Sons of German pilot visit father's crash site

  • Published
  • By Teresa Walker
  • 56th Range Management Office
LUKE AIR FORCE BASE, Az --  It was a trip that began no differently than any other in 1973 for Capt. Karl-Heinz Hoeflich, a young Luftwaffe pilot. He picked up his flight bag, said "auf wiedersehn" to his family and left Germany to attend the F-104 advanced bomber course at Luke.

Thirty-five years later, it seems like only yesterday he said good-bye to his sons, Christoph and Wulf, for the last time. Captain Hoeflich never returned home after a mid-air collision one hot August morning during a training sortie. After decades of thinking about visiting their father's accident site, their quest began in earnest a couple of years ago to learn the details and location of the incident.

Wulf and Christoph's patience and persistence paid off when they finally arrived with a friend, Greg Dilkens, at Luke last week, to visit an isolated location on the Tohono O'odham Nation where remnants of their father's last flight still lay undisturbed.

Kevin O'Berry, 56th Range Management Office intergovernmental liaison, and Ron Barbea, Tohono O'odham Nation Department of Public Safety compliance inspector, were responsible for finding the site, despite the fact that documentation was not as thoroughly administered in 1973 as it is now.

"Finding the crash site was a challenge because the investigation team never documented the location with coordinates," said Mr. O'Berry. "It took some detective work to put the pieces of the puzzle together and determine the precise location. It was an old property damage report citing the name of a nearby Indian village that finally got us close enough to find the crash site."

Amidst thousands of scattered pieces of a broken F-104, the sound of airplanes could be heard flying above. The small group was struck by the realization that 35 years later, pilots were still flying in the military airspace above, and practicing air-to-air maneuvers just as Captain Hoeflich and many others since have done through the years.

Reaching down and picking up a piece of debris, Wulf said that the memories of being at the crash site were more important than the pieces of the airplane.

"For me, it's not important to have the [airplane] parts; having been here, for me, the memory is important," he said. "I have quite good memories of him even though he was away quite often for weeks and even months sometimes, training. I can remember the moment he said good-bye to us. It was quite often he said good-bye; we were sure he was coming back - he always did."

German exchange pilot Maj. Dorian Fritcsh, 63d Fighter Squadron, also accompanied the family members to the site as a tribute to the Cactus Starfighter Squadron, to which their father belonged.

Sister of the 63d FS, the Cactus Starfighter Squadron is composed of German and American pilots who flew the F-104 Starfighter here between 1964 and 1983. In total, they trained more than 2,000 Luftwaffe pilots to fly the F-104.

The pilots were very active in the community while stationed here, and many of them returned after retirement. The squadron had a choir that sang Christmas carols, held concerts and sponsored charitable events. Twenty-five years later the squadron still donates $1,000 to each of seven charities in the local area. The Cactus Starfighter Squadron remains an integral part of the Luke family.

"I was honored to assist the Hoeflichs in realizing their dream of visiting their father's crash site," Mr. O'Berry said. "It took them a couple of years to find the contacts and gather the information necessary to make this happen. Their persistence paid off last November when they contacted Col. Hank Reed, 56th Fighter Wing vice commander, who handed the project off to the 56th RMO."

The Hoeflichs also watched A-10s and F-16s drop practice bombs and strafe on one of the Barry M. Goldwater Class A ranges. They visited the F-104 static display in the Luke air park, and the 63rd Fighter Squadron where they met Cactus Squadron members, including a fellow German woman who knows their mother and remembered meeting them as young boys back in Germany.

"I am sure my father would be proud of us reaching this point, whereby we would be nowhere without your support," Christoph said, referring to the support his family has received from the 56th FW.