Operation Baby Lift
Precious Cargo
In war-torn Vietnam, impoverished orphanages swelled with cast aside babies and children, many the offspring of American GIs. They were the lost children, bui doi, the dust of life. International agencies like Holt International, Friends For All Children, Friends For the Children of Vietnam, Catholic Relief Service, International Social Services, International Orphans, and the Pearl S. Buck Foundation had already been in place to care for the children and arrange for their adoption and departure. As the war raged around them, many individuals risked their lives to make sure that the children would have a home of their own. As a desperate measure, Ed Daly (President of World Airways) commissioned his own flight and left Vietnam with 57 children on board. In the last days before the fall, time was of the essence. Volunteers worked under the most strained of conditions, with minimal supplies and food. With the impending Fall of Saigon only weeks away, President Gerald R. Ford ordered a $2 million initiative to airlift Vietnamese orphans to safety on April 3, 1975.
C-5 Galaxy Crash
On the afternoon of Friday, 4 April 1975, C-5 68-0218, making the first flight of Operation Babylift, departed Tan Son Nhat Air Base for Clark Air Base in the Philippines. There, this first group of orphans were to transfer to charter flights and be welcomed by President Ford upon arriving in the United States at San Diego, California. At 4:15 p.m. the C-5A was over the South China Sea about 13 nautical miles off Vũng Tàu, South Vietnam, flying a heading of 136 degrees and climbing to an altitude of 23,000 ft. At that moment the locks on the rear loading ramp failed, causing the cargo door to open explosively. This caused explosive decompression, temporarily filling the cabin with a whirlwind of fog and debris. The blowout severed control cables to the tail, causing two of four hydraulic systems to fail, including those for the rudder and elevator, and leaving the flight control with only the use of one aileron, spoilers, and power. The crew increased power to the engines in an attempt to arrest the descent, but despite their efforts, the plane touched down at 4:45 p.m. in a rice paddy, and skidded for a quarter of a mile, became airborne again for another half-mile, crossing the Saigon River, then hit a dike and broke up into four pieces. The fuel caught fire and some of the wreckage was set ablaze. Survivors struggled to extricate themselves from the wreckage. The crash site was in a muddy rice paddy near the Saigon River, one mile from the nearest road. Fire engines could not reach the site, and helicopters had to set down some distance from the wreckage. About 100 South Vietnamese soldiers deployed around the site, which was near the site of an engagement with the Viet Cong the previous night. Out of 313 people on board, the death toll included 153 children, 35 Defence Attaché Office employees and 11 U.S. Air Force personnel. All of the surviving orphans were eventually flown to the United States. The dead orphans were cremated and are reported to be interred at a Catholic cemetery in Pattaya, Thailand.