The South Vietnamese Pilot Who Stole A Plane To Save His Family

Speaker 1 (00:12):
And we continue with our American stories. Today. We have
a history story brought to us from the Naval Aviation
Museum in Pensacola, Florida. In April of nineteen seventy five,
the United States was engaging in an evacuation of Saigon,
which at the time was the capital of South Vietnam.

(00:33):
This evacuation plan, known as Operation Frequent Wind, came as
the North Vietnamese were closing in on South Vietnam. Here’s
historian Hill good Speed with the story.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
So there were US nationals who were still in Saigon,
and there were also other people wanting to get out,
and the embassy, of course needed to be evacuated. So
the US Navy sent a fleet of ships and they
operated off the coast of South Vietnam, and there was
pretty much an aerial shuttle is the best way to

(01:07):
describe it, of Marine Corps and Navy helicopters flying in
country and landing primarily on the grounds of the US
embassy to pull people out and take them to the
ships offshore. There was also aircraft flying from airfields in
South Vietnam getting people out. These helicopters would fly out

(01:28):
to the US ships. There’d just be an array of
people that were getting off from various backgrounds. They could
be South Vietnamese individuals just trying to escape, families, just
trying to get out, knowing that the North Vietnamese forces
Communist forces coming in would not treat those who had
worked with the American forces and during the long US

(01:49):
involvement in Vietnam very well.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
Amidst this operation, there was one man, a South Vietnamese pilot,
who decided to take into his own hands the safety
of his family, Major Bunley.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
During the long involvement of US forces in Vietnam, there
was a training program that existed to integrate South Vietnamese
personnel military forces into US operations. Certainly a big part
of that was training pilots to fly various missions, and
they formed the South Vietnamese Air Force. There was also

(02:23):
a group called the ARVIN, which is Army of the
Republic of Vietnam, and so these individuals served alongside American
forces US advisors during the course of the Vietnam War,
and he was at the time of the fall of Saigon.
He came up with the idea that he needed to
get out, and especially with his military affiliation and with

(02:44):
the ability to fly. He commandeered an aircraft which is
in South Vietnamese Air Force markings. I mean it’s still
displayed in the museum in those markings. He commandeered that
aircraft and loaded his wife and five children on board,
and it was a two aircraft. The aircraft is a
is a light observation plane. So it’s not unlike the

(03:07):
small civilian aircraft you see flying around small airports or
around the country here in the United States. It was
an American built airplane, but it was designed as an
observation plane. That’s what O meant in its designation, like
one means observation was what the OS stood for. He

(03:28):
loaded his wife and five children into this plane, and
with being only a two seater, the children were stuffed
back into the fuselage at the airplane behind the cockpiteriod.
And so I can’t even imagine what it must have
been like for them, being so young in this really
chaotic scene, to be all of a sudden find themselves

(03:49):
in a just stuffed into a darkened compartment and off
they go into the air. I mean, I’m not sure
whether any of them had ever even flown before. I mean,
he may have been the only one aboard the aircraft
that he had even I’ve been in the air before,
I’m not certain. And then off they went with only
a really only a promise of something that might happen.
I can’t even imagine. You’re flying out over the water,

(04:11):
and there was no guarantee he could land on a
ship out there, or no guarantee of what the future held.
But it just goes to show whatever uncertainties lay in
the future, it was better than the situation that awaited
them if they stayed behind. As he flew out over
the Pacific, he eventually happened upon the US fleet of ships,

(04:35):
and one of the ships there was the USS Midway,
which is an aircraft carrier, and it’s actually a ship
that is still in existence. It’s a floating museum in
San Diego. But he came upon the USS Midway and
he flew low over the deck and he dropped a
note onto the deck, which was routine at that time

(04:56):
from a low flying aircraft and a very slow aircraft
like that, you could deliver messages in those ways. In
that way, and the note. Luckily for those on board
the Midway, they were evacuating a lot of Vietnamese Nationals,
so there’s no problem getting the note translated as to
what he wanted to do. And he indicated essentially that
I want to land. I’ve got here’s who’s aboard this airplane,

(05:18):
and here’s who I am, and I would like to
land on the USS land on the ship. And at
that point, the commanding officer had a decision to make.
And the commanding officer was a guy named Captain Lawrence Chambers,
and he was actually the first African American to command
a US aircraft carrier, so he’s pretty unique in history

(05:38):
at that time. But if you look at what his
situation he faced, he had the array of helicopters coming
in and landing on his ship just I mean, it
was a constant stream of them. A carrier flight deck,
even though it looks really big, is a relatively limited

(06:01):
space if you compare it to say an airport airfield.
So space is at a premium and you have to
clear a certain amount of space to operate aircraft. And
so he had a decision to make on how he
was going to try to meet the wishes of this
individual who wanted to land. And first of all, he

(06:21):
had to have concern that this individual’s never landed on
an aircraft carrier before. I don’t know what his proficiency is,
whether he’ll be able to do it or not. It
could be dangerous to those on the deck. Maybe I’ll
have him ditch the airplane in the water and we
can send some send a boat or send a helicopter

(06:43):
to go rescue the family. But the problem with that
is the one bird Dog is an airplane that has
fixed landing year for one and when you land. If
he would have tried to ditch the airplane in the
water with fixed landing year, that landing year would have
dug into the water as it as it hit it

(07:03):
and probably would have flipped the airplane over on its back.
So you have a situation where the kids stuffed in
the back of the fuselage there would be a big,
a good chance that they may not be able to
make it out of the airplane. Then he had to consist.
So that was an option that, even though he considered it,
was one that was that was not going to bring
the result that needed to be that was going to

(07:24):
be a positive result. So then his next decision was
to clear the deck. He was going to have to
push some of the helicopters over the side, and there
may have been some expense to that, but with all
that was going on, a lot of the military equipment
being used, I mean, it was a minor expense to
pay in his mind, to save the lives of some individuals.

(07:48):
So he ordered some helicopters pushed over the side to
clear space. And then most aircraft or all aircraft generally
have to land on an aircraft carrier. They have to
be to a stop with a tailhook that’s located on
the underside of the fuselage and it engages a wire

(08:08):
that is strung across the deck. Well. In this case,
this aircraft was so light he wouldn’t need a way
to he wouldn’t have to stop it in that manner.
He brought the airplane in after you receive word that
he could land. When it hit the deck, he was
able to bring it to a stop in a relatively
short distance. He was also aided by the fact that
the aircraft carrier was turned to the wind, so there

(08:29):
was wind coming across the deck and that helped slow
him as well, and the crew ran out was able
to help bring the airplane to a stop. And there’s
a famous photograph that was taken on the deck. You
can see him emerging from the airplane. You can see
his wife as well, and there’s a throng of crewmen

(08:49):
surrounding this tiny airplane on the flight deck. And it’s
a real inspiring shot to see because of one just
the small ales that are on the crew. I mean,
it was such a it was such a momentous moment
for them because and really the whole time and that
their whole day had had been spent Normally the crew

(09:12):
would be launching combat aircraft into into action, but here
they were that whole day. They knew that they were
literally the passage to freedom for a lot of people,
and to and to see they were, you could just
see the looks of joy on their faces in this
particular case of what this family did to and what
they accomplished to get out of South Vietnam that day.

Speaker 3 (09:37):
A plane that brought Major Bungley and his family to
freedom and safety has been on display in the Naval
Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida, mere months after it made
its historic landing.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
It’s an airplane that’s easy to get lost amidst all
the you know, the famous jets and combat aircraft that
we have here. It’s it’s it’s tiny, it’s tuckta, it’s
suspended from the ceiling in one of our hangars. But
when people hear the story about what it represents, it
becomes instantly one of the most inspiring things they see
when they come here, once they know and appreciate the

(10:12):
story behind it.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
And a special thanks to Madison on the storytelling and
the interviewing and on the production. A special thanks to Faith,
and also a special thanks to History and Hill Goodspeed
who tells this remarkable story of American generosity and heart
in the end, the story of Major Bunley, also the
story of Captain Lawrence Chambers who issue that order. Here

(10:39):
on our American Stories