Ramp Incident Cured by Wing Walkers

The Marine C-130s would use the Air Vietnam parking area when they brought supplies which was generally once a week.  In this picture the Air Vietnam DC-6 was turning around to leave and just about made it if it had not been for that short bit of wing tip that came in contact with the C-130's right wing. The Vietnamese didn't have any equipment to manually move the DC-6 and HMM-364 didn't have a tow bar that fit the situation. The solution was a common oriental one, use a lot of manpower.  In this case, they kept running more and more of their personnel out onto the wing tip of the DC-6 causing it to bend from the weight of the wing walkers.  In the end, it took about 25 of them to get the right bend allow the DC-6 to taxi out from under the C-130's wing.  They did allow the wing walkers to get off before the DC-6 took off.
 

Information and photo by:
    Warren R. Smith, former Cpl. USMC

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