There we were, flying a SENIOR SCOUT mission out of SOUTHCOM.  It was my very first solo AMS flight.  On the racks, were the skilled veterans Joseph "PEPITO" Figueroa, Scott Birnel, John McDonnell, Miguel Mendez, Hannalora Partin, Douglas Neel along with trainees Joel Majors and Glenn P. Lastes; and of course our maintenance guys Thomas E. Carolus and Justin Taylor.

Our mission started without a hitch.  At about three hours into the mission, while flying at an altitude of 19000 feet, the navigator calls me up and advises me that we will be running into some weather further up ahead.  He wondered what kind of orbit I would like to change to.  I told him to go ahead and clip the remaining 50 miles of the eastern leg and move our track by the same amount to the west.

Just as he acknowledged and the pilot started to bank the aircraft to the left we (the aircraft) lost and instant 110 knots and started to fall tail first.  I immediately went on private interphone and instructed everyone to strap on.  One of the maintenance guys, Justin Taylor, was standing when this whole thing started and was flung back and pinned by the G forces against the back shelter door.  During this time, the aircraft was shaking violently and making some noises neither the crew nor I had ever heard before.  Since I could monitor the front-end interphone I was listening to them scream at each other while trying to correct the aircraft:

"WATCH THE G's?"
"WATCH THE NOSE?"
"PUSH THE NOSE?"

ALONG WITH OTHER #$%^!@&* THINGS?

In a mere few seconds, the aircraft had fallen 5000 feet -- TAIL FIRST!  (The front end later changed it to 3000, for whatever reasons?).  After the incident I was listening to the front end discuss what had just happened.  They were all scared!  They discussed the aircraft status and deemed it safe.  At this time, I decided to continue with the mission.  It appears that we had encountered some clear icing like they (front end) had never seen before.  The pilot said that in his 22 years of flying he had never encountered anything of the like.

Once the incident was over, the pale looking crew started looking around at each other and talked about what they had just gone through.  Things said from the veterans as Scott and Pep were that, they were "scared shitless" the trainee Lastes said, "he thought this was a normal thing and didn't know what to think".  Then there was Hannalora, calm, cool and collected "What's all the fuzz?"

I, for one, thought we had bought the farm!  Pepito called me up from position six looking all pale and said "Sam, I have to get up and get some coffee NOW!"

After we landed I talked to the pilot and navigator.  They told me that we had pulled 2.75Gs on our fall.  Since that flight, I always fly with my lap belt loosely on!
 

SAMUEL NAVA (Trebolin)