Chapter IX

Elkhorn Mountains

89-26195

Friday, July 31^st, 1998

“Attention in the building.  Attention in the building.  All available helicopter aircrew members please report to the operations desk –I repeat all available helicopter aircrew members report to the operations desk immediately.” It must be Friday.

A small single engine Cessna 172 Skyhawk tail number N835T departed Troutdale Airport just east of Portland around 10:00am enroute to Mountain Home, Idaho.  A few hours later it had gone down somewhere in the vicinity of the Anthony Lakes Ski area in the Elkhorn Mountains.  According to the 911 operator who received the phone call from the survivor reported a female victim extremely terrified and entombed inside the wreckage.   The survivor sounded as if she was going into shock.  The 911 operator also reported the loud sounds of a crying child in the background which meant we had at least two survivors at the scene.  Before losing contact due to a suspected low cell phone battery the survivor reported that the pilot was her husband and that he was immobilized under the aircraft and unconscious.  She explained that she could not get out of the airplane or reach her two year old daughter because they were both hanging upside down still strapped into their chairs.  She continued to describe her surroundings as a mountainous, heavily forested area surrounded by clouds. 

We all watched as the supervisor of flight who had made the announcement over the intercom and had collected all of our names just moments before was now behind a glass wall in the director of operation’s office discussing who would fly on this mission.  It was always based on not only who was qualified but who had the most crew duty day left.  I was not driving north to pick up my daughter today because the this weekend was our one weekend a month unit training assembly which always fell on the first weekend of the month.

As the supervisor of flight walked out of the director’s office with names in hand he immediately turned without looking at us and walked over to large scheduling board behind the long operations counter and began filling in the blanks.  Who was it going to be?  Who had the director of operations selected to go on this rescue mission?  There were certainly more than enough qualified aircrew members amid us to fill a two ship.  We were all poised anxiously to see who amongst us had been selected to go this rescue mission.  The supervisor of flight wrote the following from left to right filling in the columns;

Call Sign: Jolly 21, Tail Number: 89-26200, Fuel Load: 4400 Mission Pilot: Graham, Mission Copilot: Waller,

Mission Flight Engineer: Murray,

Mission Pararescuemen: Hanley, Collins, and Liddle.

Call Sign: Jolly 22, Tail Number: 89-26195, Fuel Load: 4400 Mission Pilot: Lopez, Mission Copilot: Goglia,

Mission Flight Engineer: Novak,

Mission Pararescuemen: Archer, Rainey, and Javorski.

Score!  Not only was I selected to be part of a real rescue mission I was selected to command my own aircraft and crew that was a major score!  I knew now that I had arrived.  Lieutenant Colonel Jamey P. “Opa” Graham would lead the mission in Jolly 21 and I would be his wingman in Jolly 22. 

The Elkhorn Mountains are a sub range of the Blue Mountains located about 247 nautical miles east of Portland as the crow flies in northeastern Oregon.  Its highest point is 9,108 feet and the broken cloud layer was about 8,000 feet that day. 

We departed Portland International and flew past Troutdale Airport as we followed the Colombia River through the deep Gorge for several miles until we exited near The Dalles.  There we found ourselves starring at a whole lot of wilderness thinking to ourselves this is going to be like looking for a needle in a hay stack.  We started our electronic search listening for an emergency locator transmitter or ELT, nothing, not a sound.  An ELT is carried aboard most general aviation aircraft in the U.S. in the event of an accident.  They are designed to send a distress signal on 121.5 or 243.0 megahertz frequencies.  We could only hope that this particular aircraft had one on board and that it was operational.

About an hour and twenty minutes into our search we could hear King 76 overhead joining us in the search.  They had been diverted by our command post after completing a four hour training sortie to deliver the helicopters important details regarding the possible location of the crash site.  “Jolly flight, King Seven Six.”  What a great surprise to hear the tanker somewhere above the clouds.  They always brought a great deal of comfort to any mission not only because they contained fuel on aboard in case we needed it, they could climb to a greater altitudes staying line of sight with us and relay transmissions to home station or communicate with just about any station.  Most important just in case anything went wrong with one of the helicopters they could call for help and even parachute their PJs direct to our location providing immediate medical attention. “Jolly flight, King Seven Six.” “King Seven Six, Jolly Two One Flight where did you guys come from?” we responded.  “Jolly Two One standby to copy coordinates of possible crash site.  You can’t keep all the glory to yourselves.”  King 76 replied.

We entered the new coordinates into our flight management system.  In the time since our departure from Portland the cellular company had triangulated the 911 call based on several cell tower transmissions in the area and forwarded the information to our command post.  They in turn contacted King 76 and within minutes we were headed in a new direction.  It was about a 90 square mile mountainous cloud covered search area.  Then a stroke of luck King 76 informed us that another small airplane flying over the area reported what appeared to be the remains of a small airplane on the side of a mountain.  Once we loaded the approximate latitude and longitude coordinates into our aircrafts navigation system and hit enter our number one needle pointed to an area about 18 miles northwest of Baker City, Oregon.  As we continued our flight on or about a zero nine nine degree heading King 76 remain overhead.  King 76 continued to monitor all search and rescue frequencies and provided a vital and real time communications link not only with our command post but also with local law enforcement and air traffic control advising them to prepare to guide us to the nearest hospital in Boise.

As we approached the tallest peaks that pierced the cloud layer about the 8,000 foot level we were wretched by the lurid signals coming from the emergency locator transmitter.  “Turn it down!” I yelled at my copilot as I followed Jolly 21 in trail slowly around the cliff side searching for the source of the unpleasantly loud transmitter.  The airplane is here, somewhere but with the clouds and the mist clasping the tree tops and keeping an eye on Jolly 21 who had slowed down to almost a hover made it difficult for me to search.  Then all of a sudden…

(to be continued).