A Narrow Escape: Dexter father & son recount the Pham family’s perilous escape during the Vietnam War

Dexter High School freshmen recently had the opportunity to learn about a local family’s remarkable escape from South Vietnam in 1975. Phillip Pham, father of DHS alumnus Calvin, Class of 2025 graduate Oliver, DHS junior Larkin, and 10-year-old McKinley, shared how his father bravely commandeered a C-130 Hercules and flew his family to freedom during the Vietnam War.

Mr. Pham prefaced the story by asking the American History 9/English 9 students about their background knowledge of the Vietnam War and communism in general. He defined terms such as “Hanoi Hilton” (reeducation/concentration camps), and explained how hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese escaped by boat or were evacuated by the U.S. military. Cal shared that in every month between 1975 and 1995, Vietnamese refugees left the country by boat to escape the communist regime. 

On April 3, 1975, Phillip’s father, South Vietnamese Air Force 2nd Lieutenant Pham Quang Khiem, learned that a C-130 cargo plane was scheduled to deliver 50,000 lbs of rice to the Long Thanh airstrip. Khiem had long been considering how to help his family escape the war-torn country, as tens of thousands of South Vietnamese were being killed by the North Vietnamese Army (NVA). If Khiem, as an officer, was caught by the NVA, he would be executed immediately and his family left dangerously exposed. The fortune of finding a plane which he knew how to fly, heading to an air strip where he had trained, and with the capacity to hold a large number of people seemed too good to be true. 

Pulling rank, Khiem commandeered the plane, and offered the crew on board the chance to stay or go. The loadmaster opted to get off, but the rest of the crew, including the navigator who just happened to have an air route map to Singapore and a similar desire for escape, stayed aboard. The plane also had a full tank of fuel which could take them first to the air strip, then all the way to Singapore.

Because all these events lined up so perfectly, Khiem called his family and told them to meet the plane at the Long Thanh airstrip. As the cargo plane approached the landing strip hours later, Khiem could see cars filled with family. In less than seven minutes, the crew unloaded 50,000 lbs of rice and loaded 50+ people through the same cargo door. During the process, a jeep filled with NVA military police raced onto the runway with one soldier holding a grenade launcher aimed at the cockpit. Gambling that the MP wouldn't shoot, Khiem kept the plane moving the entire time. In the chaos, a baby was left behind on the runway. The cargo door wasn’t yet closed when Khiem reached take-off speed. He flew the plane at tree-top level to avoid radar, and the refugees finally got the door closed once over the ocean heading for international waters.

DHS students were stunned to discover that the baby left behind during the mad rush on the Long Thanh airstrip was their presenter, Phillip Pham. Phillip’s aunt looked out of the door and saw the baby lying on the runway. She jumped out, grabbed him up, and got them both safely back on board.

The South Vietnamese Air Force sent F-5 fighter aircrafts to hunt down the C-130 and, to prevent others from attempting escape, it was later announced that the cargo plane was shot down. Khiem and the crew flew the plane into a civilian airport in Singapore, where all aboard were immediately arrested and imprisoned. The South Vietnamese government was notified and declared that Khiem and the crew would be tried for treason.

During the first night of imprisonment, Khiem was allowed one phone call which he placed to the only number he had on him. At 3:00 a.m. EST, the head of the World Relief Mission in Prussia, Pennsylvania, answered his phone and subsequently provided money and a lawyer to help extradite all the refugees to Camp Pendleton in California.

The Pham family left behind family, friends, careers, and businesses in order to survive and live free in the United States. In the words of Phillip’s father, Khiem, “If Saigon falls, if we are not the first people to leave, we will definitely not be the second.” Phillip Pham shares his father’s story of survival and perseverance to not only educate, but to inspire. He credits their miraculous escape to divine intervention for, as he says, how else could all these unlikely events align so perfectly? 

In 2018, the actual C-150 Hercules named “Saigon Lady” that Khiem flew to freedom became part of the collection at The National Warplane Museum in Geneseo, New York.

Editor’s Note: DCS was honored to have First Lieutenant Khiem Pham at Commencement last Friday, celebrating the graduation of his grandson Oliver Pham. Pictured below with American History 9 teacher Jaime Dudash.