Mike Skeen
PAVE LOW Pilot #39
September 5, 1950 - 17 October 1984
Capt Michael Walter Skeen, 34, was killed in a helicopter crash while deployed with the 20th SOS to the Republic of the Philippines for Exercise "COPE THUNDER 85-1". The deployment ended tragically during the exercise when a MH-53 Pave Low, serial number 73-1647, impacted a ridge-line in Crow Valley, near Clark AB, Philippines, during a night TF mission in a heavy rain squall, crashed and was destroyed killing its crew.
Mike is buried at Barrancas National Cemetery, NAS Pensacola, FL, plot 35A, 0, 342.
His was survived by his father, Frederick T. Skeen, a U.S. Army veteran of two wars, WWII and the Korean War, and his mother Lena Katherine Skeen, who served in the U.S. Navy during World War II.