507th ARW aircrew win AFA awards

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  • 507th ARW Public Affairs
TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Oklahoma --  Three aircrew members from the 507th Air Refueling Wing's 465th Air Refueling Squadron have been chosen to receive two awards from the Air Force Association for their outstanding airmanship.

Being recognized are Lieutenant Colonel Michael J. Remualdo, Major Benjamin R. Evans and Staff Sergeant Ronald W. Davis for their outstanding airmanship displayed during a Feb.17, 2010 mission supporting combat operations in Operation IRAQI FREEDOM.

The team will receive the Aircrew Excellence Award for 2010 from the Fourth Air Force Bob Hope Chapter located at March Air Reserve Base, California and the national Air Force Association's 2011 President's Award for Air Force Reserve Command. The national award is given to recognize the Air Force Reserve unit which displays outstanding flying achievement and continued superior performance.

On 17 February 2010, Lieutenant Colonel Michael J. Remualdo, Major Benjamin R. Evans and Staff Sergeant Ronald W. Davis, while supporting the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing, Southwest Asia, departed on a vital coalition combat mission to refuel numerous United States and coalition fighter and reconnaissance aircraft directly supporting combat in Operation IRAQI FREEDOM.

On that particular evening, their KC-135R (Stratotanker) crew was refueling their receiver when they flew through an area of precipitation with an F-16 Falcon hooked up to the tanker. The F-16 was dangerously low on fuel.

While they were connected, the boom pod lost total electrical power. The boom operator, Sergeant Davis, quickly called for a breakaway but neither the tanker nor the receiver could disconnect. Immediately Sergeant Davis began scanning the circuit breakers "by feel" in the darkness, found one popped open, reset it, restored electrical power and disconnected from the receiver.

A quick systems analysis revealed nothing wrong. The F-16, who had been loitering, needed to reconnect such that it could successfully continue a vital ground attack mission. After the F-16 took on approximately 4,000 pounds, the tanker aircrew was awaiting their final set of American fighters when they got word those fighters would not be refueling that night.

They were then informed by military controllers that their home base was not useable for landing due to extremely thick fog. They were directed to divert to a base in Saudi Arabia and began heading to that destination.

Soon afterward, they discovered a fuel valve in the aft body tank in their aircraft was malfunctioning, leading to a critical aft center of gravity situation and a fuel emergency. The crew no longer had the ability to transfer unused fuel from the back fuel cell to forward cells.

As mission commander, Lt. Col. Remualdo needed to make a decision before they ran out of usable fuel or before entering into an aft center of gravity situation that could potentially lead to loss of control of the aircraft. At the same time, communications problems with both military and air traffic controllers plagued the emergency aircraft.

Colonel Remualdo consulted his crew and requested permission from air traffic controllers to turn to land at Joint Base Balad, Iraq. Colonel Remualdo managed to inform military controllers of the dire situation and was able to get a direct flight path to Joint Base Balad, all the while desperately attempting to regain control of the malfunctioning fuel valve causing the critical fuel emergency.

Since the aircraft flight manual does not address this failure, Colonel Remualdo and Major Evans used their unique systems expertise to isolate the malfunction as a possible electrical or mechanical failure of the valve and not a sequencing failure of the valve. Since this valve can override other fuel valves, those conditions were eliminated as a cause.

As there is no way to manually control this critical fuel valve, all of their experience told them to reset electrical power to the valve and reset its functional ability. It took two resets before they were able to see fuel beginning to feed out of the aft fuel tank. Problems continued to plague them after a safe landing.

Due to enemy activity close to the base, limited flight line personnel were available. The crew began to refuel the aircraft by themselves. Normally, due to the immediate threat of hostile ground fire, KC-135s only perform night landings at Joint Base Balad. Aircraft, such as the flying gas station they were flying, need to land and take off under the cover of darkness.   They literally had minutes to upload fuel and get airborne to return to their alternate base.

A loose wire to the fuel valve was tightened by transient alert. The aircrew started the preflight to quickly get airborne before sunrise. Then, another electrical malfunction occurred that would have prevented a main landing gear door from rising up into the closed position. After trouble shooting that malfunction, it was too now late to takeoff before sunrise.

The crew would have to wait until the next period of darkness. During the day while the crew was resting, no less than five mortars landed inside the compound. This made for intense moments as one mortar came within 100 feet of aircrew lodging. Additionally, the base was under heavy machine gun fire; fortunately that gun fire impacted only the perimeter walls. Shortly after midnight the tired crew departed Balad and safely recovered at their home base to continue the fight.

Presentation of the 4th Air Force Award will be made July 21 at Riverside Convention Center, Riverside California and presentation of the national AFA award will be made September 19, 2011 during the opening of the 2011 Air & Space Conference and Technology Exposition at National Harbor, Maryland. The AFA's Chairman of the Board, along with various co-presenters, present National Aerospace Awards at the Conference. Traditionally included as co-presenters are the Air Force Chief of Staff, the Secretary of the Air Force and major command commanders.