![]() ![]() Neither aircraft was equipped with traffic collision avoidance systems (TCASs). At the time of the collision, the Tupolev was flying on a southerly route from Niamey, Niger, to Cape Town, South Africa, while the C-141 was heading northwest from Windhoek, Namibia, to Ascension Island. All 33 people on board both aircraft were killed. 13, 1997, a German Air Force Tupolev Tu-154M observation aircraft and the McGuire C-141B aircraft were destroyed in a mid-air collision while cruising at 35,000 feet (11,000 m) off the coast of Namibia, Africa. They would never return from the mission. Many of these nine crewmembers were known to me because the 13 AS frequented our services regularly. In the latter part of September, another friend from the 13 AS, Capt Peter Vallejo, set up appointments for the assigned crew to get visa photos for a short-notice humanitarian airlift mission to Africa. As we were mutual history buffs, the topic extended into American history, and we became friends. When Cindrich entered our office, we were scanning imagery pertaining to Khobar Towers, and a lengthy discussion took place, as he was eager to share his story. He had been reassigned to the 13 AS at McGuire in late 1996 when he came into our office to work on “graphics” on our self-help workstations. Among them was the medical evacuation of several Khobar Towers bombing victims and the medical evacuation of an Air Korea crash survivor from Guam to a burn center. He became a top-notch pilot and was especially proud of the humanitarian missions he had flown. ![]() In 1995, he joined the 15 AS at Charleston AFB, NC, as a C-141 pilot. After graduating from UPT in 1992, he was assigned to Andrews AFB, MD in the 89th Mission Support Squadron. He completed his Undergraduate Pilot Training (UPT) assignment at Reese AFB, TX. While there, I got to know Capt Gregory Cindrich, who graduated from the United States Air Force Academy in May 1991 with a Bachelor of Science degree in history. We were also in tight with the loadmasters, as they would occasionally return our flip-top bottles to Ramstein Air Base, Germany. When we were not flying, we would take official photos and passport/visa/isolated personnel reports, document traffic accidents, and capture those usual grip-n-grin ceremonial events. We would review flight/mission schedules, particularly during weekends, such as refueling B-2 bombers and FA-18s, or airdropping fun stuff like Humvees out the backs of a formation of C-141s. We became very close with both the crews and the “bookies” and were always on the lookout for a good story. We were constantly jockeying to hop on missions to document and tell the story of the tanker and airlift squadrons (AS). I was the Director of Visual Information Services and an aircrew-certified photojournalist assigned to McGuire Air Force Base (AFB), NJ, from 1996 through 2002. ![]()
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