Introduction

It was way too early on Friday morning, 21 November 1980, for someone to be pounding on the hotel room door. Maj Warren “Smokey” Hubbard from the 20th Special Operations Squadron (SOS) had just gotten to sleep after a night-vision-goggle (NVG) sortie on the Nellis AFB Test and Training Range, flown as part of Red Flag 81-1, and he was not happy about someone waking him up after a long night of flying. Capt Roger Poe, the squadron’s maintenance officer, was the guilty intruder, and Major Hubbard was not in the mood for what he thought was a practical joke. In rather colorful language he told Poe to go away so he could get some sleep. Captain Poe was on a mission, though, the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip was on fire and local officials had called the Air Force for help. Lt Col Wayne Corder, the 1st Special Operations Wing (SOW) mission commander, told Poe and the squadron’s operations officer, Maj Don Nieto, to start waking up Green Hornet crews and maintainers and get them immediately back out to Nellis AFB to prepare their UH-1N helicopters for launch. “If you don’t believe me,” Poe yelled back at Hubbard, “look out your window.” What Hubbard and all the others saw that morning was a thick, black cloud of oily smoke rising from the hotel—what flight engineer Dan Jaramillo, from the 302nd SOS, described as a “mushroom-shaped cloud, like you see on those old atomic bomb films.” News accounts from the day said the plume of smoke rose 2,000 feet into the air.

The special operations team at Red Flag also included three CH-3E Jolly Green Giant helicopters from the 302nd SOS (Air Force Reserve) then based at Luke AFB, Arizona. Their call sign was “Pony,” a legacy from the Pony Express missions the squadron had flown during the Vietnam War. The 302nd SOS’s commander, Lt Col Bruce Wood, was also banging on doors to get his crews and maintainers back out to the flightline to prepare their aircraft to support the rescue effort. Sleepy crews and maintainers from both squadrons rolled out of bed, grabbed their gear, and jumped into the back of waiting pickup trucks.

Less than an hour after the call from the Nellis AFB command post, three UH-1N Hueys from the 20th SOS and three CH-3Es from the 302nd SOS were airborne and heading south towards the burning hotel. The special operations aircrews were about to do something they had never done before and had not trained for—evacuate panicked civilians from a burning skyscraper. But because they were SOF and trained to evaluate high-risk situations before putting their aircraft and crews in danger, the two squadrons of Air Commandos sized up the situation and developed an effective solution.

The Situation

The 20th SOS Green Hornets were the first flying unit in the Air Force authorized to fly with NVGs. Five UH-1N Huey helicopters, crews, and maintainers from the squadron had deployed to Nellis AFB, Nevada, to exercise their NVG capabilities during the Red Flag exercise, our Air Force’s most realistic air combat training program. Both the Green Hornets and the Ponies had flown Red Flag missions the day before, supporting US Army Rangers in a remote part Nellis AFB’s large desert and mountainous range.

In 1980, the original MGM Grand Hotel and Casino was located on the Las Vegas Strip, less than a mile from the current MGM Grand complex. Early that morning an electrical fire started in the kitchen of the 43-acre, super-luxury hotel, at the time known as the “Lady of the Strip.” Because the hotel did not have an automatic sprinkler system, the fire quickly spread to the first floor. Because the initial reports were of a kitchen fire, the response from Las Vegas fire, medical, police, and rescue units was delayed. Some hotel guests who were still gambling refused to leave the tables because of the “small kitchen fire,” and got upset when the dealers forced them to leave. The situation changed, though, once Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department pilot Sgt Harry Christopher, and his partner, Officer Tom Mildren, in their Hughes 500 helicopter (the military version is an OH-6) arrived and reported the true extent of the situation.

Police Sgt Christopher’s helicopter was the first aircraft on scene. When they arrived at the 26-story hotel, the dense black smoke made it hard to see and flames were quickly spreading from the lower two floors to the rest of the hotel. Oily smoke and toxic fumes from the burning plastics that were everywhere—wallpaper, furniture, and fixtures. The smoke and fumes were spreading upwards through stairwells, corridors, elevator shafts, and ventilation systems. People in their rooms were still asleep because there was also not an automatic fire alarm system. As the two police officers approached the inferno, the pilot told his partner that if hotel guests made it to the roof then his plan was to start loading them and taking them down to the parking lot.

Bedlam ensued when the police helicopter first landed on the roof. Panicked people were pushing each other out of the way to get on the chopper—male, female, young, and old, it did not matter. People were in a frenzy and their fear caused them to scream, shove, claw, and fight each other for a place on the helicopter. Officer Mildren got out of the left seat to pull people off the overloaded helicopter. As Sgt Christopher took off with the first load, Officer Mildren stayed on the roof to organize the crowd into loads the small Hughes 500 could manage. Each time the police helicopter returned though, the organized loads gave way to chaos. The policeman had to again pull people off the helicopter and off each other. Eventually, two civilians came forward and helped Officer Mildren organize and control the crowd.

Soon, a Flight for Life air ambulance and two civilian sightseeing helicopters joined Sgt Christopher to aid the evacuation airlift from the hotel roof. After about 40 minutes of continuous shuttling of survivors off the roof, it was eerily empty. Everyone who could have made it up to the roof at that point had been evacuated to the parking lot below. On the upper floors, though, above the 9-story reach of fire department’s ladder trucks, there were still perhaps 1,000 people trapped in their rooms by the blinding smoke, scorching heat, and toxic fumes filling the corridors, stairwells, and air conditioning ducts. Sgt Christopher realized he was going to need professional help and called the Air Force to assist.

Downstairs, in the hotel, the Las Vegas fire department had finally arrived and firefighters were battling the blaze on the lower floors while emergency medical services treated those survivors who had gotten out. The Las Vegas Police department tried to control the gathering crowd of gawkers and the traffic flow. They also cleared a parking lot to set up a safe landing area for the helicopters. Unfortunately, one unlucky patrolman had left his cruiser in the middle of the parking area with the lights on, but no keys in the ignition. A city tow truck ended up dragging the unfortunate police car out of the way.

Help Arrives

The six special operations helicopters and three additional USAF UH-1Ns assigned to Detachment 1 of Nellis AFB’s 57th Tactical Fighter Wing, but based at Indian Springs Auxiliary Field, now Creech AFB, about 40 miles northwest of downtown Las Vegas, arrived to help with the rescue operation. The six Hueys went to the parking lot east of the hotel and the larger CH-3s landed in a large field to the south. Colonel Wood, piloting one of the CH-3s, Pony 3, stopped enroute to help two people trapped on the hotel roof escape. With just his right main landing gear touching down on the roof, and his nose and left main gear still flying, Pony 3’s flight engineers helped the survivors, one of them a very pregnant woman, climb on board. Pony 3 then joined the other two CH-3s in the field and delivered the survivors to the medical staff.

The Air Force crews joined the dozen other helicopters from civilian companies, federal agencies, and nearby local governments that had arrived to help. Sgt Christopher in his police helicopter became a combination traffic cop, air traffic controller, and mission commander. He kept strict control of the situation to make sure none of the well-meaning pilots trying to help “acted like John Wayne up there” and did not take it upon themselves to do whatever they wanted. Major Hubbard said it best, “I don’t think it would have gone any smoother if we had all sat together and had a three-hour briefing and planned it as an exercise.” In one conspicuous act of kindness, the owner of a local McDonald’s restaurant brought a trunk-full of hamburger and milkshakes to give to the emergency services teams struggling to get the situation under control.

Because the fire department’s ladders could not get higher than the ninth floor, the Hueys were pressed into service to carry firefighters, paramedics, rescue personnel, equipment, and supplies to roof so they could fight the fire from the top down and evacuate survivors from the rooms. One of the paramedics recalled finding an elderly woman on the 22nd floor who was having a heart attack. He carried her through the smoke-filled hall and up the stairs to the roof. There he started an IV and loaded her on the helicopter. He recalls that the scariest part of the operation was the helicopter flight because it felt like the rotor blades were only feet away from the building. Exhausted firefighters, paramedics, and survivors who made it to the roof were then ferried to the parking lot by the Hueys.

No one knew if the hotel’s roof was strong enough to take the Huey’s weight. Major Hubbard ordered the Green Hornets to stay “light on the skids” out of caution, supporting most of the helicopter’s weight with the spinning rotor blades and thus not testing the strength of the roof. The 20th SOS was credited with removing 36 people from the roof, 5 of whom were in critical condition.

Trapped people from the middle floors to the top floor were at their windows or out on their balconies waving towels or bed sheets to summon help. One person tied bedsheets together into a makeshift rope about 100 feet long. The pilots saw him throw it over the side of his balcony, but he changed his mind and did not try to climb down.

The 302nd SOS’s CH-3Es were equipped with hydraulic high-speed rescue hoists and so those aircraft were tasked with trying to get people off the balconies. The problem, though, was that the hotel roof had an 8-foot overhang that prevented the hoist cable from getting close to the balconies. For the hoist operation to work the Pony crews had to be creative. MSgt Bill Reynolds, one of the flight engineers (FE) on Capt Mike Martin’s Pony 2 crew had an idea. He would take one of the 15-foot cargo tie-down ropes with him as he was lowered on the forest penetrator and then throw the rope to survivors who would pull the FE on the hoist—special operations helicopters did not have pararescue specialists—across and onto the balcony. The FE would then dismount from the penetrator, load a survivor on, and signal the hovering helicopter to bring up the passenger. While the helicopter hovered partially over the roof, the FE would then swing the cable to create a pendulum effect and bring the dangling penetrator to the FE waiting on the balcony.

On Pony 2’s first rescue attempt, the second FE on the crew, MSgt Jim Connett, lowered his good friend, Bill Reynolds, to one of the balconies on the 26th floor where five people were anxiously waiting for help. The rope trick worked and Reynolds clambered over the balcony railing. One by one, Reynolds put the survivors onto the penetrator and Connett hoisted them up to the waiting helicopter. Once all five survivors were on board, Connett sent the cable down again, this time to retrieve his friend. As Reynolds was strapping himself onto the penetrator the slack in the cable suddenly and unexpectedly tightened and the FE’s legs were caught in the wrought-iron railing. Although hurt and badly bruised, Reynolds’ legs were not broken. He was, however, in no shape to continue riding the hoist but he could operate it for Connett. Capt Martin delivered the five grateful survivors to the parking lot and waiting paramedics, then Pony 3 headed back up to the roof.

For their second attempt, Connett switched places with Reynolds. As he tried to toss the cargo rope towards a lone woman on a balcony, she made a half-hearted effort to crab the rope. The FE was unsure of why she had not tried very hard to grab the “lifeline” until he realized she was worried about her skirt blowing up from the rotor wash. With all the confusion of the noise, downwash, and chaos of the moment it was rough trying to convince her to put aside her modesty and grab the proffered rope. On the second try she finally grabbed it but hung the rope over the balcony railing. Bill Reynolds realized what was happening and had the pilot move the aircraft so that the Connett could swing and grab the railing. Once on the balcony, he had a hard time convincing the woman to get onto the hoist. He eventually persuaded her to get on the penetrator and up she went. Meanwhile, two men were locked inside the room. Connett broke the sliding-glass door and helped the first one out and onto the penetrator. As that survivor was going up to the helicopter the FE turned for the second man, but he was gone. Connett went into the smoke-filled room to locate the mission man, but the sound of an explosion and of shattering glass forced him back out onto the balcony. At that point it was onto the penetrator himself and back up to Pony 2.

TSgt Dan Jaramillo, an FE on Colonel Wood’s Pony 3 helicopter did not have a cargo rope when he was lowered down to the balconies by hoist. Moreover, instead of a second FE, the hoist on his CH-3 was operated by 1Lt Frank Wallace, a Green Hornet instructor pilot from the 20th SOS. While hanging over 100 feet below the hovering helicopter, Jaramillo started swinging towards the survivors who were desperate to get out of their rooms and away from the burning hotel. In one room there were two men and another pregnant woman. On his third attempt to swing and grab the balcony railing the FE hit it at about chest high, so hard that it knocked the wind out of him. Jaramillo held onto the railing, though, and the men helped him onto the balcony. It took a few minutes to calm the woman down and convince her to get onto the hoist. The safety strap barely fit around her. Promising he would come back and get the two men, the FE strapped himself onto the second fold-down seat of the forest penetrator. Crying, the lady kissed her husband, and the FE gave the up signal to Wallace. They got her aboard and immediately took her to waiting paramedics in the parking lot below. Pony 3 then went back up and they made good on their promise to the two waiting survivors.

Jaramillo and Wallace continued their pendulum act to get people off of balconies or out of rooms on the upper floors. On one occasion, for a room without a balcony, Jaramillo crashed through the window to get to the survivors. Luckily, it was safety glass and it shattered when he hit it and he was winded but not hurt. Later, Wallace was swinging the FE towards another balcony and but that time they had too much speed. The tip of the penetrator caught the top of the railing and Jaramillo went tumbling over the balcony, crashed through the glass door, and landed at the feet of three people huddling in the corner. All three were rescued.

Not everyone the Air Commandos pulled out of the upper story rooms made it, though. One man was not breathing when the crew pulled him from his room. When the FE hoisted the victim into the helicopter the crew tried desperately to revive him. Despite administering rescue breathing, the man never regained consciousness. On another occasion, a young woman was trying to climb from her balcony to the one below. The FE saw her and signaled for her to get back inside the railing until he could swing over and help her. She was so scared though that she kept trying to stretch and make it to the lower balcony. As the FE on the hoist cable neared, only a few feet away, she lost her grip and fell more than 150 feet to her death.

The Aftermath

By about noon the firefighters had the blaze under control and they began escorting survivors from the upper floors upon onto the roof and the waiting Hueys and civilian helicopters. Hundreds of scared guests were airlifted down to the parking lot, evaluated, and treated for smoke inhalation, cuts and bruises, and shock. But the firefighters also found the bodies of almost 85 people who were not as fortunate.

The grim task of removing the dead bodies from the roof to the makeshift morgue that had been constructed in the parking lot fell to the Green Hornet crews. Major Hubbard remembers the care and respect the crews of the 20th SOS showed the deceased. He also remembers how some in the media failed to appreciate the situation and tried photographing remains as they were removed from the aircraft. One 20th SOS crew had to close the cabin doors of their helicopter because a perverse news photographer insisted on photographing an extremely attractive woman, dressed only in a fur coat, who had died from smoke inhalation. Another paparazzi placed a ladder in the back of a pickup truck to give him better vantage point for his macabre filming. Hubbard radioed 1Lt James Mehegan and asked him to hover near the insensitive photographer. After being completely enveloped in a cloud of sand, the photographer got the message and left the area.

By early afternoon, after more than six hours of continuous flying at the MGM Grand, the 302nd SOS helicopters were released from the mission. They had saved 17 people, 2 when Pony 3 landed on the roof and 15 more by hoist. But their day did not end there. They were tasked to fly back out into the Nellis Range complex and retrieve the Army Rangers they had inserted the day before. When the Pony crews finally got back to Nellis AFB and shut down for the day, they were directed to go to the Officers Club for an informal debriefing and a couple well-deserved beers. Despite aching muscles, smoke residue in their mouths, throats, noses, and lungs, and sweat-soaked sooty flight suits, the crews answered questions from the Air Force and from the media. The media frenzy continued for weeks, with the crews from both squadrons appearing on national television and on local news outlets when they returned home from Red Flag to spend Thanksgiving with their families.

Now, over forty years later, few recall the tragedy at the MGM Grand Hotel. But what those aircrews and maintainers did that day is still remarkable and deserves to be remembered as among Air Commandos’ finest moments. Their courage, strength, and creativity were pivotal in mitigating the disaster of what was the second worst hotel fire in US history. It is fitting that we remember and honor what they did in the service of their nation.

(Editor’s Note: Most of the official 20th SOS records from this mission have been lost and after 40 years, crew members’ memories have faded. The Green Hornet crew lists are as close as the editors could make them. We apologize for any inaccuracies. It is also worth noting that due to the exigencies of the moment, some crew members were placed into service to help where needed, for example, a pilot or a maintainer assisting qualified flight engineers in the cabins of the aircraft.)

Hornet 1
P: Maj Warren “Smokey” Hubbard
P: 2Lt Rich Kianka
FE: MSgt Rich Musterd
FE: MSgt Jesse Herrell

Hornet 2
P: 1Lt Jim Mehegan
P: 1Lt Dyke Whitbeck
FE: SSgt Dale Blackwood
FE: SMSgt Buck Watson

Hornet 3
P: Capt Howard Stevens
P: 1Lt Bob Donnelly
FE: SSgt Ed Acha
FE: Capt Burt McKenzie

Pony 1
P: Capt Lester “Ed” Smith
P: Maj Lawrence Lybarger
FE: TSgt Jerry Fletcher
FE: TSgt James Hodges

Pony 2
P: Capt Mike Martin
P: Capt Dave Ellis
FE: MSgt Jim Connett
FE: MSgt Bill Reynolds

Pony 3:
P: Lt Col Bruce Wood
P: Lt Col Bill Takacs, 20 SOS
FE: TSgt Dan Jaramillo
FE: 1Lt Frank Wallace, 20 SOS
FE: MSgt Ray Reynoso