21st Airlift Squadron loadmaster saves lives, aircraft

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Candy Knight
  • 60th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  Courage comes in many different varieties and has many different faces.

Tech. Sgt. Corey Clewley, 21st Airlift Squadron loadmaster, is just one of the many courageous faces serving in the Air Force.

The 15-year veteran from Brooks, Maine, was performing a special mission in Southwest Asia, when he witnessed a Romanian C-130 aircraft on fire.

"I was loading cargo when I saw the [Romanian] aircraft take a rough landing," Sergeant Clewley said.

During the landing, the aircrew overused their brakes, causing the brakes to overheat and catch fire.

According to Sergeant Clewley, the Romanian crew was unaware of the fire and continued taxiing toward their parking spot.

"I told my fellow loadmaster to tell our pilots to radio the control tower. Then another crew chief and I grabbed our fire extinguishes and ran toward the aircraft."

The fire quickly spread to the aircraft's fuselage and ruptured the hydraulic brake line, causing the hydraulic fluid to increase the fire's intensity.
Sergeant Clewley got within eight feet of the flames and proceeded to suppress the fire.

"We were just trying to keep the fire under control until the fire department arrived," he said.

Sergeant Clewley added that his sense of urgency nearly tripled when he noticed that the C-130 crew was still inside the aircraft and unable to exit.

"I saw one of the crew mouthing 'please, please,' and pointing to the troops' [exit] door."
Sergeant Clewley refocused his attention to that area and began suppressing the fire, allowing the crew to safely exit the aircraft.

He then continued to keep the fire under control until the fire department arrived.
Sergeant Clewley said that without a team effort, the situation might have been a lot worse.

"Believe me, it was not an individual effort. It took everyone from my pilot relaying the emergency message to the control tower, to the tower informing the C-130 crew of the danger, to myself and my fellow Airman putting others before ourselves and fighting the fire," he said.

Although this aircraft in danger was not an U.S. Air Force asset, Sergeant Clewley said that didn't matter.

"To me, in a situation like that, saving the lives of the people on board is more important than who owns the aircraft," he said.