RC-135 crash in the Bering Sea
24th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron Boeing RC-135 · Not determined
From Eareckson Air Base, Aleutian Islands (Alaska) to , Fairbanks (Alaska)
Event
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- Event fatalities
- 19 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Military
Boeing RC-135
- Aircraft type
- Boeing RC-135
- Category
- Airplane · from aircraft type
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- 62-4137
- Onboard fatalities
- 19
- Route
- From Eareckson Air Base, Aleutian Islands (Alaska)To , Fairbanks (Alaska)
Not plotted · Not plotted: the Wikipedia article gives no coordinates, and its site names no town or airport that matches exactly.
From the Wikipedia article
The RC-135 crash in the Bering Sea was an aviation disaster that occurred on the morning of Thursday, 5 June 1969 in the middle of the Bering Sea. A Boeing RC-135E Rivet Amber reconnaissance aircraft with 19 people on board was operating a ferry flight from Shemya Island to Fairbanks when, an hour and a half into the flight, contact with it was lost. Despite numerous searches, no trace of the aircraft could be found.
Crash
In early June 1969, while landing on Shemya Island (Aleutian Islands), Rivet Amber encountered severe turbulence. Later, during a ground inspection, numerous skin damages were found in the tail section, especially on the fin and at the tail supports of the high-frequency communications antenna. No other damage, including on the side sections, especially in the area of the modified sections, was noticed. At the demand of the command, despite objections from the airfield's maintenance service, the decision was made to ferry the aircraft to, near Fairbanks, for skin repairs.
On 5 June, the RC-135E with 19 people on board, operating a ferry flight with the callsign Irene 92, took off from Shemya and headed along the common airway across the Bering Sea towards the mainland. Unexpectedly, in the 45th minute of the flight, at 09:38 local time, the commander of the KC-135C aircraft Big Team, Larry Cobb (Larry Cobb), received a message: Rivet Amber is declaring Mayday. Reporting severe vibration and descending to a lower altitude (Rivet Amber had declared a May Day and was reporting severe vibration and was descending to lower altitude). In the second message only the callsign (Irene 92) was given, and in the third message the crew reported that they were putting on oxygen masks. At 10:22 (18:22 GMT) the messages from aircraft 62-4137 ceased.
Despite extensive searches lasting two weeks, no trace of the aircraft could be found; all 19 people on board were declared dead. At the same time, it was noted that a suspicious Soviet trawler had been spotted in the presumed crash area, the purpose of whose presence in that area remained unclear.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
Among crews flying the RC-135, the following version of what happened is widespread: separation of the fin. The point is that C-135/B707 aircraft, because of their swept wings, have a tendency to "Dutch roll" — a loss of directional stability. At first this problem was addressed by training pilots to recover from it, but on 19 October 1959, during a test flight while practising this situation, a crash occurred in the Arlington area (Washington). It was then decided to increase the area of the vertical tail. However, the aerodynamic load on the latter only increased, as was confirmed by the crash of a Boeing 707 on Fuji (Japan) on 5 March 1966, when a passenger airliner flying near the mountain encountered abnormally severe turbulence, as a result of which the tail section separated. In this connection the Pacer Fin programme was launched to replace the stabiliser mountings (vertical and horizontal) with reinforced ones. Such a programme was also launched in the military, but because of the large size of the C-135/KC-135 fleet and their variants, not all aircraft were modified in time; aircraft 62-4137 had an enlarged tail, but with the original mounting.
When aircraft 62-4137 was converted into an RC-135E, its structure underwent various changes, but the tail was left unchanged, despite the fact that the aircraft's total weight, and hence the load on the control surfaces, had increased significantly. Having begun reconnaissance flights in 1965, two years later Rivet Amber returned to Greenville (Texas) for scheduled maintenance and inspection. The aircraft was found to be technically sound, and no structural damage from the installation of the radar system was noticed. No fatigue cracks were detected either. The RC-135E was returned to the squadron, after which over the next 9 months it made fifty flights. Under the Pacer Fin programme the aircraft's tail mountings were due to be replaced when, without explanation, the Strategic Air Command leadership decided to postpone the modification by 500 flight hours; in doing so, it was probably not taken into account that aircraft 62-4137 was operated in difficult weather conditions at an airfield in the northern Pacific Ocean.
When, before the fatal flight, the aircraft encountered severe turbulence and damaged its tail, it should have been thoroughly inspected for damage, not limited to an external inspection of the skin.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the Russian Wikipedia article “Катастрофа RC-135 в Беринговом море” (revision 155011524, retrieved 2026-09-19) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out; the translation may contain errors, and long articles were cut to their first 700 words. Read the article
Sources
Russian Wikipedia article: Катастрофа RC-135 в Беринговом море
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 155011524 · 2026-09-12 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q65154349
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
Where each value comes from
- Record
- ru Wikipedia article "Катастрофа RC-135 в Беринговом море" (page 7850250, revision 155011524), translated into English with AI assistance
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- none
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- operator named as an armed force or military unit in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the Russian Wikipedia article's infobox, translated into English with AI assistance, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.