Posted on 07/20/2003 4:44:28 PM PDT by Ragtime Cowgirl
Pilot describes Baghdad crash
7/17/2003 - WASHINGTON (AFPN) -- Maj. Jim Ewald had just finished a close-air support mission over Baghdad when his A-10 Thunderbolt II was hit by an Iraqi surface-to-air missile April 8. It physically moved the plane "like the hand of God," Ewald said during a Pentagon interview July 16.
Ewald is a pilot with the 110th Fighter Wing out of Battle Creek, Mich.
The missile came up from the southwest, and Ewald said he never saw it. But he had no doubt a missile had hit him.
"I could see a reddish glow on my cockpit instruments from the fire behind me," he said. His second thought was that he had not been wounded.
It was then that the airplane “departed from controlled flight,” he said.
"That's just the way we say, ‘I was trying to fly the airplane one way, but the airplane was off doing its own thing,’" the Michigan guardsman said.
Ewald was soon able to regain control.
"I was very fortunate to be flying this mission in an A-10, because had I not, I would have bailed out right there," he said. "My next thought was 'I don't want to bail out right over Baghdad or I'm going to be in it deep.'"
He and his wingman headed out of Baghdad and sought American lines.
"It was physically hard (to fly the plane),” Ewald said. "I was manipulating everything with all the muscles in my body. I had flight-control problems. I had engine problems. I had fuel-flow problems. I had hydraulic problems … not to mention that I had an airplane that was disintegrating. I looked back once, and I could see little parts falling off the engine, and I thought, 'I really don't know what that is, but I think I need it.' "
As he continued south, he lost one of the engines completely, and he ejected.
"The ejection seat was packed by one of my new best friends out of Boise, Idaho, and it worked perfectly," Ewald said.
After he hit the ground, he mistook the A-10’s 30 mm rounds exploding in the burning airplane for incoming Iraqi fire. He ran to hide in a dried canal behind some reeds. He heard engine noise and hoped that the vehicle was American.
"I knew the 3rd Infantry Division had been in the area, but I didn't know if it was still there," Ewald said.
There were Fedayeen Saddam paramilitary forces still running around, he said, and he could not see very well.
"I heard one yell in English, but I thought maybe this guy went to language school," Ewald said. "Then I heard another voice yell in English, 'Hey, pilot dude. Come out. We're Americans.'"
There was no mistaking the accent, he said.
"He sounded like your typical 19-year-old American," Ewald said. "I thought, ‘That's something you don't learn in language school.’"
The soldiers were from the Army's 54th Engineer Battalion, and they had seen Ewald eject. They arrived some 10 to 15 minutes after he hit the ground, he said.
Ewald went back to the 110th FW and was back into the cockpit within 48 hours.
"Hey pilot rude, come out, we american."
W1!
We win!
Ahhhhhhhh
That's great! Joe is a character aint he? ;-)
"The ejection seat was packed by one of my new best friends out of Boise, Idaho, and it worked perfectly"
Michigan turns out some fine Americans. More of them need to run for office. (^:
Ewald went back to the 110th FW and was back into the cockpit within 48 hours.
He didn't attend group therapy.
He didn't spend 2 weeks with a shrink.
He didn't mope around in self-pity.
He got back in the cockpit and did his job.
Thank you, Major Ewald.
Thanks to all military personnel for their bravery, sacrifice, and hard work.
LOL!
Next thing you know, he was being stuffed into a phone booth with Abe Lincoln and So-crates.
This guy has a lot of moxie.... Gotta love him!
And "Hey pilot dude!..." soldier.... Love him too.
Our honorable, non-racist (without making it an issue), non-sexist (mostly male as our defenders have always been through history), courageous, caring military men and women debunked decades of anti-American, anti-military PR from the UN, socialist NGOs, Commies and various American bashing activist groups selling anti-American lies to the world (NAACP, NOW, WWF..). The 'evil capitalist military industrial machine' liberated an oppressed nation, while the supposed liberators defended a monster.
That's what I saw. Someone in India, China, even France probably learned the truth about our nation and our troops watching them in action, day after day on the way to Baghdad.
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