Alaska! Up North and to the Left

by Steven Swaks

  A new employee?

  “Who are you?” I asked him with a deep frown. It was too early for anything, too early to be polite, to care, to make an effort.

  “I’m Benjamin, you can call me Ben if you want.”

  The young man lit up, happy to have somebody interested in his lost condition. His tall and skinny silhouette and overall demeanor belonged to a library salon, talking about poetry and arguing about his interpretation on Hemingway’s work while sitting on a comfortable leather couch. Benjamin did not fit the small Alaskan airline mold at the dawn of another arctic winter.

  “Are you a new employee?” I asked skeptically, yet strangely certain about the positive answer.

  “Yes,” he smiled obviously excited, “I’m a Commercial Pilot!” He added with glitter in his eyes.

  Jeb chuckled quietly.

  I stayed stoic. “That’s good.” Alice in Wonderland was going on a field trip with a Bunny Rabbit in the middle of World War I trenches. “Do you have any experience in Alaska?”

  “No, it’s my first time here!”

  “Did you meet Jim?” I asked.

  “I met him yesterday, he said I could shadow a Steven today.”

  “That would be me, nice to meet you by the way. I’ll show you around. Where’re you from again?”

  “L.A.”

  “Really? Same here. Where exactly?” I asked curious.

  “Riverside.”

  “Did you learn to fly down there?”

  “I did, all of my flying was in California.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s going to be bit of a change flying in Bethel, we don’t have that many airspaces to worry about, and it’s a tad colder. Norton is your first flying job?”

  “I taught at a flight school in California.”

  “Ok, so it’s your first real job.” I grinned, he smiled.

  “You can go outside, we are going to prefight Five One Charlie, the plane is further down the ramp, I’ll meet you over there in a minute.”

  The young man walked out worried that he would not meet the company’s expectations. Max, our lead mechanic, walked into the terminal with his hands in his pockets and a slight grin.

  “New meat?”

  “Yeah, sounds like a good guy,” I said.

  “Bet you he won’t last a week…” Max said with a sarcastic smirk. He had seen his share of lower 48 pilots showing up ready to handle anything but the arctic climate and run down runways. Max leaned against the dispatch counter top while staring at Benjamin outside. Ben was looking at a 207, his first commercial plane was fascinating.

  Max came in a small package, he was fairly short, but his sarcasm and outlook on life gave him an unprecedented grandeur d’ésprit. There was a lot more to life than wasting time being stressed out, and his existence was well worth living to the fullest. What was there to complain about? His beautiful native wife treated him like royalty, not that he did not return the favor, three cute little ones roamed around the house, and he spent plenty of time hunting in the woods by himself to fulfill his craving for the wide open spaces.

  “He looks pretty green, but you never know,” I replied.

  Max was staring at Benjamin like a vulture waiting for his prey to die.

  “The little guy is starting in late September, talk about bad timing… just before the first snow… I’m telling you, I don’t give him a week.”

  “Come on, give him a chance!” Jeb threw from the other side of the counter.

  “Oh, don’t worry, I won’t even need to get on his back, nature is going to run its course! You know, the natural selection thing.” Max laughed at his own prediction. He shook his head and walked away.

  Somebody ran down the stairs and entered the terminal with fracas. “Matt said that we hired a new employee! Is it for upstairs? A chick? Is she hot? Where is she?” Toad exclaimed excitedly.

  “Calm down,” Jeb said, “it’s a dude, a pilot.”

  “A new pilot?”

  “From the lower 48,” Jeb added.

  “From the lower 48? Now? No way, I don’t give him a month.”

  “The odds are improving, Max didn’t give him a week…” I added.

  “Maybe we should bet, the closest to his escape day, gets the pot!” Toad said his head bobbing on his squared shoulders.

  “What if he stays?” I asked.

  “Then he gets the money,” Jeb replied.

  “Won’t happen…” Toad looked thoughtfully. I knew that look. It was not the expression of somebody who is about to express a deep reflection on world hunger, it was more the Toad look about to slide into his grossly inappropriate mockeries.

  I stepped out of the terminal to meet Benjamin, preflight the plane, and escape Toad’s delirium. After a few minutes we came back into dispatch to pick up our flight release and obtain the latest weather en route and at our destination. It was late September, and a weather forecast report did not mean much, the condition could already be changing, or it could worsen if the current weather was surprisingly accurate. Of course, as usual, Jeb told me the weather was beautiful. In Jebland, anything above the minimum legal was beautiful. I did not quite trust him and picked up the phone to call and double check the weather myself. Leonard, the local agent, was trustworthy and confirmed that, for once, the weather was indeed nice with a high overcast and the wind was an easy 15 knots coming out of the north.

  Ben and I left the comfort of our terminal along with Toad’s endless questionable jokes. Ben was starting to relax and I knew it would take him some time to get acclimated. Ultimately, I was truly hoping he would be able to handle the area and the company. Beyond the apparent crudeness of our staff, Norton Aviation was a good airline to work for. All the employees came with colorful personalities, from Ron and his teeth, Max’s sarcasm, Robert’s quiet laugh, and Toad’s grossly inappropriate humor. The place was a breeding ground for friendship and heavy humor far from the sterilized and hypocritical political correctness.

  We took off for the southwest and Chefornak, a Yupik village 100 miles away near the shore of the Bering Sea. We cruised silently for a while, Benjamin needed some space to find his bearings, learn the plane, and find out more about the delta.

  “This is awfully flat,” Benjamin said through the intercom with the engine humming in the background.

  “The whole delta is like that, lakes and tundra. Chefornak is not bad, you’ll see, it’s a mile or two from the Bering Sea, at the edge of a river. There’s a small extinct volcano a few miles east. The main landmark in the area is Nelson Island.” I gently tapped the GPS screen to highlight the locations I was mentioning.

  I wanted to know him better and find out how I could help him to stay. A young man used to the city life at the beginning of the Alaskan winter did not face good odds. Max and Toad might be right, but I was still hopeful.

  Benjamin was the youngest of three brothers and was born and raised in Austin, Texas. He had only moved to California four years ago when his parents had divorced. Ben appeared to be a young and quiet man at first, standing back and learning his new environment, but once he would become more comfortable, I hoped he would open up. His gaze avidly scanned the area, everything was new and fresh, the plane, the vast open spaces, his job filled with forms and procedures, checklists, and novelties surrounding him. Benjamin did not say much, I was mainly the one asking the questions to find out more and take him out of his shell. For once, Max might actually be wrong, in a few months, at the end of the winter, we would hopefully all sit around a cup of coffee and talk about Benjamin’s early days with us.

  “How big is the airport in Che…” Benjamin asked.

  “Chefornak.”

  “Chefornak.” Ben initiated a smile.

  “It’s tiny, it’s only a gravel strip and a small ramp.”

  “How big is the runway?”

  “It’s 2500 feet by 28… officially…”

  “What is it unofficially?”

  “2500 by… who knows, you’ll tell me onc
e we get there!”

  At 2500 feet, Chefornak’s runway was fairly long. At some point, the administration had labeled the strip 28 feet wide, but the unrealistic figure did not take into consideration the ruts, the heaves and other unwelcomed depressions scarring the edges of the strip. In fact, the actual width was well below this optimistic figure, the actual width sneaked up on the pilot with the veracity and the excitement of a fox in a chicken coop. The new pilot opened his eyes wider and wider as the anemic runway approached on landing. All the concepts and notions about the healthy proportion of a runway were out the door in an instant. There was no more 150 foot wide asphalt, not even the common 75 feet found in numerous smaller towered airports, but the unrealistic and mischievous 20 feet, maybe even 15 miserable usable feet was there to underline the depressing condition of the once proud airport.

  Just like a child unraveling Russian dolls, the pilot went deeper into incomprehension from a brutal astonishment at the sight of the crippled strip and the overall poor field conditions. The tortured wind socks often operated parallel to the ground, strong winds chronically stretching it out perpendicular to the runway. The landing and hopefully soon to be followed takeoff, often turned into the expression of one’s skills, the manifestation of a dying art annihilated by newer and wider airports.

  Benjamin and I were enjoying this flight. Ben was coming out of his comfort zone and called Leonard, the village agent, after I explained to him the procedure of announcing our arrival.

  “Chefornak 503, Norton.”

  Leonard answered with a slight interrogation in his voice. “Norton go ahead.”

  Benjamin gathered his strength and newly acquired knowledge and announced his requested report, “Uh… we will be there in 15 minutes, we have, uh… we have 800 pounds of mail… and… uh… 12 UPS.”

  Leonard answered the radio while chewing his tobacco. “Ok, hey, I won’t see you at the airport, I still have to finish up my run, you can leave the bypass mail on the ramp. I have nothing for you. By the way, it’s getting pretty breezy up here.”

  Breezy? Breezy did not mean anything, it was up there with beautiful. “Leonard, what do you mean breezy? How is it?” I asked.

  The bad news came with the suddenness of a jealous girlfriend slapping her probably sleeping around and soon to be ex-boyfriend.

  “Looks like the winds are straight across the runway, maybe 20, 25 Knots.”

  The walk in the park was going down, the once gentle breeze was rapidly morphing into the villain robbing grandma’s purse. We were getting ready for another showdown, 20 knots was easy, 25 was more questionable but feasible, 30 plus knots across the narrow runway was most likely out of the question, especially on a narrow strip like Chefornak.

  The once optimistic wind report had melted away and vanished into an inaccessible limbo zone. We flew over the village and looked at the wind sock. The little orange cone was completely horizontal, proudly showing the way towards the Bering Sea, straight across the runway. I made my radio call, and entered downwind parallel to the runway. Five One Charlie was showing a hefty crab angle to the North. The greater the angle, the worse the wind, the geometry was not complicated. We reduced power, lowered a first notch of flaps and turned base. In a few seconds I would turn final and I would really assess the wind speed. The last mile would tell me if I could make it or not. So far, it had really been a question of estimation. Soon, the educated guess would turn into a certainty.

  After a seemingly endless base leg against the wind, we turned final. That was it. I stayed angled into the wind for a while with my wings level. I waited for the runway to get closer. I waited. I then banked into the wind and really started the fight on short final. Each gust was trying to push us away from the pathetic but mandatory imaginary center line. I was holding on, giving more left rudder to compensate for my right banking. The wings kept us centered, the rudder trying to keep the nose aligned with the runway, but it was a losing battle. Five One Charlie’s rudder was just not big enough, the nose was wandering back and forth away from the centerline like a drunken man on the sidewalk.

  I was neglecting Ben, I was not a host showing the tricks and intricacy of our trade anymore, I was only trying to finish up my job safely. I did not want to become a statistic and the mail sitting behind us was not worth the risk. As I was contemplating a possible go-around* with my right hand on the throttle, Ben was turning purple while peacefully watching his life unraveling in front of his terrified eyes. The true and blunt Alaskan flying was finally showing its teeth.

  I was ready to apply takeoff power. Descending. The main gear passed over the threshold. Still descending. The nose wheel was wobbling left to right, back and forth to the rhythm of the gusty wind. We were a few feet above the ground, the gravel skimming by beneath the belly of the plane, Benjamin was staring at the ground, the brown soil meant steadiness, a hard anchor against the wind. He peeked in front of him horrified by a bike trail spreading in front of him, the so called runway. Benjamin looked again at the ground, the school going by just on his right.

  Reject the landing? I was facing the option. A go-around and we would be safe, but the job would be left undone. The go-around was a retreat, a sick sensation of having been unable to reach the destination, the unnerving lack of control and the feelings that I could have done things differently. The go-around could also be the satisfaction of having made the right call and the pride of knowing when to give up. So many pilots had left their wings in a ditch, it only took a single incident to terminate a pilot’s career, and I did not plan to be among them.

  The wheel was still descending toward the gravel. A few inches… the right main gear hit the ground in a crunching sound. The power went to idle and the ailerons fully deflected into the wind, the left wheel and soon after the nose gear followed. The plane was slowing down on the bouncy runway.

  This first flight was also Ben’s first true encounter with Alaska’s weather, I had hoped for a gentle ride, a mellow run to a village, but Alaska was not like that, Alaska was not gentle and this leg reflected the true flying. The first flight could be intimidating, but pilots who stayed grew accustomed to it. I hoped that Benjamin would see beyond this first experience and move on to become a seasoned pilot.

  As I was unloading the plane, I looked at him and saw the young man shivering. Shivering? Late September was not even a prelude, it was a sneak peek to the next few months. The weather would get much worse with a thermometer dropping well below zero.

  I could not help but smile. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m f-i-n-e,” Ben replied between a series of twisted contractions.

  An older woman walked towards us with nervous twitches. She shook my hand.

  “How are you today?” I asked her.

  “Goot,” she said with a large nervous smile. She turned to Benjamin and greeted him before walking away with the same contortions.

  “What’s going on with her?” Benjamin asked.

  I sat on the edge of the cargo bay.

  “A long time ago, a woman here in Chefornak was sick, I don’t really know what was wrong with her, she was flown to the hospital in Bethel. The locals or her family told her young daughter that her mother would come back in a small bush plane, just like she left. The mother passed away in the hospital, but no one dared to tell the child.”

  “That’s a nice story, but what’s that got to do with that old woman?”

  I looked at Benjamin then switched my gaze to the elder woman walking away twitching and climbing the short hill with difficulty, “She is the little girl.”

  Benjamin looked at me, silent, then looked at the distant woman, unable to say anything.

  “We need to go.”

  We took off in an opportune moment of calmer wind. Benjamin and I stayed quiet for a while reflecting on the challenging landing and the encounter with the old lady. I had met her many times, but she still carried her sadness and a lifetime of waiting for her mother.

  I wondered how
the overall experience was affecting Benjamin. This first flight showed him what bush flying was all about. As he leaned against the window, and stared at the large “T” shaped Dall Lake beneath us, the first snowflakes of the year fell around the plane. It was not a whiteout or a winter storm, but a light and localized snow fall. Benjamin straightened up and looked around him amazed. I was not. The sight was enchanting and almost magical, but I knew better. I was not seeing the beautiful flakes gently falling, I saw an ominous sign, the odds were shifting, the winter was coming in. The dreaded season was coming to life; the monster was waking up out of his summer sleep. Soon, the beast would be roaming and hunting for its next prey, the fight would be on. For now, it was just a few snowflakes, innocently falling.

  Dean

  Late September

  Every morning was ritual, another day in the office, walk into dispatch, say hi to Jeb, receive some kind of greeting, walk upstairs and do the same with Jim with a word about the weather and any ongoing issue.

  I entered the small terminal, smelled the brewing coffee, and walked across the room. Jeb was not there. I walked upstairs and peeked in Jim‘s office for a quick hi. Jim was sitting in his leather chair, looking exhausted with deep dark lines under his eyes. Something had happened.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Dean crashed.” Two words, that’s all Jim said, two miserable words to express the weight of his thoughts.

  “What do you mean he crashed? What happened? Where?”

  “He wrecked Five One Hotel on takeoff out of that lodge yesterday evening. I don’t know what the hell happened. It’s a tiny runway, something like a 1000 foot by 40, with trees at the end. The owner saw him taking off and saw his landing gear hitting branches, he said he saw the Skyvan banking right before crashing into a shallow lake.”