All Eternity Lies Before Me
Presentation and Book Signing by
Loreen Gibbons
Loreen Gibbons is a former Navy wife, remarried Navy widow, and retired elementary school teacher. Her debut book, All Eternity Lies Before Me, started out as letters written to her grandchildren so they would come to know the grandfather they never got to meet.
Matt Gibbons arrived at Moffett Field in July 1976, joining Patrol Squadron NINE in October 1976. Two years later, he was the Tactical Coordinator on a PARPRO mission call sign Alfa Foxtrot 586. He is one of 26 living survivors of a P-3 Orion ditching. He is a member of the UK’s Goldfish Club, the honorary society formed after the Battle of Britain to commemorate those individuals who survived a ditching at sea.
This presentation will provide the background and offers their unique perspective on the events leading to their emergency, the confluence of engineering changes, training gaps, and design oversights that led to the loss of five lives that day.
They connect the Accident Investigation Board lessons learned into the safety improvements that the P-3 community eventually implemented. The presentation traces the crew’s journey from Adak, into two life rafts, their rescue/recovery by Soviet fishermen, their stay in Siberia, and their return to Moffett. It salutes their Air Force, Navy, and Coast Guard rescuers while providing the origin story of the Jerry Grigsby Aviation Survival Training Center in Pensacola, Florida.
