Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Benjamin Cossel | Divers with the Guantanamo Bay Reef Raiders Dive Club solved the mystery of the S2F...... read more read more
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GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba - Like many who fall under the strong magic of Guantanamo Bay scuba diving, Chris Hileman had heard the rumors of a plane submerged somewhere in the water. A master diver, Hileman volunteered to help on a deep dive class when he learned the wreckage was the ultimate destination. From that fateful dive, a mystery worthy of Sherlock Holmes began to unfold – how did this piece of aviation history end up on the bottom of Guantanamo Bay?
“When you have a bit of the history and context of something, you’re more likely to treat it with respect and take care of it,” Hileman, the current president of the Reef Raiders Dive Club, said explaining his reasons for digging further into the story.
On one of the five dives to the crash site, Hileman took several photos of the plane, a Grumman S2F lovingly referred to by its pilots as a Stoof, from as many angles as he could. The depth of the dive, between 127 and 130 feet, meant the six divers had approximately five minutes worth of air to get what they could and get back to the surface.
“One of the reasons the plane is in such good shape is because it is such a deep dive,” Hileman explained, noting the depth of the wreckage kept many divers away.
Divers must be deep dive certified before going beyond the 60-foot depth.
After posting the photos in July to a website dedicated to the aircraft, Hileman heard nothing for months. Then in December, Hileman was contacted by the Stoof’s Pilot Association. The SPA posted the images on their website, and in January Hileman received a narrative from retired Navy Capt. John Tarn detailing one very bad day at the helm of a Stoof. As luck would have it, not only was Tarn able to solve the S2F mystery, he was able to give intimate details — Tarn was one of the pilots involved in the crash.
“We were on a cruise aboard the USS Lake Champlain in April 1959,” Tarn began. “This particular flight took place on the 28th.”
The S2F had flown ashore the previous day, landing at an airfield that today is the location of one of Joint Task Force Guantanamo’s detention facilities. Tarn, a lieutenant junior grade at the time, was flying with Lt. Al Chandler. The two were tasked with getting some flying time to prepare for carrier qualification. Along with the crew, the pilots began a three-hour flight with lead pilot time split between Chandler and Tarn. During Chandler’s time behind the stick, a pilot in a different plane was photographing the event.
“At the completion of the camera shoot, we headed back to base to change seats for my turn,” Tarn said.
Near the 1,100 foot mark the plane suddenly got very, very quiet as both engines quit.
“Chandler set up a glide to the west with a right hand turn into the wind,” Tarn said. “He made a textbook water landing with six-foot waves as a runway.”
Tarn’s hatch came forward on touchdown, and for the first few seconds his vision was completely clouded by escaping air bubbles.
“I couldn’t see the pilot next to me,” said Tarn.
Evacuating the aircraft onto the wing, Tarn noticed the two crewmen bobbing in the ocean and Chandler in a one-man lifeboat.
“We were midway between our airfield and Leeward Point,” Tarn said, adding the rescue helicopter and crash boat could be seen making their way toward them. When the rescue helicopter arrived, those in the water indicated the crew should be picked up first.
“This turned out to be the hairiest part of the flight,” said Tarn.
The helicopter hooked up one of the crewmen, got the Sailor nearly 20 feet in the air when the hook came undone, plunging the man back into the water. This happened not once, but twice. On the third attempt, the beleaguered sailor waved the aircrew off. The helicopter crew then picked up the second crewmen without incident.
“By this time, the crash boat was circling us,” Tarn said, but another wrinkle of complication would quickly emerge.
“The crash boat was circling through our parachute lines. When the first class coxen managed to get us all onboard, the parachute lines were wrapped all around the propeller,” he described.
In an effort to free the lines from the propeller, the coxen gave a seaman a machete and instructed him to cut the lines away from the propeller.
“The seaman wound up and missed, slicing the leg of the coxen,” Tarn said.
As the seaman navigated the boat back to shore, the rescued pilots became rescuers as they patched up the wounded sailor as best they could.
“It is customary to give survivors a shot of whiskey,” Tarn said of a then Guantanamo Bay hospital tradition. “The other pilot and I looked at each other and gave our shot to the first class (the coxen).”
Hileman knew his mystery was solved.
“Based off the captain’s story and approximate position … I felt this was his aircraft,” said Hileman.
Tarn was under the impression the aircraft went much deeper than where it ultimately came to rest, a fact Hileman used to judge the captain’s story.
“Even though he thought it went into 600 feet of water, he was close to the shelf that drops that deep but missed it,” Hileman explained.
Unraveling the mystery, Hileman said he was glad he was able to restore a piece of forgotten Guantanamo Bay history.
“Having it solved means a lot,” Hileman said. “It adds context to the wreck and history to the base that was forgotten. It’s hard to beat a story like that to go with it!”
| Date Taken: | 01.28.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 01.28.2011 11:49 |
| Story ID: | 64390 |
| Location: | GUANTANAMO BAY, CU |
| Web Views: | 898 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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