Day 2

So, as I was cruising into Casper, WY from the airport today ( in my mini-van ) I was reminded how much casper is like Nome, at least the weather anyway. Yesterday they had a day long blizzard and today it is clear with lots of snow on the ground that is now being blown around polishing everything.



I was thinking the other day about when we had a little accident with one of our single otters. I was on my way from Kotzebue to Nome in a navajo when I got a message that one of our otters was overdue from picking up a group of hunters on the American river. I was asked to go check on it. I knew the approximate area where they would be so I descended down to get under some weather and then headed for where I thought they could be. I tuned a radio to 121.5 so as to pick up and Emergency Locatro transmitter, if there had been an accident and it was going off. Sure enought within about 10 miles I started hearing one ( not good) When I was about 2 miles away from te site I could see a flash from a beacon on the airplane, neaning there was still power to it. I soon had the aircraft in sight. It looked like it had hit a bank of the river on take-off and ripped the engine off to ne side and the landing gear was crumpled. It looked pretty bad. I went right over it down low then circled overhead trying to see any people. Later I learned that the pilot had heard me coming from a good distance and could tell it was a navajo and that it was headed straight for him. I stayed in a circle above the wreck while climbing higher to talk to the office. When I could I reported that it didnt look good and I couldnt see anyone. they were already getting Eric Pentilla and his Evergreen helicopter ready with Mike Owens to come help. I continued to circle overhead. I wanted the people in the airplane to know we were still there and I wanted to be able to relay info to the office once the helicopter arrived.

It took quite a while for the helicopter to get there, maybe 1 hr 15 min or so, They got there near dark and reported everyone was alive allthough the pilot had some injuries. It turned out that the hunters were giving the international signal to me of injured people at the site by laying down on the ground with arms and legs out. The only problem was they had their camo gear on and I couldne see them.! Well I relayed the message and headed to Nome because I was getting very low on fuel. The helicopter brought them all in and the pilot and 1 passenger were hospitalized, well for a while anyway, the pilot wouldn't stay and even with possible internal damage and a big cut on his head from the curled prop hitting him, he went home.

The aircraft was retrieved after freeze up.