Our February speaker was Mike Montgomery, Capt., USN (Retd.) In the 1970’s Capt Montgomery (then a Lieutenant) was the pilot of a Navy P-3 Orion, antisubmarine aircraft built on the Lockheed Electra airframe.
One morning in Subic Bay in the Phillipines, Montgomery and his crew took off for what would be a four minute flight ending up in the waters of the bay, following the sudden failure of their engines. They would later learn that the loss of engines was due to an error in the supply chain, resulting in dry cleaning fluid being substituted for the methynol used to boost engines on takeoff.
Thanks to the timely (and coincidental) arrival of an Air Force rescue helicopter on the scene, (and we might ad, skilled piloting) all but one of the crew survived. The Navigator was lost in a catastrophic failure of his seat area, but Montgomery and the others escaped with minor injuries and some chemical burns from fuel exposure. Montgomery is believed to be the only pilot ever to successfully ditch a P-3 Orion aircraft.
The Lockheed P-3 Orion
Montgomery’s presentation made for a gripping story, with his vivid description of the event, supplemented with photographs of the recovered aircraft and diagrams of the interior. If you missed the February meeting, you missed a dandy! Many thanks to Capt. Montgomery for sharing his story.
P-3 aircraft remained in service until just this past year or so, when the Navy began phasing in a new Boeing built replacement, based on the 737 airframe.