In 1975, the only daughter of Edward J. Daly (President of World Airways) got a call from a worried woman about orphaned children in Vietnam. She immediately called her father to ask if he could assist in getting the children out of Vietnam because DaNang and Saigon were becoming very dangerous. Daly did not waste one minute and began to make plans for their rescue right away. On March 27th, Daly had sent a message to President Ford and Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger saying, "A human slaughter of massive proportions is imminent". Daly never received a reply and decided to act anyway. He pulled one of his planes off a Rice Lift in Cambodia. It was then that Captain Keating and Captain Healy discovered that they were assigned to fly five hundred and fifty orphans to the United States.
Four doctors and seventeen European, American and Australian nurses from the orphanage volunteered to help. Talks with the Vietnamese and U.S. government officials about crowd control at DaNang went nowhere and at five A.M., Daly called Healy’s room and said "I don't care if the __ will help or not. If you will fly to DaNang with me, we will move more refugees on our own". They immediately went to work and three crews were alerted that three flights would be 30 minutes apart so only one plane would be on the ground at any given time. Not surprisingly, Daly and Healy took the first flight.
It was on March 29, 1975, all was calm until the landing when all hell broke loose. Healy radioed the other two 727’s and told them to turn back and not to attempt the landing. There were soldiers running behind the 727 as it taxied slowly down the runway. Some ran up the rear stairs and others climbed into the cargo compartments and wheel wells. Daly stood at the rear stairs pistol whipping the soldiers that tried to get on the plane. The plane was severely damaged by hand grenades that were thrown by soldiers in an attempt to stop the plane. The crowd was out of control so Daly told Captain Healy to get out of there not knowing the plane was past maximum weight (around 20,000 pounds). There were 360 passengers aboard an aircraft made for a maximum of 105 passengers.
At least one soldier was seen firing his pistol at the cockpit as the jet tried to take off. The 727 took gunfire and a grenade explosion that damaged the flaps. It hit a fence and a vehicle before staggering into the air. The plane flew with the cargo doors open, the aft stairs partially opened and the main gear down because when they tried to retract the gear there was a soldier that was crushed in the wheel. The plane had to fly at 10,000 feet because of lack of pressurization. Fuel consumption was three times greater than normal. Somehow the 727 made it back to Saigon, gear down and with split flaps, managing to land safely. The dreadful photos of the dead soldier’s feet hanging from the gear doors told the miserable story.
Ironically the one man's death saved four others who had also climbed into the wheel well, for his crushed body had prevented the gear from retracting all the way. Later, when the details of the overweight and damage-laden takeoff were sent to Boeing for analysis, the response was that the 727 should not have been able to fly. They said they knew of no deaths resulting from this. But aviation experts here said after talking to passengers and stowaways on the plane that between 20 and 30 persons had probably been killed, some run over on take-off and others dropped away from the wheel wells and the cargo hold. When Daly left Vietnam as the North Vietnamese closed on Saigon, he had double pneumonia, a broken hand, an infected left eye, and other ailments. But even with all this, Daly flew back to the United States with 218 Vietnamese refugees, including 57 orphans whom he took personal responsibility for. The U.S. Department of Immigration and Naturalization was none too pleased with the orphan airlift and attempted to fine World Airways $218,000 for violating immigration rules. No fine was levied as public outcry in Daly's favor changed the government's mind.
Daly was and still remains today, a true American Hero.
More can be read here - http://www.vietnambabylift.org/Flying_Playpens.html
