A Memorable Flight
by Bill Fairchild
A Memorable Flight
It was late April, 1954, and Monty Montgomery and I were relaxing over beer in the Elmendorf officers club rehashing the details of our just-completed flight ferrying an L-20 Beaver from San Francisco to Anchorage via the Alcan Highway, a once in a lifetime experience. Our conversation was interrupted by a message directing me to report to the base Air-Sea Rescue unit. It seemed that an Alaska Airlines bush plane (a Norduyn Norseman, if memory serves me) had crashed on a flight between Bethel and Platinum. The wreckage had been spotted and they wanted to get a doctor to the scene quickly in case there were survivors. Although our helicopters and some of the mechanics were already in Bethel, Elswick Newport and his pilots had not yet arrived, so I was drafted to go down and fly a civilian doctor to the crash site. Time was of the essence, so I grabbed my flight suit, B-15 jacket and a dopp kit and hustled to the flight line where an Air-Sea Rescue Albatross was waiting to fly me to Bethel. Meanwhile, our mechanics there were hastily assembling an H-23. When we arrived I took it up for a quick test flight; the doctor climbed aboard and we headed south.
We soon spotted the crash site south of the village of Quinhagak. It was no more than a dark smudge on the snowy coastal plain. Apparently the Norseman had flown into the ground under power, probably during whiteout conditions. We landed next to the burned wreckage and determined that neither the pilot nor copilot had survived, then proceeded to Platinum, where the investigators were to rendezvous. By this time it was late in the day and plans were made for me to ferry two Civil Aeronautics Board investigators to the site and recover the bodies the next morning.
Early next day the investigators and I headed north, aided by a strong tailwind. On reaching the scene we extricated the bodies and decided to tie the body bags on to the skids. Doing so meant that I wouldn't be able to open the doors, but that didn't seem important at the time, so I climbed in and the bags were tied in place. By this time the south wind had picked up to about 30 knots and it had begun to snow. The Air-Sea Rescue Albatross circling overhead called to say that a bad storm was coming up from the south, that they were returning to Bethel, and that I had better get out of there quickly. Promising to return for the two investigators as soon as the bodies were off-loaded in Platinum, I took off directly into the wind and headed south.
With the tail wind it had taken only about 30 minutes to reach the crash site from Platinum, but now going back I had flown an hour and still had not reached the entrance to Goodnews Bay, a narrow stretch of open water I would have to cross to reach Platinum on the south shore. Goodnews Bay itself is several miles wide and deep, but the sand spits at its entrance are less than a mile apart. By now it was snowing hard, visibility was down to a couple hundred yards and the only sense of a horizon was provided by the sparse vegetation poking out of the snow. By this time, of course, I had begun to worry about running out of gas. Suddenly out of the blizzard an Eskimo tent appeared directly ahead. I quickly flared and landed and two men ran out to greet me. I wanted to ask them how far it was to Platinum, but the roar of the wind made it impossible to hear them through the bubble. If I wanted to talk with them I would have to jettison the door, which I reluctantly did. They told me that Platinum was only about five miles further south, so I decided to go ahead. I wasn't able to re-mount the door, so pulled it in on my right side and took off.
I guess we all enjoyed flying with the doors off in the Alaskan summer, but now I was in a blizzard and the unhinged door was funneling snow and wind into the cabin! Finally, open water appeared ahead and I started across, maintaining what seemed to be the most reasonable heading. I knew it was only about a mile to the other side and strained to see the sand spit marking the end of the runway at Platinum. Lord knows what the wind was like by then, but ten minutes passed and I was still over open water. Panic began to set in ---- by then I had 1:45 on the tank and the gauge was on the peg. Was the wind blowing me to the east over Goodnews Bay, or, God forbid, out into Kuskokwim Bay to the west? The only thing certain was that land lay somewhere to the east, so in desperation I turned in that direction and started praying I would see land before the engine died.
Nothing but gray, choppy water appeared below for another five minutes of terror, but suddenly up ahead loomed solid land. I had been blown way off course and ended up on the northeast shore of Goodnews Bay. The snow was knee-deep where I landed. Now what to do? I thought about spending the night in the H-23, but had nothing but my flight suit and B-15 and the blizzard was still raging. Besides, what about the two guys waiting for me at the crash site? They weren't warmly dressed either and had no shelter. Checking my map I saw that I couldn't be very far from the village of Goodnews on the eastern shore of the bay. Did I have enough gas to get there? The terrain was flat and snow-covered, so I thought that if I did run dry I could probably make a decent auto-rotation and wouldn't be any worse off than I was already. Thinking it would be easier to autorotate without the extra weight, I decided to leave the two body bags at this point, but found my hands too stiff with cold to untie the ropes. Fortunately I had a belt knife in my flight suit and was able to cut the ropes by holding the knife between the heels of my hands. Once again I started up and took off into the storm.
My spirits soared when the village appeared ahead and I had landed near the cluster of houses. Friendly people took me in and soon I was sitting in front of a steaming bowl of moose stew. My plan had been to refuel and head back immediately for the two investigators, but the only gas available was 80 octane and I had no idea whether an H-23 engine would run on anything but 100/130.. I spent a long and sleepless night worrying about them and kicking myself for having got into this predicament, but at the same time felt lucky to be alive. Next morning the blizzard had quit and an Alaska National Guard pilot in a ski-equipped L-19 brought some gas in from Platinum. He then proceeded to the crash site and found the investigators had survived that terrible night by piecing together some shelter from bits of the wreckage and were suffering only from conjunctivitis caused by huddling over a smoky fire. He flew them back to Platinum one at a time while I went out to recover the bodies where I had left them the day before.
Soon we were all back in Platinum and the adventure was over.
As I wrote this account I realized that though it all took place 49 years ago, I still began to feel chilled as I typed! I am posting it on the 30th Engineer Aviation Association website in the hope that it will stimulate others to write about their own experiences, both humorous and serious. Ours was a very unusual unit full of extraordinary people, and I will always be proud to have been a part of it!
Bill Fairchild
