BEALE AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. –
Pardo's Push was an aviation maneuver carried out by Capt. Bob Pardo in order to move his wingman's badly damaged F-4 Phantom to friendly air space during the Vietnam War.
Pardo, with his back-seater, 1st Lt. Steve Wayne, and wingman Capt. Earl Aman, with his back-seater, 1st Lt. Robert Houghton, were assigned to the 433rd Tactical Fighter Squadron at Ubon Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand. In March 1967, they were trying to attack a steel mill in North Vietnam, just north of Hanoi.
The sky was clear for a bombing run, but both F-4 Phantom IIs were hit by anti-aircraft guns. Aman's plane took the worst damage; his fuel tank had been hit, and he quickly lost most of his fuel. He did not have enough fuel to make it to a tanker aircraft over Laos.
To avoid having Aman and Houghton bail out over hostile territory, Pardo decided to try pushing the airplane. Pardo first tried to use Aman's drag chute compartment to push the plane. However, turbulence was too great and this failed.
Next, Pardo tried to use Aman's tailhook to push the plane. Phantoms, having been originally designed as a naval aircraft, were equipped with a heavy duty tailhook for landings aboard aircraft carriers. Aman lowered his tailhook, and Pardo moved behind Aman until the tailhook was against Pardo's windscreen. Pardo told Aman to shut down both of his engines, as Aman was nearly out of fuel and his engines were interfering with Pardo's plan.
The push worked, reducing the rate of descent considerably; however, the tailhook slipped off the windscreen every 15 to 30 seconds, and Pardo would have to reposition his plane. Pardo also struggled with a fire in one of his own engines and eventually had to shut it down.
For the last 10 minutes of the flight, Pardo used the one remaining engine to slow the descent of both planes. With Pardo's plane running out of fuel after pushing Aman's plane almost 88 miles, the planes reached Laotian airspace at an altitude of 6,000 feet. With only two minutes of flying time remaining, the pilots and their backseaters ejected, evaded capture, and were picked up by rescue helicopters.
Although Pardo was initially criticized for not saving his own aircraft, he and Wayne eventually received the Silver Star for the maneuver, albeit nearly twenty years after the incident.