Son of legendary VNAF Chinook’s pilot who jumped out of CH-47A gives eye-view of last flight out of Saigon

On Apr. 29, 1975, six-and-a-half-year-old Miki Nguyen experienced what most children could never imagine: jumping from a military helicopter onto the deck of a US Navy ship in the South China Sea. For him, it felt like jumping out of a tree – just another adventure with his father. For the adults around him, it was a desperate escape from a collapsing South Vi-etnam.

By late that April, the Vietnam War was in its final, chaotic hours. After years of gradual American withdrawal, South Vietnamese forces were crumbling under the North Vietnam-ese Army’s swift final offensive. Saigon was in panic as thousands of South Vietnamese civil-ians and remaining Americans scrambled for evacuation.

The last US combat troops had left two years earlier, but a skeleton crew of embassy staff and military advisors remained to oversee the desperate airlift operations. Communist forc-es had encircled the capital, and everyone knew the fall was imminent – it was no longer a question of if, but when. And the ‘when’ would be Apr. 29.

Miki’s perspective on that chaotic day offers a unique window into one of the most dramatic individual stories to emerge from the fall of Saigon.

While the world focused on the iconic images of helicopters evacuating the American embassy, the Nguyen family was living their own extraordinary drama miles offshore.

The Final Days

Growing up on a South Vietnamese Air Force base in Bien Hoa, 45 minutes from Saigon, Miki’s childhood was far from ordinary. His father, Major Ba Van Nguyen, of Vietnamese Air Force (the South Vietnamese Air Force or VNAF) 237th Helicopter Squadron, flew Chinook helicopters on daily missions, hauling troops and supplies throughout the conflict zone. For young Miki, the smell of aviation fuel and the thunderous sound of helicopters were simply part of life.

“Not many kids can say they had a bunker in the back of their house”, Miki reflects decades later.

The concrete reality of war surrounded him – he would play in the barracks, sometimes bringing home boxes of grenades that would send his mother into a panic. A bomb had once destroyed a barrack across the road from their home, though Miki was too young to fully comprehend the danger.

His mother, Nho Tran Nguyen, ran a small shop selling cigarettes, beer, and chocolates to military personnel while caring for Miki, his brother, and baby sister Mina. Every day, she lived with the fear that her husband might not return from his missions.

In the last week of April 1975, as North Vietnamese forces closed in on Saigon, the family was moved to Miki’s grandmother’s house in the city centre. His father and the remaining members of his squadron were making increasingly desperate decisions as their command-ing officers abandoned their posts.

On the morning of Apr. 29, Miki’s father faced a near-impossible choice. With no or-ders coming from above and enemy forces advancing, should he save his family and crew or maintain military protocol? For a man who had lived by military discipline his entire career, the decision for Ba Van Nguyen to “break ranks” was agonising.

The Chinook Landing

What happened next would become legend, told and retold around dinner tables for dec-ades. Ba Van Nguyen landed his massive Chinook helicopter in the small playground in front of his mother-in-law’s house in densely populated Saigon. The thunderous roar of the air-craft and the downdraft from its rotors created chaos in the neighbourhood, blowing off tin rooftops and drawing crowds of curious onlookers.

For Miki, this wasn’t particularly shocking. “Growing up on the barracks, I would fly with my dad here and there,” he recalls. “The smell of gasoline, the smell of aviation fuel – jumping around, climbing trees was just part of my background growing up.”

His mother, however, had been expecting her husband to arrive by car, not in a military hel-icopter. She also wasn’t expecting one of the crew to point a gun at a police officer ap-proaching the scene, for fear he would report their position.

As Miki, his mother, brother, and baby sister ran to the rear of the Chinook, the six-year-old was simply following the adults, treating it as another adventure.

The helicopter was on the ground for less than five minutes before lifting off with the family aboard, along with other crew members and their families – about 15 people in total. From Miki’s perspective, it was exciting. From his parents’ viewpoint, it was a terrifying gamble with their lives.

The Flight to Nowhere

Major Nguyen flew his laden Chinook east toward the South China Sea, hoping to find US Na-vy ships from Operation Frequent Wind, the final evacuation of American personnel and South Vietnamese allies.

It was an enormous risk – the Chinooks weren’t equipped for ocean flights, there were no life jackets aboard, and no guarantee they would find a ship capable of rescuing them.

When they spotted the black smoke of the USS Kirk on the horizon, Miki watched through the helicopter’s windows as his father circled the ship repeatedly. The crew below waved them away – the frigate was too small and narrow for a Chinook to land safely. But Major Nguyen persisted, eventually making radio contact with Captain Paul Jacobs.

VNAF Chinook’s pilot jumping out of CH-47A after saving his family

What followed was a scene that would later be photographed and included in documen-taries, although Miki understood none of its historical significance at the time.

His father hovered the massive helicopter fifteen feet above the ship’s deck while flying di-agonally backwards – an incredibly difficult manoeuvre that required looking over his shoul-der while maintaining precise control.

The Chinook crew opened the port side door, and one by one, the passengers jumped, or were literally dropped, down to the deck below. Brave sailors like Kent Chipman positioned themselves to catch the falling passengers, including Miki’s eight-month-old sister, Mina.

“I remember vividly looking over and jumping with everyone else,” Miki says. “For me, it was just another day hanging out with my dad in the helicopter, I guess.”

The adults around him were terrified, but for a child who had grown up around military air-craft, it felt like play.

Once the family was safely aboard the USS Kirk, they were quickly ushered inside while Ma-jor Nguyen flew away to ditch his helicopter. Miki didn’t fully understand what was happen-ing – why couldn’t his father just land the helicopter on the ship like everyone else?

The Chinook was too large to land on the frigate.

From inside the ship, the family couldn’t see the dramatic finale: Major Nguyen hovering alone over the water, stripping off his flight suit and boots while flying the helicopter single-handedly, then executing a dangerous manoeuvre to flip the aircraft while jumping clear. They missed the explosion, the swim to safety, and the rescue by a small boat.

Miki only knew that his father had survived when he appeared on deck wearing only his un-derwear – a pastel shirt and boxer shorts that his mother has since kept for decades as a memento of their escape to freedom.

A Child’s Memory

For thirty-four years, the dramatic rescue remained largely a family story told at dinner ta-bles. Miki grew up hearing his father recount the escape, but without photographic evi-dence, it seemed almost too extraordinary to believe.

It wasn’t until 2009 that a US Navy historian tracked down the mysterious pilot who had ditched his Chinook near the USS Kirk, finally providing the family with photographs and doc-umentation of their escape.

In 2010, 35 years after the rescue, Miki and his family were invited to a USS Kirk reunion in Washington, DC. The most emotional moment came when his father, who by then was in a wheelchair battling Alzheimer’s and could no longer speak, was presented with an USS Kirk Honorary Medal by Captain Paul Jacobs.

Despite his condition, when Miki’s father was wheeled up to the podium and heard the ap-plause acknowledging his heroism, he was able to push himself out of his wheelchair, stand up, and give a salute to the captain and crew – his way of saying thank you.

This powerful gesture, captured on video, showed that despite his illness, he understood the significance of the moment and was able to complete the circle of gratitude that had re-mained open for over three decades.

Looking Back

Miki realises how his six-year-old perspective shaped his experience of that day. While the adults around him were making life-or-death decisions under extreme pressure, he was simply following along, trusting that his parents would keep him safe. The terrifying was an adventure, the dangerous – just play.

That childlike resilience would serve the family well in the years that followed, as they re-built their lives in Seattle, USA.

But for Miki, the lasting impression wasn’t of trauma or fear – it was of a father who would do anything to save his family, and a day when jumping out of a helicopter felt as natural as jumping out of a tree.

Fifty years later, Miki has preserved his father’s experiences, collating Ba Van Nguyen’s memoirs in a book called “The Last Flight Out”, ensuring that future generations will under-stand not just the heroism of that day, but the very human story of a family’s escape to free-dom through the eyes of a child who experienced history as an adventure.

Steve Winduss, host of Batting the Breeze podcast.

https://www.battingthebreeze.com

Steve Winduss talked with Miki Nguyen just prior to the 50th anniversary of the Fall of Sai-gon.

The Last Flight Out

https://www.battingthebreeze.com/ba-van-nguyen-the-last-flight-out/

Photo credit: U.S. Navy