The B-52 flight back to Guam was uneventful until they began their final approach, when the co-pilot shouted, “The flaps are splitting!”
It had been nearly 12 hours since Captain Bob Amos had taken off from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam on a B-52 bombing mission to strike targets near Saigon. As he piloted his Stratofortress into its approach for landing back at Andersen, slowing to 220 knots and lowering the flaps, his co-pilot, Captain Lee Meyers, shouted out, “The flaps are splitting!”
Amos ordered Meyers to raise the flaps as he corrected a rolling moment to the left, and then declared an emergency as he pulled out of the bomber stream and climbed to gain altitude. What had been an uneventful flight was now getting hairy, all the more so because of the man who was seated behind Amos in the instructor pilot seat. Visions of screaming newspaper headlines hitting doorsteps across America raced through his head: “Jimmy Stewart Killed in Bomber Accident with Bob Amos Piloting!”
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