Yukla Two Seven
Alaska
On the morning of September twenty-second, nineteen ninety-five, a Boeing E Three Sentry, one of those jets with the big radar dome on its back, rolled down the runway at Elmendorf Air Force Base. Its call sign was Yukla Two Seven, and it carried twenty-four crew.
Just seconds after the commander called rotate, the plane flew into a flock of more than a hundred Canada geese that had been roosting in the grass beside the runway. The birds were sucked into both engines on the left side. With that power gone, the heavy jet could not stay in the air. It came down in the woods less than a mile past the runway and burst into flame. All twenty-four people aboard were killed.
It was the first crash ever for the Air Force E Three fleet, which had flown a hundred thousand missions without losing a soul. A memorial here keeps their names.
