After Robert K. Preston flunked out of flight school in Texas, the United States Army reassigned him to Fort Meade in Maryland.
Preston desperately wanted to fly, and he no longer had any path to do that in the military. Still, he was required to serve two more years—a commitment about which the 20-year-old soldier was less than enthusiastic.
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The disgruntled private also recently broke up with his girlfriend, too, leaving him upset and not in the right frame of mind. In that moment, Preston was determined to do what he loved most. He got behind the controls of a Bell UH-1B Huey helicopter in the early morning hours of February 17, 1974, and took off from Fort Meade.
As Preston flew the stolen chopper over Washington, D.C., landmarks—including the White House—various law enforcement agencies pursued him.
“They said he couldn’t fly,” D.C. Metropolitan Police Department Thomas F. Linnehan testified, according to a 2017 article in Smithsonian Magazine. “Well, I’ll tell you he could fly. If he had not harassed the citizens of the state of Maryland as he did, and had not made such a big show of it… The man could have flown directly into the White House at [184 mph], and there wouldn’t have been anything anyone could do.”
Preston, who possessed a private pilot’s license, now posed a national security risk.
Flying over National Monuments
With no idea where he was going, Preston literally winged it. As author, pilot, and flight instructor Christopher Freeze chronicled in Smithsonian Magazine, he flew dangerously near a restaurant where he just ate and briefly touched down.
He then headed toward Washington, D.C., which is about 30 miles southwest of Fort Meade. While an Army dispatcher notified Maryland State Police after Preston first absconded with the Huey, D.C. Police became aware of him as he flew in the restricted airspace between the Lincoln Memorial and the U.S. Capitol, Freeze wrote.
After flying for several minutes over the Washington Monument, Preston’s next destination was the White House. Secret Service agent Henry Kulbaski, who was on duty that night, could not reach any higher-up to alert them of the developing situation.
Preston remained airborne for a short period before heading back toward Maryland.
Almost an hour into his flight, Preston was about to receive some company in the air. A Metro PD helicopter was deployed to cut off Preston’s Huey, but after it fell too far behind, two Maryland State Police choppers joined the pursuit.
Decorated Vietnam combat pilot Donald Sewell flew one of them.
“Louis [Saffran, his co-pilot] and I were both in constant aggravation, trying to keep an eye on him to know where the hell he was going,” Sewell recalled, per the Smithsonian Magazine article. “He flew [at] erratic speeds ranging from [70-140 mph] and altitudes sometimes inches above car-top level.”
Whatever Preston thought, he was fleeing law enforcement. Thinking “they’d just put me in a stockade,” Preston didn’t want to turn himself in at Fort Meade. Instead, he headed back to the White House.
He wanted to surrender to President Richard Nixon.
More than 300 Rounds Fired
As Preston made his way back to the president’s residence, Kulbaski and other Secret Service agents awaited him.
After the Huey neared the White House lawn, the Secret Service started shooting, Freeze recounted. Some buckshot from shotgun shells struck Preston in the foot while he remained airborne. Despite his injuries (not to mention the numerous times that the Huey was hit), the Army private first class managed to land the chopper “in a blaze of gunfire” on the White House’s South Lawn.
“They riddled it with bullets,” a Secret Service agent recalled in the Smithsonian Magazine story. “When he landed the second time, he opened the door and rolled under the helicopter. It probably saved his life.”
As Preston ran toward the White House a short distance away, the Secret Service brought him to the ground. While its agents fired more than 300 rounds, Preston was struck only five times. None of his wounds were serious.
Preston’s decision to return to the White House was all for naught. Nixon wasn’t even there.
One Lucky Man
When Preston arrived at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryand, he reportedly was “laughing like hell” and given a psychiatric evaluation.
After Preston turned himself over to military officials—a condition of a plea bargain that caused all civil charges to be dropped—a court-martial followed. What began as a dangerous stunt put Preston in serious jeopardy of losing his freedom.
Military prosecutors charged him with attempting to kill Nixon and those aboard the two Maryland State Police helicopters that pursued him so vigorously. Facing the potential of up to 105 years in prison, Preston had the good fortune of excellent legal representation. They got him to plead guilty to a couple of reduced charges.
Sentenced to six months in prison, Preston received credit for the four months he already served. In two more months, the wayward Army private was released.
He later received a general discharge from the military. Preston died of cancer in 2009.
