Posted on 04/04/2003 7:00:08 AM PST by COBOL2Java
VIRGINIA BEACH -- For her fourth birthday Tuesday, Annie Vincelette got a Rapunzel costume and a copy of the movie "Sleeping Beauty."
Her best present, though, was a fairy-tale ending to her father's brush with death that day, 20,000 feet above the Iraqi desert.
Lt. Chad Vincelette, 32, a Virginia Beach native and Navy F-14 fighter pilot, was heading back to the carrier Kitty Hawk after a bombing run when a mechanical failure forced him and a crewmate to eject.
A few hours later, Air Force rescuers found Vincelette shivering and disoriented in the dark desert of southern Iraq.
Vincelette told his wife, Elizabeth, 32, an English teacher at Ocean Lakes High School, that he judged his distance to the ground in the inky night by watching where the jet hit the sand and exploded.
Though both grew up in Virginia Beach, the couple met at the University of Virginia. Chad graduated from Kempsville High School, Elizabeth from Green Run.
Sitting in her sunny living room Thursday, with cats and a dog dozing and children clambering about, Elizabeth Vincelette recounted her husband's story almost like it was the plot of a movie.
As if mechanical problems weren't enough, her husband -- call name "Vinny" -- had problems with his parachute, she said. When the chute opened at 13,000 feet, the lines were crossed. His hard landing left him dazed but uninjured.
He managed to put on the thermal underwear and wool hat from a survival kit his mother-in-law had given him for Christmas. Though it seemed only minutes, he said, hours later an Air Force helicopter crew rescued him and the jet's radio intercept officer, who had landed too far away for them to communicate.
Elizabeth Vincelette chuckled about her husband making it into the club of fighter pilots who have had to eject. But her eyes moistened slightly talking about what he was thinking when he abandoned the plane.
"He told me that all he could think of as he ejected was he didn't want to die on his daughter's birthday," she said.
Elizabeth, their 6-year-old son, Jackson, and Annie got the news as soon as they pulled into the driveway after Annie's birthday dinner.
Chad's father, Paul -- a former A-6 pilot -- had gotten the phone call while they were out and rushed over with the news.
"He said, `Chad's OK.' Then he started crying," she said.
Annie knows what happened.
"He crashed," she said shyly. But she said it with a smile.
Jackson cried a little, Vincelette said, but pride quickly took over. Within hours, he was telling everyone he knew about his dad's adventure; she sent a note to school with him so his first-grade teacher would know he wasn't making it up.
"Mom, tell Michael that my dad's jet is the most famous jet in the world," Jackson said Thursday as he and his friend raced in and out of the house in Kempsville.
She reminded Jackson of a downed F/A-18C jet from the Kitty Hawk, whose pilot was missing. Vincelette said she feels guilty thinking about other Navy spouses getting the worst news, the kind delivered in person, in uniform.
She can't fathom why her family has been spared.
But she thinks about her own father, who died a few years ago. He flew P-3s in the Navy. Chad has told her that he sometimes talks to her dad when he's flying.
And though it strikes her as hokey to talk about guardian angels, she can't help but wonder.
"I wonder if my dad was watching out for him," Vincelette said.
Let's hear it for the USAF Pararescue crews!
NORFOLK As Navy pilot Lt. Chad Vincelette and a crewmate free-fell over Iraq after ejecting from their failing F-14 Tomcat a week ago, he thought about his daughter, who was turning 4 that day.
"Please don't let me die on her birthday," he said to himself, anxious until his parachute opened.
Lt. Vincelette was reunited Tuesday with his daughter, as well as his son, wife and mother. They were waiting for him at the gate as a plane carrying Lt. Vincelette and other military passengers arrived at Norfolk Naval Station.
"Hey," the 32-year-old Virginia Beach native said as he hugged and kissed his beaming relatives.
Lt. Vincelette scooped up little Annie and asked, "Did you have a good birthday?"
Annie buried her face into her father's neck and softly said, "Yes."
Six-year-old Jackson proudly showed his father new teeth coming in. He lost two front teeth while Lt. Vincelette was gone fighting the war.
Lt. Vincelette, an instructor at the strike-fighter weapons school at Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach, said he returned home to spend time with his family while the Navy investigates the mishap. He declined to give many details about what happened.
The F-14 was heading back to the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk after a bombing run April 1 when a mechanical failure forced Lt. Vincelette and the jet's radar-intercept officer to eject. It was the first confirmed report of a U.S. fighter going down in Iraq during the war.
"I was kind of in a shock when the whole thing happened," Lt. Vincelette said. "We came down, landed safely and got picked up by the Air Force combat search-and-rescue guys."
He said he was very nervous landing in Iraq, and thanked his rescuers.
Asked how long the men spent on the ground, he said, "It seemed like forever."
After the ejection, he said, the worst part was during the free-fall in the darkness "for quite a long time" before the men's parachutes opened. That's when he thought about Annie, he said. He also concentrated on his survival training.
"Initially, your training takes over, and you just go on your gut instinct," Lt. Vincelette said.
Elizabeth Vincelette said she had talked to her husband by phone and knew he was fine, but was thrilled to finally see him.
"I'm just so excited right now just to be able to touch him," said Elizabeth Vincelette, who wore an American flag pin on her suit jacket.
"It doesn't always turn out as happy as this," she said. "I can only feel blessed and very fortunate that he's here right now."
Lt. Vincelette planned to have a beer and leftover birthday cake when the family arrived at their home in nearby Virginia Beach.
He said he expects to stay at home for a while, but that he would be willing to go back to Iraq.
"I'm an American fighter pilot, here to serve my country," Lt. Vincelette said.
Good Lord. Pray for her daughter.
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