*** Disoriented Surveyors Overdue, but Found Unharmed ***

From: Neil Brewer [kentsar@uniserve.com]
To: sarinfo@istar.ca

Location: Boston Bar, British Columbia

Date: Tuesday, July 15th 1997

After a day of surveying in dense coniferous forest, 12 Km east of Boston
Bar, 2 males failed to rendezvous with Valley Helicopters at helipad #3
at 1530 hrs. The helicopter and 8 logging company personnel searched an
8 sq/Km area up until dusk that day with no sign of the pair.

Their assignment involved flagging a route for a logging access road at
an elevation of 6,000' in the South Ainslie drainage. Access to the
immediate area was limited to helicopter, with transportation provided by
Valley Helicopters of Hope, under contract to J. S. Jones Timber.
Both surveyors had compasses and were familiar with the area, having
worked there for the past 6 months. One of the men was an experienced
surveyor, the other was relatively new to the job.

Hope Search & Rescue were called by Boston Bar RCMP at 2100hrs, and asked
to assist in the search. After gathering preliminary information at their
base, Hope SAR called Kent Harrison Search and Rescue for mutual aid at
2245hrs. Two SAR managers from Kent Harrison arrived at Hope base at
2345hrs and began to assess the situation. ICS was implemented and primary
incident objectives were identified along with the assignment of roles.
A resource status was established and mutual aid was summoned, with
responses from Mission SAR and Central Fraser Valley SAR.


Wednesday, July 16th:
Kent Harrison's Mobile Incident Command vehicle (MIC) arrived at the J. S.
Jones office in Boston Bar at 0145hrs, followed by five members of Hope
SAR. The vehicle was set-up outside the company's office and, with
information on specific co-ordinates, began to develop an accurate status
map. A PLS was defined and, with an assigned investigator, 'missing person
questionnaires' were completed.

In order to assess the terrain and understand the subjects' route, the
SAR managers arranged to fly the area at first light. At 0500, six
mutual-aid SAR members arrived on scene and were briefed as to their
roles. 25 personnel from the logging company were made available, with the
intention of using SAR members as team leaders.

At 0530 the 2 SAR managers flew the area and were able to gain valuable
information from the pilot and other forestry employees. It was obvious
from the information that the subjects were either non-responsive or had
left the area. The two main objectives were to search an alternative route
to the north east (in an opposite direction to the subjects' planned
route), which was accessible by logging road, and to search the immediate
area in the subjects' planned route. Logging company employees had already
searched the planned route and were confident that any responses would
have been heard the previous evening. 

Communications were going to be the biggest problem. The helicopter would
be the initial bridge between field teams and base, with the SAR Resource
Kit planned to be summoned, subject to the escalation of operations.
Weather was not a great concern, with temperatures at even higher
elevations not dropping below 4 degrees Celsius overnight. One subject
smoked, and had the ability to light a fire.

The SAR managers returned to MIC at 0630hrs to find that the subjects had
been located in the suspected north-east drainage by another logging crew.
The pair had become disoriented and, even with a compass, had travelled in
the wrong direction. They were both unharmed and were driven back to
Boston Bar by logging truck.

Submitted by Neil Brewer, Kent Harrison SAR

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