Operation baby lift
The Operation Babylift referred shipments of US forces in the Vietnam War from - depending on the source - more than 2,000 or 3,000 children from South Vietnam . The operation was carried out in the last phase of the war in April 1975.
Most of the children (around 2000) were brought to the USA, but also to other countries, including Australia , France , Canada (around 1300 in total to countries outside the USA) and some also to Germany.
The flights began on April 3, 1975 on the instructions of US President Gerald Ford . At this point, Đà Nẵng was already in North Vietnamese hands and Saigon was under artillery fire. The flights continued until the artillery bombardment of Tan Son Nhut Airport made air traffic impossible.
Together with Operation New Life , around 110,000 people were brought from Vietnam at the end of the war.
accident
| Operation Baby Lift Flight 1 | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Accident summary | |
| Accident type | explosive decompression |
| place | Rice field near Tan Son Nhut Airport - coordinates |
| date | April 4th 1975 |
| Fatalities | 155 |
| Survivors | 173 |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | Lockheed C-5 Galaxy |
| operator | USAF |
| Mark | 68-0218 |
| Departure airport | Ho Chi Minh City Airport |
| Destination airport | Angeles City Airport |
| Passengers | 311 |
| crew | 17th |
| Lists of aviation accidents | |
The first flight on April 4, 1975 with a Lockheed C-5A Galaxy ( aircraft registration number 68-0218 ) ended in a serious accident. About 64 kilometers away from Saigon , the locks of the rear loading hatch failed at an altitude of 7000 m because three of the seven locking bolts on one side were not locked and the remaining four could no longer withstand the difference between internal and external pressure. Investigations showed that the reason that the loading hatch tension rods were incorrectly installed at the air force base in California before the flight to Saigon. The tearing off of the cargo hatch was followed by an explosive decompression of the aircraft. After that, the aircraft was hardly controllable because the hydraulic lines for the elevator and rudder were cut. It had to return to Tan Son Nhut. 155 people died in a crash landing in a rice field 3 kilometers from the airport. Most of these were children, plus five of the 17 crew members. Most of the survivors sat on the upper deck of the Galaxy, while the passengers on the lower deck almost all perished. The accident was discussed in the international press.
filming
The accident on the first flight with the C5 Galaxy was recorded in a report from the Mayday - Alarm series in the cockpit . This was broadcast for the first time on the N24 television channel in early November 2009 .
A documentary film about the accident in Cannes in 2009 also received several awards. The film is called Operation Babylift, the lost children of Vietnam .
The flown out today
Many of the children who flown out at the time do not know today who their birth parents are. The operation took place under enemy fire and was chaotic. For many of the children of that time, this is still stressful today. Many have organized themselves in self-help groups.
Web links
- The children of Operation Baby Lift. In: one day . Retrieved April 8, 2005, November 10, 2009 (two pages).
- Allison Martin: Operation Babylift - Vietnam Adoption Airlift 1975. AdoptVietnam.org, accessed November 10, 2009 .
- Adopted Vietnamese International. Retrieved November 10, 2009 (English, Australia).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jannis Hagmann: "Operation Baby Lift": Who am I then? In: the daily newspaper . March 4, 2015 ( taz.de [accessed on August 13, 2015]).
- ↑ Frank Stenglein: Operation Baby Lift: Child of Fortune from Vietnam survived the 1975 crash. In: WAZ. April 24, 2015, accessed August 13, 2015 .
- ^ Accident report C-5A Galaxy 68-0218 , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on September 18, 2017.
- ↑ Episode "Operation Babylift" of the documentary series "Mayday"
- ^ Operation baby lift . thebabylift.com