*** SAR Helicopter Crash in the Olympic National Park *** Date: Sat, 13 Sep 1997 11:01:44 -0400 From: Todd Rignel <71143.165@compuserve.com> To: "INTERNET:sar-l@islandnet.com" Subject: SAR Helicopter Crash in the Olympic National Park Eight people were on board the Bell 205-A1 rented from a private company in Eugene, Oregon. Three were killed in the crash and five have been hospitalized. Three were taken to Olympic Memorial Hosp. in Port Angeles and are in stable condition expected to be released later. Two were taken to Harborview in Seattle where one is stable and the other in serious condition. All but one were in their twenties (32 for the other), and were park service employees and SAR volunteers. The helicopter crashed in the Buckhorn Wilderness area just east of the park boundary in the Slide Creek drainage on the north flank of the 8227ft/ 2081m Mt. Baldy, at approximately the 5600ft elevation. The 73 year old subject of the search, John Devine, has been missing for over a week now. Despite the fact that no clues have been found yet Olympic National Park rangers are continuing the search. Their reasoning is that the 73 year old man was in excellent physical shape and knew the area. He would have run out of food and water days ago and in the upper elevation there is little water available. Todd Rignel Seattle Explorer SAR King County SAR Assoc. Date: Thu, 18 Sep 1997 15:34:31 -0700 (PDT) From: Richard Ries To: SAR Mailing List Subject: Info on Olympic NP helicopter crash Passing on the following FYI: [1] Washington News Briefs [Sep 18] Organization: Copyright 1997 by United Press International Date: Thu Sep 18 11:22:42 PDT 1997 (PORT ANGELES)- Federal transportation officials have concluded that three factors contributed to the helicopter crash that killed three and injured five in Olympic National Park last week. Investigators say foggy weather conditions, improper use of restraints and helmets and pilot error contributed to the accident. Three of those injured were still hospitalized in satisfactory condition yesterday. The helicopter was being used in the search for a missing 73-year-old hiker. That search has been called off. Rick Ries Marion Co. SAR Salem, OR *** Death of a Volunteer *** From: "Linda Shelton" To: Subject: Death of a Volunteer Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 05:45:04 -0700 This Friday September 12, 1997, West Coast Search Dogs, of Washington State, lost one of it's members in a Helicopter accident. Rita McMahon and Derrick were returning home from a search in the Olympic Mountains when their helicopter crashed shortly after take off from the LZ at the base of Mt Baldy. They were returning home from a search for a 70 year old hiker. There were 8 people and 1 dog in the Bell Helo when it crashed. Three people died and 5 were injured. Derrick excaped with minor injuries after the Helicopter rolled back down the hill. Rita was trapped in the wreck. Rita and Derrick were 6 year vets and just had to go back for one last time to try to find their lost subject. Rita was Grays Harbor County Dog Training Officer, and President of West Coast Search Dogs, based in in Aberdeen, Washington. She will be sorely missed in SAR here. Submitted by Linda Shelton, WCSD Member on Leave of Absence From: "Priscilla Munyon" To: Subject: Funeral Services for Fallen SAR Comrade Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 23:18:17 -0700 At 3 p.m. on Friday, 9/18/97, services will be held at Saint Mary's Church at 306 G Street in Aberdeen, WA, for Rita McMahon, 52-year-old member and President of West Coast Search Dogs of Washington, who died in the crash of a helicopter on a search mission in the Olympic National Forest on 9/12/97. Due to family wishes there will be no grave-side services. Rita will have an official escort from the funeral home to the church. Mass will be held starting at 3 p.m., and a reception will follow in the church hall. Anyone from the SAR community is welcome to attend. You are asked to RSVP to the County Emergency Management Office at (360) 249-3911 or 249-3711 (ext 290/291) to confirm attendance by 9/16/97 at 4 p.m. In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that donations be sent to the Rita McMahon Memorial Fund, c/o Twin County Credit Union, P.O. Box 718, Olympia, WA 98507. Any monies received will be held in perpetuity for the aid of the families of fallen SAR volunteers. During our grief and disbelief in the loss of our friend and mentor, it is hard to see how we will carry on. We will carry on because that is how Rita would have wanted it. We can do nothing less to honor her memory. Thanks to everyone who has already contacted us. Our thoughts and sympathies also go out to all the other rescue workers who were injured and to the families of those who were also killed in this most tragic accident. Time may heal this wound, but we will always feel their loss. Best wishes to you all. Thank you, and goodnight. Priscilla Munyon Date: Mon, 15th September 1997 From: Martin Colwell sarinfo@istar.ca Subject: SAR Helicopter Crash in the Olympic NP - A Personal Perspective As SAR planner for the 28-strong Canadian contingent of this search I was at Olympic National Park Headquarters in Port Angeles when word of the SAR helicopter crash came in. Within minutes Parks Service personnel and myself rushed rescue equipment to a waiting Chinook helicopter at nearby Fairfield Airport, where Emergency Medical Technicians and Fire/Rescue personnel with heavy rescue experience loaded medical, extrication and evacuation equipment into the back of the Chinook. I was the last of the ten rescue people to be loaded on board. We flew to the crash site in 20 minutes, listening on the Parks Service radios to the account of deceased people and triaging of the survivors by the first responders, who had flown to the crash site in commercial helicopters. We circled overhead with the back door of the Chinook open, looking down at the crash debris on the hillside while the first responders continued the medical treatment and evacuation. We circled watching and listening as their awful assessment unfolded, for perhaps 40 minutes or so. Helicopter debris littered the hillside, down for perhaps a thousand feet. Apparently these rescuers were working from the top down. Once the first flight-loads of survivors had left the scene we were tasked to land and continue to find, treat and evacuate survivors. I spent time trying to ascertain who would be 'boss' of our group and which equipemt we should take out first. I had the 'Jaws of Life' betwen my feet. All the on-scene options swirled through my mind. I noticed the rescuer beside me fighting back tears, they were his crew in the crashed 'chopper. We landed on the only available lip in the steep hill side, parallel to the slope. I quickly looked up and saw the steep grassy hillside, a basin at perhaps 35 to 40 degrees steepness, and the crashed helicopter fueselage perhaps 200 feet elevation above me. I grabbed the first pack past to me and began to toil up towards the wreckage. The pack must have weighed 60 pounds and I labored up the slope. Two others were following behind me while the remaining members of our crew kept to the left, further away from the wreckage. As I switchbacked I saw a shape and color in the wreckage that caused me to stop. A bare human arm. I prayed that I was mistaken. As I got closer the form resolved into that of a deceased person, still held by a harness against the twisted wreckage. I cursed that it was me and not others that would have to deal with it. I stopped within a few feet of the wreckage and spent a few seconds forcing myself to look at the body, to be sure that he was dead. The rescuer behind me pulled up alongside and we started emptying our overweight packs. We found a blue tarp and placed it over the body and the wreckage, to give the victim some dignity in death. I looked up the slope to where a group of rescuers were congregating. Clearly they had found another victim. I guessed from their movements that he was alive and so I began to toil up another four hundred vertical feet or so to their location. It seemed to take forever to get there. The hillside was littered with aircraft parts and smelled of kerosine. I passed deep gouges in the bare dirt, presumably where the helicopter had ripped the grass out of the hillside. I reached the subject, feeling sick from over-exertion. The subject, a male, perhaps in his late twenties, was responsive and had been packaged in a SKED stretcher. Everyone was standing around. I got the impression people were unsure what to do next. I looked around, there was a short length, perhaps 30ft, of climbing rope, there was no other rope in the group. Dan said someone will have to go to the Chinook for more rope. I looked down, the dark green Chinook, perhaps 600 vetical feet below us, was starting to fade into the evening twilight. I said we would never finish the evacuation before dark if we went back to the Chinook. We decided to start using the 30 foot ropelength while someone went down for more rope. That was the easy part. Casting around our location I could see absolutely nothing to anchor the rope to. A small, inadequate bush had been ripped out of the hillside by the helicopter crash. There were no trees, shrubs, boulders or snowpatches, just steep grass on all sides. I cast around the packs and equipment strewn around us. A wooden ice axe caught my eye. I had not seen a wooden ice axe used in more than 10 years. But it would do! I asked Dan to drive the axe into the ground with a fist-sized rock, then I grabbed the rope and coiled it around its shaft. We tied the other end to the stretcher and readied for the first of many lowers, with six people handling the stretcher. One short ropelength after the other we crept down the hillside, getting into the rythmn of pounding in the ice axe, wrapping the rope around, lowering, finding a stable platform, then holding the stretcher while Dan and I moved the ice axe down to the new anchor point. It was nearly dark now and the Chinook seemed a long way below. My pager went off, I ignored it, little knowing the concern this caused back home. Someone asked if the Chinook could fly at night, someone said yes, then two radio communications said no, Visual Flight Rules only. Ten minutes of twilight left, it did not seem enough. We started to drop loose equipment and left it on the hillside. Finally someone began to climb up towards us carrying a ropebag. I yelled at him to stay where he was and open it up. In a few more ropelengths we reached the ropebag and someone tied the two ropes together. The knot was thrust before me and rolled over for closer inspection. 'Good training' I thought and nodded. We began to lower again. One long 330-foot lower brought the stretcher to the basin close to the Chinook. In the near-darkness the stretcher was hustled inside. I tried to run down the uneven slope, the last man down, discarding the rope for someone-else, some other day. In the semi-darkness inside the Chinook the patient was given an IV line and an EMT was tied to a makeshift harness, to help provide care beside the stretcher. We sat, exhausted, two groups of rescuers facing each other. In the dim green cabinlight each person began going through their own private hell. Time now to think of their friends, dead or injured, they had treated on the mountainside. People were quietly sobbing or fighting back tears. As an outsider I felt completely helpless, unable to console the suffering of strangers. After what seemed an eternity the rotors whirred into life. I don't know why the craft was able to lift off, nor I did not care. Just get us down without any more misery. Eventually the city lights came into view, diamonds sprinkled on a velvet blanket. We landed at Fairfield Airport in Port Angeles. The rear door opened and floodlights shone in. Nobody spoke. We filed out of the aircraft in almost complete silence and were directed to a row of nearby busses, half hidden in the darkness. Nobody asked any questions. There were no cameras, no microphones, no noise, just groups of people gathered around, quietly watching. It seemed we had returned from another world. Martin Colwell Lions Bay Search & Rescue *** SAR Helicopter Crash in the Olympuic Mountains *** Addresses for Sending Condolence and 'Get Well' Messages 19th September 1997 * Address for wife and family of Kevin Johnston, helicopter pilot: Sherri Johnston and Family 387 "V" Street Springfield. OR 97477 The family have set up a memorial fund for Kevin's 18-month-old daughter, Kyla. Donations can be made to the: Kyla Fund Register Guard Federal Credit Union 1065 High Street #7 Eugene, OR 97401 * Address for Rita McMahon's mother, Irene, and family: Irene McMahon and family 4097 Wishkaw Road Aberdeen, WA 98520 In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that donations be made to the: Rita McMahon Memorial Fund Twin City Credit Union PO Box 718 Olympia, WA 98507 * Address for Taryn Hoover's parents and family: Mr. & Mrs. John Hoover 905 Coachway Annapolis, MD 21401 * Address for Taryn Hoover's significant other: Christopher Pompel 2 Tail House Waldron, WA 98297 - Condition and Addresses for the Injured - Heidi Pederson 2312 Monroe Road Port Angeles, WA 98362 Heidi is expected to be released from hospital shortly and will spend a at least the next few weeks with friends in Port Angeles. Heidi's been a member of the park Owl Crew for three seasons. Harboview Medical Center Patient Cindy Stern 325 - 9th Avenue Seattle, WA 98104 Cindy suffered a broken back and other injuries in the accident and will probably be in the hospital for another couple of weeks. She is regaining feeling in her legs and is expected to be able to walk again. Cindy worked on the Owl Crew as an SCA last summer and as an NPS employee this summer. Harboview Medical Center Patient Robert Feldham 325 - 9th Avenue Seattle, WA 98104 Robert underwent oral surgery to repair a double fracture of his jaw. He also has lacerations to his buttocks, face, head and a fractured ankle. He is expected to be released from hospital within two weeks. Robert is a German citizen and will likely return to Germany after he is released. Robert worked as a VIP campground host this ummer and fall. Christopher Cantway 431 1/2 East 6th Street Port Angeles, WA 98362 Christopher was released from hospital and is recuperating in Port Angeles at a friend's house. In his own word he is "recovering quickly" and is doing well. He worked as a backcountry SCA and VIP this summer and fall. David Leeman P.O. Box 1075 Gold Bar, WA 98251 David was treated and released from hospital and is recovering at a local hotel for the next several days. His mailing address is above. He has been a VIP with the park's Fire Management Office. ------------------------------------