Army Mechanic Stole a Huey and Flew to the White House

Long before the airspace surrounding Washington, D.C., became one of the most heavily defended patches of sky in the country, an Army private demonstrated just how vulnerable it could be. In the dead of night on Feb. 17, 1974, a 20-year-old Pfc. Robert Kenneth Preston walked onto an Army airfield at Fort Meade, Maryland, climbed into a Bell UH-1B Huey helicopter and took off.

There was one little hiccup in his plan, according to a piece on the Smithsonian National Website. No one gave him permission to fly that chopper. Preston was a helicopter mechanic in the service, and he always dreamed of being an evacuation pilot.

While he managed to get into flight school, he washed out during the phase about instrument training. This ended that dream for him, and then he was sent to the East Coast to be trained as a mechanic.

After flunking out, Preston had something he wanted to prove. He wanted to fly again. What followed was one of the most bizarre airborne chases to go down on domestic soil in the history of the nation.

There were hundreds of rounds of bullets fired and holes were put into the Army helicopter, which eventually landed on the White House lawn.

It Was Right There for the Taking

Preston had considerably more aviation experience than the average 20-year-old. He held a private pilot’s license and had accumulated 157 hours of flight time, though he did not hold a rotor-wing certificate.

At Tipton Field in Fort Meade that night, there were 30 fully fueled helicopters used by the Army Reserve and National Guard units. Security was lax, and Preston decided to make history.

After driving onto the unguarded airfield and parking his car, he prepared one of the choppers for flight and decided to make it go airborne.

“I was really surprised,” Preston later recalled. “I thought there would be somebody out there.”

The mechanic flew without making any of the standard radio calls or using the helicopters’ anti-collision lights. Soon people around the state began reporting that a military helicopter was buzzing around rooftops and houses. He then made his way south. The direction was the Capitol.

A Midnight Flight over Washington

Following the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, Preston reached the National Mall, where police spotted the Huey flying between the Lincoln Memorial and the U.S. Capitol. He decided to fly toward the lit-up Washington Monument and then turned on the exterior lights and lowered the plane so that it was only a few feet above ground. Then, he approached the White House right up Pennsylvania Avenue.

The Secret Service has been warned that a stolen Army helicopter was approaching the White House. They had a unique problem with this situation: how to down the chopper while keeping people on the ground safe. After hovering around the White House for nearly 10 minutes, Preston left.

Secret Service watch commander Henry Kulbaski decided that if the helicopter returned, agents would shoot. And Preston returned.

A Memorable Air Chase

At this point, the authorities were on his tail. A Washington Metropolitan Police helicopter tried unsuccessfully to keep pace before Maryland State Police dispatched two Bell 206 Jet Rangers. Preston led them on quite the chase, at one point barely going over a police car and then flying over the local airport.

Eventually, the soldier thought his best course of action was to surrender directly to the commander-in-chief himself. He turned back toward Washington and brought the excitement level up to the max.

One police helicopter lost him as Preston used maneuvers that pursuing pilots compared to “modern dogfight tactics.” The remaining crew struggled to follow as Preston flew between 60 and 120 knots, sometimes only inches above cars.

Bullets Start Flying

Preston went over the White House fences and approached the South Lawn. He came close to a football field’s distance from the building, and this time the agents were ready. The lights came on, and the Secret Service opened fire on him. Bullets tore holes through the Huey’s aluminum skin, while buckshot struck Preston’s foot.

The chopper came to a rocky slide, and then Preston crawled out of the helicopter. He ran for a bit before agents tackled him to the ground. 300 rounds had been fired, and five actually hit Preston. The injuries sustained were superficial. Once he was inside, Preston wanted to talk with the president. Unfortunately for him, the president wasn’t in.

How the Story Ends

Preston initially faced charges that included the attempted murders of Nixon and the crews of the pursuing police helicopters, potentially exposing him to more than a century in prison. The case actually came to a different ending.

After pleading guilty to a court-martial, a military panel decided he should spend six months in prison with credit for time served. After leaving prison, he went through retraining and then was generally discharged.

After the ride, the helicopter had bullet holes and a bit of character to it. It was returned to service after some light repair. Nicknamed the “White House Special,” the helicopter ultimately ended up on static display at Joint Base Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, its patched skin providing one of the few visible clues to the night an Army mechanic stole a Huey and landed it on the White House lawn.