“Memorial Day Miracle” Death of a Six Crash of F‐106A 59‐0144 Crashed on take‐off 29 May 1978 Written by Patrick McGee using Capt Bruce Miller’s narratives and other information found F‐106A 59‐0144 of the 318th FIS, McChord AFB Tacoma, Washington crashed on 29 May 1978 (Memorial Day) while taking off in a 2‐ship formation from McChord AFB on a routine cross‐ country flight to Tyndall AFB, FL. The aircraft was piloted by Captain Bruce Miller, call sign Kilo‐Two Zero (number 2 aircraft in the 2‐ship) while his wingman (tail number unknown) the number 1 aircraft in the formation, call sign Kilo‐Zero Two was piloted by Maj Jack Butcher. The two aircraft rolled together, hit burner together, lifted the aircraft noses off the runway together and at 0914 hours just as Capt Miller’s gears started to fold up the tower contacted him to say it appeared he was on fire. Unknown at that immediate time, the aircraft suffered a massive engine failure and then flight control failure and was on fire. Before Capt Miller successfully ejected, landing in the middle of 112th street only about 150 to 200 feet from where the aircraft impacted, he tried to guide it to as unpopulated area as he could find in those few short seconds. The aircraft crashed into a pond located in the middle of an apartment complex at 2100 So. 112th St., called Vista Oak Apartments falling almost straight down into the pond. 300 people lived and were sleeping that early Memorial Day, and nobody was injured. Capt Miller's heroic flying, guiding the aircraft towards a rural area, helped save those 300 people. The engine stayed together after the crash fairly well, which aided in identifying a Depot Team as responsible for the engine failure, which was officially documented as due to a faulty engine weld, although there was talk about a main engine bearing being installed incorrectly. The aircraft had just flown an FCF out of maintenance, the only flight it had post‐maintenance prior to this flight/crash. The Air Force Academy graduate pilot Captain Bruce Miller continued his career as a fighter pilot in the Air Force retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel with the Oregon ANG's 142 FIG / 123d FIS. Click the following links for a video covering this accident from Lt Col Miller himself titled the "Memorial Day Miracle". http://www.millerfinancial.biz/video/Memorial_day_miracle.mov 'Memorial Day Miracle' from Bruce Miller's website (43Mb file) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ye‐RAknthJI 'Memorial Day Miracle' on YouTube
From by Jim Crocker 19 May 2000 Early one sunny morning (a rarity here in the Pacific NW), a two ship was doing a standard takeoff when '2' had a flame‐out shortly after liftoff. The pilot struggled to get the airplane pointed at a gravel pit, but she wouldn't cooperate. He punched out... Shift POV to a friend of mine* in an apartment quad about 1/2 mile from the runway. He just got out of the shower and heard the usual roar of the Sound of Freedom. Unlike usual, however, this time there was a loud pop and only one engine continued. My friend walked to the window and opened it to see an F‐106 coming straight at him ass‐first! He claimed to not remember how exactly he ended up across the street naked and shivering ‐ only that somehow he did. What he didn't understand, nor did the rapidly growing crowd, was why there was no explosion or fire! Surely a fully loaded fighter should have destroyed the entire quad, and it was very unlikely that they had all shared the same hallucination. Besides, he wasn't the only one naked! They gingerly walked back to their apartments and looked out the windows facing center of the quad. There they found a very wet, muddy, nasty looking F‐106 steaming in the mud at the bottom of what was a duck pond, along with the tops of three 10‐inch diameter Ash trees; cleanly clipped off about 20' AGL. Official casualty count: 2 Mallards. Meanwhile, as the Base fire department was driving through the chain‐link fence, a gentleman who was raking his yard heard a voice yelling at him from above. He looked up just in time to see the ejection seat falling into his garden, followed by the pilot in full parachute. It took almost three weeks to extricate the airframe from its location, surrounded by apartments. The pilot received a medal (DSC?) for staying with the airplane as long as he did. *I have, unfortunately, lost track of this friend. He had a couple of my albums, too! ‐‐‐ From: Jim Crocker