The Crash of SR-71 #957

11 January 1968

"The Blackbird's Nest..."

The military presence at what is today called Beale Air Force Base started will the establishment of “Camp Beale” as a a training base for armored tank crews and infantry soldiers during the early days of World War 2.  Named for Edward Fitzgerald "Ned" Beale, a hero of the Mexican-American War, it also housed a prisoner-of-war camp for captured German servicemen.

In 1948, the camp was converted to into an air force base with the mission of training bombardier navigators in radar techniques. A long runway and support facilities were built and the base was activated in early 1959 under the U.S. Air Force’s Strategic Air Command, hosting long-range bombers.

The Department of Defense selected Beale AFB as the home of its supersonic reconnaissance aircraft, the SR-71 Blackbird, in 1964. The unit, the 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, moved to the base in 1966.

Having their own “nest” to operate from, the Blackbird pilots utilized twin-engine T-38 supersonic jet training aircraft to maintain proficiency.  But it had limitations, and so a pair of training SR-71 planes were commissioned. Dubbed the SR-71B, the two – tail numbers 61-7956 and 61-7957 - were instantly recognizable as different from a stock SR-71 due to the raised position of the aft cockpit for the instructor. The added aerodynamic effects of this, at the front of such a long neck, required the addition of ventral fins below the engines to maintain yaw control and dynamic stability.

"Aspen 21"

A well-known pilot from North Carolina, Lt. Col. Robert G. "Gray" Sowers had enlisted in the U.S. Air Force as an aviation cadet. Commissioned as a 2^nd lieutenant and earning his wings in 1949, he was then assigned as a flight instructor in the Training Command for 2 years followed by a combat assignment to Korea. There, he flew 55 night combat missions in B-26 bombers, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross and several Air Medals.

Upon return to the states, he resumed flight training duties for several years before being given an assignment flying the B-47 bombers for the Strategic Air Command. On the first orientation flight, with an experienced instructor, he did an aileron roll in the B-47 as soon as he was given control. In 1962, he was the lead pilot in “Operation Heat Rise” and flew a Convair B-58A Hustler on eastbound transcontinental flight, winning he and his crew the Bendix Trophy and the Air Force’s Mackay Trophy, as well as the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Sowers was the second pilot of the 13 crews to fly an SR-71 – having earned Check #115 on November 30, 1965 – and was the first instructor pilot. With over 6,600 flight hour logged, 329 of which were in the Blackbird, he was assigned command of the 99th Reconnaissance Squadron, and – that particular Thursday morning, he was flying with 39-year-old Capt. David E. Fruehauf on his third flight in the Blackbird. The Blackbird would be flying under the radio callsign of “Aspen 21.”

Fruehauf was a native of Buffalo, New York, and had over 2,000 flight hours logged. A week before, he flew a three hour flight with Sowers, and experienced his first “high Mach, high altitude mission” in the SR-71.

Aspen 21 was to fly a training mission along a route named “Busy Police #3.” The pair briefed the flight plan, inspected the plane, and took off from Beale at 12:35 in the afternoon on what was planned to be a four hour flight. The flight climbed skyward at subsonic speed  to roughly 29 thousand feet to a point 48 nautical miles northeast of Reno, Nevada. Once it arrived, Sowers and Fruehauf accelerated the Blackbird to supersonic speed and climbed even higher to 60,000 feet. Edging ever higher to 70,000 feet, the SR-71B rocketed along at Mach 2.80 for the first cruise leg to a point 180 nautical miles southeast of Spokane, Washington.

Turning Westward...

A gentle left turn was then made to a heading of 280 degrees for a couple of minutes, followed by another left turn to 196 degrees and a descent into a refueling area near Lakeview VORTAC. But as the second turn was being prepped for, the left engine’s generator failed, some 37 minutes after the flight began.

Sowers and Fruehauf went to the emergency procedures checklist and accomplished the appropriate items. Sowers instructed Fruehauf to manually turn south towards Beale while he initiated a change to the astro-inertial navigation system to provide course and distance information back to Beale. Sowers radios the air traffic controllers at Seattle Center to tell them of his plan and that the awaiting KC-135 aerial refueler was unneeded as their fuel was not at a critical level. Sowers also attempted to radio Beale but, being hundred of miles away, he couldn’t establish contact, so he asked Seattle Center to pass along his intention to return to base.

In his attempt to reduce the air flow over the wings to a maximum of 350 KEAS, the pilot inadvertently allowed the Mach number to reduce to 2.3. Rather than attempt to reaccelerate to a higher Mach number, Sowers decided to continue the deceleration to a subsonic speed and coordinated with Seattle Center for a lower assigned altitude of around 37,000 feet.

Seeing the opportunity to balance the SR-71B’s weight distribution in-flight during the descent and deceleration, Sowers and Fruehauf transferred fuel forward to place 8,000 pounds in Tank #1. Settling in for the “low and slow” (for a Blackbird) flight back to base, Sowers advised Seattle Center that they were level at Flight Level 370 where they established a cruise of Mach 0.88 to 0.90.

But two minutes later, some 250 nautical miles north of Beale AFB, Aspen 21 experienced a second generator failure, the other unit installed in the right engine. Instantly, the plane lost all alternating current-powered equipment, including all fuel boost pumps, navigation equipment, and radio communications.

Sowers and Fruehauf continued straight ahead on the established course, maintaining their altitude with the existing engine throttle settings. They minimized all electrical requirements to conserve battery power.

About fifteen miles after the second generator failed, Aspen 21 began a shallow descent with both throttles slightly retarded and passed over Oroville, California, about 25 nautical miles north of Beale, at an altitude of roughly 10,000 feet.  

A few moments later, the landing gear was lowered, causing the plane to slow to the needed 175-knots airspeed. This caused the plane’s nose to raise and created an angle of attack – the difference between the plane’s direction of travel and the mean chord line of its wings – of 10 degrees. The fuel shifted in the tanks to cause air to be sucked into the fuel boost pumps. The cavitated fuel flow forced the right engine began to lose power and flame out.

Several unsuccessful air start attempts were made. The left engine flamed out almost immediately thereafter. Acting quickly, Sowers managed to restart the engines, only to have them fail again.

Out of Options...

Without the speed or inertia to make Beale’s runway 14, the pilots had only one option for survival left: eject!

But, being a unique, B-model, SR-71 posed a unique situation. In an ejection from a stock SR-71A, the Reconnaissance Systems Officer (RSO) in the back seat will eject first, followed shortly thereafter by the pilot.  In the trainers, there is no RSO; the instructor sits in the back seat while the student pilot sit up front.  Fruehauf argued that Sowers should eject first, since he was occupying the rear seat. But as Sowers was both the mission commander and the more senior officer, he directed Fruehauf to eject first.

At 3,000 feet and some 8 miles from Beale AFB, Fruehauf complied with Sowers’ order and ejected. An instant later, Sowers followed his student into the sky via a Lockheed SR-1 ejection seat.

According to Fruehauf, after the crew ejected, the aircraft slowed down, stalled, inverted into a flat spin and came down “like a feather of a piece of paper,” impacting on its tail and fell over backwards into a farm field some 7 miles north of Beale AFB and 2 miles north of Highway 20, narrowly missing high-tension power lines.

TSgt Don Person, crew chief of another Blackbird, #969, witnessed the accident and recalled, “.... There were two SR-71's flying that afternoon, 957 and my aircraft 969.  An emergency was declared, but we did not know which aircraft had trouble.  We were waiting on the taxiway looking north and saw an SR-71 approaching.  About 2 miles out it took a pitch up and we then saw two chutes.  Aircraft crashed in the ponds where gold was mined.”

Both Sowers and Fruehauf quietly descended, under the relative safety of their silk parachutes, to the ground, landing about a mile from the crash site in a field near the ole Vantress chicken ranch.

Decompressing...

At Beale, Person was concerned for this plane, recounting that, “my heart was thumping as you can imagine, when another SR-71 came into view and it was an "A" model, 969.  Boy was I glad to see it land."

Given that there was little fuel aboard, the post-impact fire cast white smoke but burned out quickly. Still, fire and rescue crews poured water and foam on what was left of the $28 million aircraft, as the magnesium – a component of the SR-71 construction – can be unstable.

After landing on the ground and removing his helmet and survival kit, Fruehauf found Sowers already on the ground, smoking a cigarette.

According to contemporary media accounts, when several Air Force officers arrived to pick up the ejected pilots, Sowers shook his finger at one of them and said, with a smile, “Right here’s the one I want; I’m damned tired of sick airplanes!”

Both Sowers and Fruehauf were taken to the base hospital for observation.

A news photographer’s camera was confiscated by sheriff deputies, claiming to be under orders from the Air Force, and a security perimeter was set up by the California Highway Patrol some 250 yards around the crash site. Easily identifiable in the wreckage was the Blackbird’s starboard engine, which was later covered by a tarp.

The Search for a Cause...

Investigative and salvage crews worked through the night, aided by spotlights, to remove the wreckage. Because the airframe came to rest on its back, the emergency crews were able to easily access the bottom engine access panels and remove the generators from the aircraft.  Taking the generators to the Lockheed plant at Burbank that night, they were evaluated and found to have contamination in the generators, which caused them to fail.

The preliminary results in from the wreckage, the generators in the rest of the SR-71 fleet was checked as a precaution.  At least six aircraft were found to have at least one generator with similar contamination, and would have suffered similar failures had they not been caught in time.

An accident investigation board convened and determined the primary cause of the accident was the failure of both generators, resulting in loss of fuel boost pump operation. Contributing to the failure was oil contamination in the generators’ accessory drive system. The board also found that there  was  insufficient  technical  data to  define the SR-71’s engine  operating  capability with fuel  boost  pumps inoperative, as well as several other incidental factors, such as the importance of the battery in this type of emergency.

The wreckage of SR-71B #957 was removed from the marshy grass and transported to Palmdale’s Air Force Plant #42 for storage.

Less than a month after the crash, on February 9^th, Fruehauf completed his checkout on the SR-71, earning Check #199. But since half of the SR-71 trainer fleet was lost on that day, a trainer replacement aircraft was built.

Epilogue...

Using the aft fuselage of YF-12A #60-6934 – which had suffered serious damage while landing at Edwards AFB in 1966 -and a static model from Lockheed, the trainer – designated the SR-71C and assigned tail number #981 - never lived up to the usability of the SR-71B as it had irregular maintenance procedures and its aftermarket construction caused the aircraft to fly in a constant yaw. Consequently, it was given the nickname "The Bastard” and was only used on a limited basis from 1969-1976.  Today, it is on display at the Hill Aerospace Museum on Hill Air Force Base in Ogden, Utah.

Being the only B model Blackbird still operational, it became the workhorse of the 10-month, 100 hour, flight training program for SR-71 pilots until 1990. Then, it was transferred to NASA, as tail number 831, for research flights before being retired in 1997. It is thought to be the most flown (with 3,967.5 hours), and most photographed, of the Blackbird fleet. Since 2003, it is on display at the Kalamazoo Aviation History Museum a.k.a. “Air Zoo” in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Fruehauf continued in the Air Force and eventually retired, settling in central Tennessee. In 2017, he was featured in a television commercial from Jack Daniels, showcasing residents of Lynchburg, Tennessee, as a resident who once “ejected from a SR-71 Blackbird and lived to tell about it.“ He can be spotted at the 0:28 mark, and aired during Super Bowl LI.

Robert Sowers retired from the Air Force, and became was the chief pilot for the country singer, Charlie Pride for 15 years. He saved the lives of all the band members by landing their critically damaged plane following a mid air collision caused by another plane.

Sowers died on December 1^st, 2018, at his home in Tucson, Arizona. He was 92 years old.

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