Tenney H. Wheatley, Jr., Lt. Col., USAF (Ret.), Wilmington, joined the Air Force in 1963. He was later assigned to the 103rd Air Refueling Squadron at Beale AFB in Marysville, Calif., for worldwide special operations in reconnaissance support and air fueling of the U2, SR 71 Blackbird and similar high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft of a classified nature.
Tenney retired from USAF active duty in 1969 with 2,500 hours of flight time, including 100 hours of combat flying in Vietnam, but he missed flying and joined the DANG where he subsequently flew 6,000-plus hours in C-97s and C-130s throughout the world including Desert Storm, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
It was during the 1969-1991 period with DANG that Tenney's now famous flight occurred over the Atlantic, and it was 41 years after the incident that he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions. The fateful flight occurred on December, 5, 1970. An extra 10,000 pounds of' fuel were added at the last minute; the flight commander was not available, so Tenney, as the first officer, approved the extra fuel. The cowl flaps on the #4 engine inexplicably ran into full open position hundreds of miles offshore at a cruise altitude of 13,000 feet. There was no checklist for this catastrophic malfunction and the aircraft could not sustain flight. It started to descend toward the ocean regardless of control changes. The captain called for the crew to prepare for ditching, but Tenney, with his experience in the C-135, experimented with various flight configurations for refueling and thought of several things that enabled the aircraft to level off at 1,500 feet over the water. At this power setting, with hundreds of miles to shore, the aircraft would have run out of fuel if not for the extra 10,000 pounds.
Tenney Wheatley's knowledge, experience and calmness in a dire emergency saved the aircraft and the lives of the 10 airmen aboard.
