry County Police Department said one body was found and that some witnesses say they believe they saw a parachute….

“The collision occurred after 7 p.m., causing an explosion that was sighted from the coast to Florence County.

“The National Guard F102 came from McEntyre Air National Guard Base near Columbia.

“After the fiery crash, burning wreckage fell over a large area, some of it falling on U.S. Highway 701 about 10 miles north and east of Conway….

“A C-130 usually carries a crew of 10 to 12 on training missions, the Air Force said….

“McEntyre said an F102 from that base was flying a mission under the Aero Space Defense Command and could not be located after the reported crash….

“Myrtle Beach Air Force Base set their first notification of the incident at 7:25 p.m. and said its base disaster response unit went to the site….” (Florence Morning News, SC. “Mid-Air Disaster Downs Two Planes.” 12-6-1972, p. 1.)

Dec 7: “Conway (AP) – Four bodies have been found and nine others still were being sought today from Tuesday night’s flaming air-collision of a single-seater fighter plane and an Air Force transport.

“The Marion County sheriff’s office reported that three unidentified bodies were found Wednesday in the Bayboro section of Marion and adjoining Horry counties, where the planes crashed….” (Aiken Standard, SC. “Search For Crash Victims Continues.” 12-7-1972, p. B5.)

Dec 7: “Conway — Hubert C. Tyler was sitting in his den watching television Tuesday night when an explosion overhead ripped through the quiet rural countryside around his house near Bayboro, about 15 miles north of here. ‘I thought at first a plane had broken the sound barrier, only it was a lot louder,’ he remembered Wednesday. ‘We ran to the back door and all we could see was fire all over the sky.’ Tyler and his family then ran outside to be greeted by ‘balls of fire the size of an orange to the size of an airplane’ raining to the ground. Several of the fireballs — which turned out to be metal fragments of a C130 heavy transport which had collided with an FI02 fighter-interceptor, fell in his front yard.

“But the single largest mass of flame, the big C130 Hercules, roared to earth about 100 yards from his house, clipping a power-line and ripping a gaping hole in a dirt road. ‘I thought it was a bomb when it hit,’ he said. ‘Then the flames gusted up and fired the woods. It was awful.’ The impact knocked his window screens loose, jarred curtain rods from the wall, broke dishes and pictures and ‘vibrated the whole house.’ The electric clock was stopped at 7:17 p.m.

“Mr. and Mrs. H. G. Tyler Jr. and their two children were visiting relatives about five miles away when they heard the midair explosion. ‘We ran outside and saw the wreckage coming down,’ Mrs. Tyler said. ‘It looked like it landed right on our house. We jumped in the car and come home just as fast as we could.’ When they arrived at their new brick house, they found that the big transport plane had crashed only about 50 yards away, splitting the road that runs from their house to the Tyler Sr. house. The crash had thrown burning debris onto their roof, and it was burning in several spots, but was quickly put out. The impact, however, had busted out the doorknobs and locks on their doors and possibly damaged the foundation, she said. ‘I hate to think what might have happened if we had been in there,’ she said.

“Within an hour after the crash, in which 13 men are believed to have died, the area around the Tyler homes was turned into something resembling a scene from a H. G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds.” Blue and red emergency lights were flashing everywhere, casting sharp shadows across hundreds of law officers, military men and onlookers.

“Air Force personnel, some of them with M-16 carbines flung over their shoulders, stood guard at points along the road while others worked to rope off a fiery crater. Still others, many of them dressed in short sleeves in the unseasonably warm night air, threw beams of smoke-filled light into the surrounding woods. Truck mounted spotlights pitched funnels of light into the dark sky….

“The crowds retuned early the next morning, braving a heavy rain that finally softened into a steady, wet drizzle. The scene was the same, but the glare of daylight had painted a harsh tone of reality across what the night before had seemed a surrealistic canvas of mock tragedy. Curls of black smoke still belched upward from the C130 crater, a jagged hole filled with metal, twisted and melted into a shapeless tombstone. A few hundred yards away, in a cornfield, lay a portion of the plane’s wing. And another hundred yards from there, a jagged section of wing stuck into the roof of an abandoned house like some giant arrow fallen from the sky. About a mile and a half distant, across soybean seas and crumpled cornstalk fields, lay the second plane, its sleek jet body charred black but still recognizable. It had landed in an upright position in some pine woods, crunching one tree into splinters but barely disturbing any others.

“Everywhere, the search effort for the 13 men involved in the crash continued, but there was an unspoken understanding that it would be a miracle to find anybody alive. Then one man, surveying the wreckage, said what everybody already knew: ‘It’s going to be an unpleasant Christmas for a lot of people’.” (Florence Morning News, SC. “‘Fire All Over the Sky’ Rains on Horry County Home.” 12-7-1972, D1.)

Dec 8: “Conway, S.C. (AP) — Four bodies have been found but nine others still were being sought today from Tuesday night’s flaming collision of a single-seater fighter plane and an Air Force transport….

“The body of Capt. Thomas G. Hagood Jr. of Lexington, S.D. [SC], an Air National Guard fighter pilot, was found Tuesday after the 7:25 p.m. collision.

“Listed by the Myrtle Beach base as presumed dead in the crash of the C130 Hercules transport plane from Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina were:

Lt. Col. Donald E. Martin of White Oak, Tex.; [Instructor pilot (Thigpen 2001, 70.)]
Maj. Keith L. Van Note of Mason City, Iowa;
Capts. John R. Cole of Tulsa, Okla., [Navigator (Thigpen 2001, 70.)]
Louis R. Sert of St. Louis, Mo., and [Instructor EWO (Thigpen 2001, 70.)]
Marshall K. Dickerson of Chicago; [EWO (Thigpen 2001, 70.)]
2nd Lt. Douglas L. Thierer, hometown unavailable; [Cadet pilot (Thigpen 2001, 70.)]
T. Sgts. Robert E. Doyle, South Hill, Va., [Instructor flight engineer (Thigpen 2001, 70.)]
Claude L. Abbott of Adel, Ga., [Flight engineer (Thigpen 2001, 70.)]
Gilmore A. Mickley Jr. of Chambersburg, Pa., [radio operator (Thigpen 2001, 70.)] and
Bill M. Warr of Sylmar, Calif., [Flight engineer (Thigpen 2001, 70.)] and
Sgt. Gerald K. Forest of Oregon, Wis. [or Faust; loadmaster (Thigpen 2001, 70.)]
[Capt. Douglas S Peterson, pilot. (Thigpen. The Praetorian STARShip…Talon. 2001, 70)]

“The name of a 12th man on the transport was withheld until relatives were notified.” (Daily Capital News, Jefferson, MO. “Crash Victims Identified.” 12-8-1972, p. 19.)

Dec 10: “A board of Air Force officers has been empaneled to investigate the high-altitude collision of two military aircraft near Conway, S.C., that claimed 13 lives. An Air Force EC130 Hercules transport from Pope Air Force Base, N.C., with 12 men aboard, and a South Carolina Air National Guard F102 fighter-interceptor exploded after the collision Tuesday night….

“An Air Force spokesman said the fiery disaster may have been caused by a mechanical malfunction or pilot illness.

“Only four bodies were recovered despite an intensive search by Air Force personnel and more than 100 National Guardsmen….” (Florence Morning News, SC. “Air Force Investigates Collision.” 12-10-1972, p. 3.)

Sources

Aiken Standard, SC. “13 Lost in S.C. Plane Collision.” 12-6-1972, p. A10. Accessed at: http://newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=104111114

Aiken Standard, SC. “Search For Crash Victims Continues [USAF and SC ANG planes].” 12-7-1972, p. B5. At: http://newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=106739794

Aviation Safety Network. Accident Description. United States Air Force Lockheed C-130E-1 Hercules 24 km N of Conway, SC 05 Dec 1972. Accessed 1-19-2022 at: http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19721205-1

Baugher, Joseph F. 1956 USAF Serial Numbers (56-957/6956). 1-4-2012 revision. Accessed 2-21-2012 at: http://www.joebaugher.com/usaf_serials/1956_2.html

Baugher, Joseph F. 1964 USAF Serial Numbers. 1-16-2012 revision. Accessed 2-26-2012 at: http://www.joebaugher.com/usaf_serials/1964.html

Daily Capital News, Jefferson, MO. “Crash Victims Identified [USAF and SC ANG planes].” 12-8-1972, p. 19. At: http://newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=100502580

Florence Morning News, SC. “Air Force Investigates Collision [USAF and SC ANG planes].” 12-10-1972, p. 3. At: http://newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=56695774

Florence Morning News, SC. “`Fire All Over the Sky’ Rains on Horry County Home.” 12-7-1972, D1.’ At: http://newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=56695720

Aircraft Crashes Record Office (Geneva, Switzerland). South Carolina. Accessed 3-4-2009 at: http://www.baaa-acro.com/Pays/Etats-Unis/Caroline%20du%20Sud.htm