SO/NWA Capt. David Emerson O’Mara

 

~ IN MEMORY ~

USAF veteran, SO/NWA Capt. David Emerson O’Mara   

January 22, 1943 ~ December 21, 2022

 

As noted in the October 2023 Air Line Pilot magazine, the passing of Northwest Airlines pilot Capt. David E. Omara.   

 

http://www.southernairways.org/obit-david-emerson-o-mara.html 

David Emerson O'Mara, 79, of Mount Pleasant, SC, passed away on December 21, 2022 after a 3 year battle with a rare blood cancer and dementia. David was an Air Force veteran who flew B52's and the AC119 Gunship in Viet Nam. Upon his departure from the Air Force, David was hired by Southern Airways on 9/20/71. He continued his career up until 1983 when had to retire due to an injury from a car accident. David was always known for his kind, caring disposition and his great smile! He was a caring Captain of his ship and always took care of his crew!

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He leaves behind his partner Sharon Bishop Smith, his sister Kathy O'Mara Gilfillan his nephew David Sytsma, his nieces Bethany Pearson, Erin Gilfillan and Mikel Ann O'Mara and great nephew Cody Pearson. We all will miss this Gentle Giant of a man that touched so many with his kindness and will to help anyone he could!

 

 

Vietnam :  https://www.ac119gunships.com/omara-david-e/ 

David E. O’Mara, Pilot

17th SOS, Phan Rang, 1969-70

I completed my degree at Memphis State University and was commissioned on 20 August 1965 through the AFROTC program. Upon completing pilot training at Del Rio, Texas in December 1966, I was assigned to duty as a B-52G copilot at Seymour Johnson AFB, NC.

 

Beginning in 1968, I flew 45 B-52 Arc Light missions over Vietnam from Guam, Okinawa, and Thailand.

 

Within days of returning to Seymour Johnson, I received orders to Vietnam in the C-123. I grew up as the son of a U. S. Navy Officer, so I knew not to whine or complain over what the military wanted of me. However, as a Captain, I realized almost everyone was negotiating for favors. So I told the assignments officer I had just returned from six months of flying Arc Light missions, that I considered myself a combatant, and I would gladly take any combat aircraft assignment the USAF had. A few weeks later I received orders for the AC-119G gunship. I did not then know I was embarking on the most meaningful year of my life.

 

Shadow Hijacking

 

I believe we were scheduled this night for a nine or ten o’clock departure for the second scheduled sortie of the evening. We had accomplished all preflight checks and procedures and were presently taxiing to the north end of the airfield for a south departure from Phan Rang. Tonight’s mission was a planned search and destroy sortie to somewhere in Corps II or Corps III of South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam). South Vietnam was divided into four Corps or subdivisions, each denoted by Roman numerals, I – II – III – IV by the U.S. Army. I Corps started at the DMZ with II and III Corps sort of evenly divided in the middle of South Vietnam and finally, IV Corps, from Saigon south to the southern tip of the Mekong Delta………………………………………