Castle Air Museum now home to MC-130 P Hercules aircraft

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Castle Air Museum in Atwater just landed another addition to its world-renowned collection of aircraft.

The Lockheed "MC-130 P Hercules" search and rescue aircraft played a significant role in the liberation of the "Son Tay" P-W camp in North Vietnam on November 20th, 1970.

The call sign "Lime One" led a mission to liberate American POW's held by the Viet Cong.

Since then, the 52-year-old aircraft has been involved in various missions at home and abroad.

In 2012, it was assigned to the California Air National Guard 129th Air Rescue Wing based at Moffett Federal Airfield near Sunnyvale.

It's also been used for many air and sea rescue missions during the past six years as far away as Alaska and the Galapagos Islands!

Overseas rescue alerts include Iceland, Kuwait, Turkey and Iraq.

Currently the aircraft is on the ramp space at Castle Airport.

It will be moved to the Museum sometime in January.