The following is an edited excerpt of the life narrative that will be read during the 2026 Gold Star Hall Ceremony.
In 1968, 1st Lt. Richard Welch of Maxwell embarked on his 29th and final mission during the Vietnam War. He was co-pilot on an aircraft carrying 144,000 pounds of jet fuel in support of air operations in Southeast Asia when one of the engines caught on fire during takeoff. The weight and speed of the load made it impossible for the aircraft to stop. The crew of four perished.
Richard “Rich” Welch was born April 12, 1944, son of Richard and Gilberta Welch. The second youngest of eight children, he grew up with four sisters and three brothers on a farm outside Maxwell. His father was a farmer and an electrician during the early arrival of electricity in rural communities.
Welch was active, ambitious and interested in agriculture. He played basketball and, while still young, built a hog house on his own. Welch raised at least three batches of 10-12 hogs at a time, buying baby pigs from a neighbor, feeding them until they weighed about 220 pounds and then selling them to the butcher. His older brother, Bob Welch, remembered it as “Rich’s money maker.”
He graduated from Maxwell High School in 1962, after making the honor roll and participating in band and choir. That fall, he attended Iowa State to study agricultural business and joined the Air Force ROTC program. He lived in Stevenson House in Birch Residence Hall during his first two years on campus and worked as a student employee in the Memorial Union.
He married Janice Locke of Knoxville on Dec. 31, 1966, and their son, Bryan, was born in 1967. The following month, Welch was assigned to the 904th Air Refueling Squadron at Mather Air Force Base in Sacramento, Calif., as a co-pilot of a KC-135 strategic tanker aircraft.
Flying had long captured his imagination. He took lessons at the Ames Airport. When his brother visited him at Iowa State, they sometimes flew a small aircraft across the state. After he completed his degree, he went directly into the U.S. Air Force, training in jets at Lubbock, Texas, hoping to fly a fighter.
A dangerous mission
He was assigned to a KC-135 tanker aircraft in an air-refueling division. The scale of the mission was extraordinary: a highway tanker might carry about 8,500 gallons, and the aircraft Welch flew held 32,000 gallons. During aerial refueling, planes traveled about 320 miles per hour, and the receiving fighter pilot could speak with both the boom operator and the tanker pilot.
In 1968, he was serving temporary duty in Thailand in support of air operations in Southeast Asia. On Oct. 2, he and his crew departed U-Tapao Airfield. They were ordered to support fighter aircraft engaged in combat operations.
1st Lt. Welch as co-pilot, and the aircraft carried 144,000 pounds of JP-4 jet aviation fuel with a total gross weight of approximately 250,000 pounds. The takeoff appeared normal until the KC-135 had traveled approximately 6,000 feet down the runway. At that point, its weight and speed made stopping impossible.
Tower personnel saw both nose-gear tires had apparently blown. Moments later Welch radioed that the No. 4 engine had failed. The tower warned the engine was on fire. With no safe way to stop, the crew continued the takeoff run. Near the end of the runway, traveling more than 150 knots, the aircraft briefly rose to about 10 feet but could not sustain flight.
After traveling roughly 1,800 feet, its No. 1 engine struck a concrete approach-light stanchion. The plane crashed and exploded a little more than a minute after brake release. The official account praised the crew’s performance, noting that overcoming two nearly simultaneous equipment failures would have required a near miracle. A memorial service was held at U-Tapao.
“Richard was a dedicated officer, always striving to improve himself and his squadron. He was respected by all who knew him and at the time of his passing, was rated as one of the outstanding Co-pilots of the Air Refueling Squadron,” wrote a U.S. Air Force commander.
Welch was posthumously awarded the Air Medal for meritorious achievement while participating in aerial flight. He was buried in Knoxville, Iowa. Though his life was brief, it was rich in purpose.
See Richard in the Gold Star Hall Directory
