There a story of a LANCE unit during a live fire that forgot to remove the transport lock pin and sent an LZL over the cliff in Crete, which I could never understand, because you needed the transport lock pin to remove the upper rod of the APU, which was one of the last things the Launching Specialist did before going to the firing pit. If this story is true they must have had an extra transport lock pin in the tool bag. Any thoughts!!!!

I think it was the guy who jumped out of the barracks window trying to hang himself with the buffer cord and ended up buying the buffer.

OK where did you hear that story...

I heard the story that he put it back in. The hole was in the fence in 1983 the first year I went to Crete

I heard the story from LANCERs, just in conversation sitting around telling war stories. I also heard that Triple 333 dropped an LZL from a Chinook, due to high winds, sometime in the 80's.

That's right John, Fence was still all jacked up when I went with you in 84'. Always wanted to walk over to the edge and look down to see what was left, but I'm sure the fricken NAMFI attack goats would have killed me for sure.

One of my math professors, a former rocket scientist that worked on and helped develop Lance, told me the Lance and vehicle going over the cliff in Crete was a total myth. He had heard that story and confirmed it's high level of B.S. One of his many jobs was to go to Crete and oversee missile and rocket functions for over 3 decades. He told me what happened in the story was not possible. If it had happened, he would have known about it and most likely would have been part of it's investigation.

Well I also heard about the missile going over the cliff. I don't think however that it was an LZL, since all of the fire missions were done on an SPL. At least every time my unit went to Crete, we fired off of the SPL. And yes, 1/333 dropped an LZL from a chinook. I believe it was B Battery. I saw the LZL that was damaged. It is possible for an SPL to get fired off the cliff if the Launcher Specialist brought his/her own transport lock pin and the section chief had his head up his butt when the final checks were done before moving to the firing pit. I do know that it wasn't 1/333 that left a transport lockpin in the launcher. We were too well trained for anything like that to happen.

I know that C 1/12 dropped a sling loaded LZL at Ft. Sill. They recovered all the parts and had it laid out in the Motor Pool for the investigators. I also heard of a firing with the TLP but as an experiment.