AW2 David Edward "Wally" Stenstrom VS-21  S-3A BUNO: 160164 6/30/66-6/5/88 Hometown: Boston, MA

CWO3 (Ret.) Patrick Durden:
I was back at NAS North Island assigned temp duty from VS-21 to COMASWWINGSPAC when I got a call from RADM Adams--time was about 4:30 AM, all he said was, Pat get up, get in your whites, get down to headquarters ASAP. I did what was ordered of me. When I arrived--I was notified that we had lost a aircraft in the Pacific with four souls onboard. Our CO, CDR Anderson (CO TACCO), LT "Cow Chip" Roy (PILOT), LT Kelly Henderson (TACCO) and AW2 David "Wally" Stenstrom. Only Kelly survived the ejection! I was assigned as lead CACO and had the longest day of my life -- I had to tell the three spouses of their loss. I arranged my skipper's funeral in San Diego, a memorial for Chip since his body was lost at sea, and Wally's transportation back to his final resting place. They were all great men who died doing what they loved to do--they died with those gold wings on their chest and use them today to look over their families. From that day in June of 1988 I have never ever again made a visit to someone's house in dress uniform and in my dreams I can still see the look of their loveone's eyes!

AWC (Ret.) David Larington:
I was a shipmate stationed with David Stenstrom. Everyone in the AW shop liked the guy. I did not know him long as I transferred from VS-21 in April 1986. I was the blue card holder (NATOPS Evaluator) for the AW shop during my last year with the squadron. Strenstrom's NATOPS evaluation was due in early 1986, so around January-April 1986 I was giving him his NATOPS flight evaluation. As it turned out, my last 3 flights in the squadron was with David, trying to get him through a complete flight so I could sign his NATOPS flight evaluation off. With every flight we had some type of in-flight mechanical breakdown. The word in Maintenance Control was "Strenstrom is on this flight, get ready to fix a broken plane when it comes back".
One flight it was a oil pressure light, another flight it was a landing gear light after takeoff, the flight I remember was the last flight which we had a massive bird strike or something. We were at about 8,000ft AGL and conducting a radar sweep and David was searching for a contact so we could do a radar run-in. He found one and the pilot decided to make like a dive bomb run and at about 4,000ft AGL I heard a loud bang, saw something fly over the front windscreen, and all my ECS lights illuminated, the plane started shaking.
David and I assumed the eject position, I thought for sure we were going to be under a parachute. As it turned out, the pilot kept control of the plane (I do not remember the pilot's name). We radioed for help and another aircraft came to take a look at us, our nose cone was gone, most of our external electronic equipment bay doors were open, and the number two engine (I believe it was 2 it might of been 1) was giving some strange indications, so we shut it down.
After landing, we saw that the nose cone was gone and of course the radar was damaged, we were missing quite a few fan blades from one engine (#2?), and numerous external bay doors were open. David did not seem shaken too much, however, I was.
Since David did most everything right, I went ahead and signed him off on his NATOPS flight evaluation. I never got word what the actual cause of this mishap was but the guess at the time was a bird strike or the latches on the nose cone failed or were not secured properly.
A couple of years later after I transferred from the squadron, I ran into an officer from VS-21 at Southwestern College (I was in the EEAP program) and he told me about the fatal accident involving David Stenstrom. Apparently, David just got married a few months before the accident. All of us who knew David miss him and to this day, every month or so, I still think about him. Another great AW flying for eternity with God.