helicopter
search over Irondequoit bay, NY.
In the winter of 2003, I was doing
Night Vision Google (NVG) refresher training on Leroy W* in a UH-1H.
As soon as we took off we got a call from the Rochester Tower asking
if we could help first responders search Irondequoit bay. The tower
had explained that 911 had just received a call reporting that
someone had fallen through the thin ice just moments ago. This was
before the enhanced 911 feature that gave the 911 operator the
location of the caller, even if it were with a cell phone. Since the
fire department did not have any idea where to begin the search, they
called the Rochester Airport looking for the National Guard to help.
The search area was too large for a ground search to be effective
within the time limits of someone surviving being submerged in ice
cold water. There was not enough time to launch a state police
helicopter from Batavia 25 miles away or from Syracuse 50 miles away.
There was a helicopter EMS operation that was 10 miles away, but EMS
operations usually turn down searches until they can verify they have
someone to bill. Since we were just launching our flight and there
was another NVG flight that just launches a few minutes ahead of us,
we were asked to assist.
In our aircraft was Leroy W* as the
copilot and Hal F* as the crew chief and myslef. Leroy was one of
the pilots who for one reason or another had never been signed off as
a "pilot in command." This title meant that you have proven to
the leadership that you had the judgement to command the aircraft
with the crew. Leroy was honest and a good person but he had a
tendency to follow directions without ever showing initiative to
think beyond what he was directed to do. With the constantly
changing environment of aviation, it is often necessary to deviate
from the plan.
There was another National Guard
helicopter flying in the area and Air Traffic Control (ATC) contacted
them and briefed them on the situation. The other aircraft was
piloted by Dave C*, Bob M* and their crew chief was Danny K*. They
called us on our internal FM radio to set up the search parameters.
Irondequoit had a bridge that stood approximately 100 foot above the
water and separated the bay in two even halves. Dave briefed that
his aircraft would search the north half of the bay and we would
search the southern half. Dave had suggested a hard deck of 600 feet
on the altimeter for the search, which would keep us 200 feet above
the surface and 100 feet above the bridge. I agreed that this was a
good idea and we turned to the bay to start the search.
Leroy and I began our search around
the perimeter of the ice, looking for holes in the ice or people
gathered. As we searched, Rochester tower called us and gave us the
phone number for the West Webster fire chief who was in charge of the
search. The radios in the aircraft were not compatible with law
enforcement or firefighter's radios, so our only means of
coordinating the search was by cell phone. Hal had a cell phone on
him and was able to dial the number and put the phone under his
helmet to talk to the fire chief. Hal would relay requests from the
fire chief for us to look in certain areas and if it applied to the
search area of the other aircraft, we would relay the message to the
other aircraft on our FM radio.
We were searching an area on the
south side of the bay bridge and on the eastern shore of the bay. In
this area there is an island that was only about 200 yards away from
the shoreline. The terrain on the shoreline rose up about 100 feet
in a steep cliff and the island also had a hill that was about 75
feet tall. As the search wore on, I gave the flight controls to
Leroy while I focused on radio work. I was getting caught up in the
process of Hal listening to the instructions from the fire chief on
the ground and then he would relay the message to me over the
aircraft intercom and then I would relay the message over the radio
to the other aircraft searching the Northern area. During this
process I had not noticed that Leroy had allowed the aircraft to
descend below the "hard deck" that Dave had briefed earlier. As
we were maneuvering between the island and the shoreline, it had
occurred to me how low we were. I was about to direct Leroy to climb
when I spotted a wire that was suspended from the highest point of
the island to the cliffs of the nearby shoreline. I announced
"wires" and came on the controls. We were almost completely
under the wires. I am sure that if we had continued forward, the
tail rotor would have hit the wire. I slowly backed the aircraft up
with Hal hanging his head outside the sliding door, watching the wire
to ensure the rotor tilting upward had enough clearance for us to
move away. This scared us back above the hard deck of 100 feet as
we continued the search.
After we had been searching for
about an hour, the Rochester Tower advised us that there was a storm
with freezing rain approaching the airport from the west. They
recommended that we return as quickly as possible to the airport to
avoid being caught in the storm. The airport was only 5 miles west
of the bay, so both aircraft started back to the airfield. We
encountered the rain about three miles away and it would immediately
stick to the aircraft. We moved quickly across the airport to
parking and landed. As the blades were spinning to a stop, ice had
covered the entire aircraft. We had to chip away at the ice to get
the doors to open. If we had waited just a minute or two longer to
head back, we may not have gotten on the ground safely.
After the
aircraft were secured and we were debriefing the flight, Lt Col Chris
H* said that we should have turned the search request down. He
explained that there is a protocol in place for receiving off the
cuff missions like this and he felt that we hadn't follow it. Dave
reminded Col that we have there is also a clause in that protocol
that gives us the authority to launch to protect "Life, limb or
eyesight." Dave added that if it ever happens again and if we knew
it was Col H*'s kid, we would be sure to turn it down.
We never found any evidence of
someone falling through the ice, and we heard that the firefighters
on the ground never did either. The think the call was a prank, as
that happens from time to time.
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