The Last Run
Page 22
Tip-off was at seven sharp. Exactly seven minutes before the referee blew the starting whistle, a satellite 650 miles above the earth picked up an emergency signal from a radio beacon in the Gulf of Alaska.
SARSAT-4 was one of seven low-earth-orbiting satellites circling the globe on January 30, 1998. It was capable of reading analog signals from 121.5-megahertz EPIRBs, like the one triggered first aboard the La Conte, and digital transmissions from 406-megahertz models, like the one Bob Doyle had triggered just before abandoning ship.
That night, however, SARSAT-4 picked up only one signal from the La Conte — the one coming from the stronger 406 beacon.
Instantly, the satellite relayed the Mayday to a powerful computer inside the U.S. Mission Control Center in Suitland, Maryland, and the mainframe began checking thousands of boat registries to identify the ship in distress. When a beacon is registered with the Coast Guard, it takes less than a minute to determine the ship’s name, its characteristics, the name of its owner, the owner’s telephone number, the boat’s radio call signal and the phone numbers of two of the skipper’s closest relatives. The computer forwards this information to the Coast Guard headquarters nearest the ship’s port of call so that duty officers can start mobilizing an air rescue.
The computer then fixes the EPIRB’s location. Because it works with sets of digital data, it winds up calculating two Doppler positions —a true image, which is where the EPIRB actually is, and a mirror image. The computer weighs the composite images by percentage of accuracy, discerns the beacon’s true position and forwards the coordinates to the Coast Guard station closest to the emergency. Ninety-five percent of the time, the computer determines which is the true Doppler image in less than five minutes.
This time, it was not certain.
When Bob Doyle activated the 406 EPIRB aboard the La Conte, SARSAT-4 happened to be very low on the horizon. Orbiting the poles at 4.37 miles per second—15,372 mph —the satellite received only a short, incomplete burst of data before it slipped behind the earth.
With little data to work with, the best the Mission Control mainframe could do was offer a position split— two possible locations for the emergency beacon.
As the computer saw it, there was a 52 percent chance the distress signal had come from latitude 58°15.5’ north, longitude 138°07.8’ west. But there was also a 48 percent chance it had emanated from latitude 61°28.3’ north, longitude 120°34.5’ west. These coordinates were eight hundred miles apart.
To confirm the EPIRB’s true position, the computer would need more data. It would have to wait. SARSAT-4 took an hour to complete a pass around the earth. And there was one other problem.
The computer had been unable to identify the ship or its crew; the boat’s owner had not bothered to register the EPIRB. If he had, a duty officer in Juneau could have called family and friends of the crew, confirmed that this was not just another false alarm and ordered an immediate launch. It could have shaved fifteen minutes to an hour off the time a helicopter needed to effect a rescue.
That, of course, was no longer possible.
Quartermaster Blake Kilbourne yawned and rubbed his eyes. It was storming outside. He checked his watch: 7:02 P.M. He still had to stand half of a twenty-four-hour watch at the District 17 Rescue Coordination Center in Juneau.
It had been a slow day: a couple of medevacs, a boat that needed a tow and a false EPIRB alarm. Some kid on a docked boat had knocked the beacon out of its magnetic bracket by accident and triggered a Mayday. There was no harm done. Kilbourne had radioed the vessel and aborted a rescue.
Lieutenant Steve Rutz, sitting beside him at the console, asked him, “How you holding up?”
“I could use a nap.”
“Go ahead.”
“You sure?”
“Go ahead. I’ll call you if I need you.”
Kilbourne took their dinner plates to the kitchen, rinsed them and the utensils, stowed everything in the cupboards and went to the bunkroom. He was unfolding his sleeping bag when he heard the zipping noise of the SARSAT-dedicated printer coming from the control room.
“Hey, Steve?”
“Yeah?”
“You got that?”
“I got it,” Rutz called out. “Get some sleep.”
Rutz ripped off the bulletin and scanned it:
406 FIRST ALERT/SIT 174/FOR CGD17
MCC TRANSMIT TIME: 31 0353 JAN 98
DATA FROM SAT/ORBIT: S4/48220
What he read next stopped him: the computer was giving two possible positions for the same distress beacon. That’s weird, he thought. Maybe a corrective message will come over. He waited.
Nothing.
Rutz took the bulletin to the chart table and plotted both sets of coordinates on the Alaska map. The positions were eight hundred miles apart. One was close to the Aleutian Islands. The other was ninety miles west of Cape Spencer, on the Fairweather Grounds.
It could be a false alarm, he thought. Let’s see if I can’t call the boat owner or the family of the crew. He read the message again, under the words BEACON DATA:
LONG MESSAGE: N/A
EMERGENCY CONTACT: N/A
BEACON ID IS NOT IN REGISTRATION DATABASE
There was no saying exactly how bad conditions were in the gulf. There wasn’t a single data buoy out there and only one in all of Alaska —near Kodiak. Unless a commercial vessel radioed in data, calculating wave heights, wind speeds and barometric pressure would be educated guesswork.
However, he had some general information, and the news was not good.
The National Weather Service was reporting twenty-foot seas across the Gulf of Alaska, thirty-five-knot winds. If there were people in the water, their chances weren’t good. Water temperatures in the gulf were between thirty-seven and thirty-nine degrees. In water that cold, a two-hundred-pound man in a survival suit had an 83 percent chance of lasting two and a half hours, Coast Guard studies showed. After that, the chances of survival plummeted, especially if wave heights were more than twenty-five feet. The higher the seas the faster a person burned body fat and the less time it took for hypothermia to set in.
Satellite imagery showed that on January 28, a huge low-pressure system centered south of the Aleutians had spun off several small storms. These storms had merged and formed one deep bomb —a tightly packed, cyclonic storm with powerful gusts at its edges. The bomb had tracked south and east and then, on the twenty-ninth, had swung north. Moving toward the gulf, it was fed by ocean winds and swells that had originated as far south as Oregon. Such a long fetch —the distance over which wind could blow to generate swells—was troubling; the swells had plenty of room to grow in, and time and space to energize the seas.
It was a tough call. Rutz had conflicting weather information, two equally possible EPIRB positions and no information on the vessel’s port of call, its crew or its owner. Screw it, he said to himself. I’m playing it safe.
At 7:13 P.M., he issued an Urgent Marine Information Broadcast.
A 406 UNREGISTERED BEACON HAS BEEN DETECTED BY
SATELLITE IN THE GULF OF ALASKA, APPROX 50 NM
WEST OF CROSS SOUND IN POS 58-15N, 138-08W. MARINERS IN THE AREA ARE ASKED TO KEEP A SHARP
LOOKOUT FOR SIGNS OF DISTRESS, ASSIST IF POSSIBLE,
CHECK THEIR OWN EPIRBS FOR ACCIDENTAL ACTIVATION,
AND MAKE ANY REPORTS TO THE NEAREST COAST
GUARD STATION. SIGNED US COAST GUARD JUNEAU ALASKA.
Three minutes passed, then five, then ten. There was no response. Rutz reached for the phone and dialed Air Station Sitka, the emergency number.
THIRTY-THREE
Right as the kid hit the jumper and the crowd went bananas, his pager went off.
Betty Jo turned to him.
“Ted?”
“It’s all right,” Ted LeFeuvre said. “Just one of my pilots.” He read the message and the time it was sent: 7:41 P.M. “I’ll be right back.”
He made his way down the bleachers through the crowd and
out to the hallway. Turning on his cell phone, he walked over to an outside door to get reception and dialed. He heard Dave Durham’s voice.
“It’s Captain LeFeuvre, Dave,” he said. “I just got your page. What’s going on?”
“Captain, the station got an unregistered 406 EPIRB alert about ten minutes ago.”
“Where?”
“We’re not sure yet, sir. It seems that mission control got a fifty-fifty split on the first satellite deposit. One of the solutions is eight hundred miles out, near the Aleutians. The other is a hundred and fifty miles northwest of here —the Fairweather Grounds. We figured we’d launch on the grounds, being that it’s closer.”
“Smart,” Ted LeFeuvre said. “Are there people in the water?”
“We don’t know.”
“Weather?”
“Well, not too bad. Observation tower here is saying thirty-knot winds and, I think, twenty-foot seas. Aviation weather is calling for lots of snain.”
“Who’s flying?”
“Lieutenant Adickes and Lieutenant Molthen, sir. They’re taking a flight mechanic and a swimmer—Witherspoon and Sansone, I think.”
“How are the helicopters?”
“All three birds are in good shape. Adickes is going to use the 6018.”
“Good,” Ted LeFeuvre said. “Tell them to go ahead. You’re at home?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you going in?”
“Right now.”
There was something about the way Durham had said it that made the back of Ted LeFeuvre’s neck prickle. He sat down next to Betty Jo. There was a time-out on the court.
“What’s going on?” she asked him.
“We just got an EPIRB signal.”
“What’s that?”
“A distress call from a ship. We’re launching a helicopter right now to investigate.”
“Sounds exciting.”
“It’s probably nothing.”
The teams came back out on the court and play resumed. It was a close game. Betty Jo hollered and yelled when her son scored. The crowd was very loud. A big groan went up each time Sitka missed a shot and a thunder of applause when the home team scored. Ted almost didn’t hear his pager go off again. He looked at the message and the time, 8:02 P.M.
“I’ll be right back,” he told Betty Jo.
Out in the hallway he dialed the number for the ops center at the air station. He heard Dave Durham’s voice.
“Sorry to bother you again, Captain,” Durham said.
“Not at all. What’s the latest?”
“Well,” Durham said, “Bill Adickes launched ten minutes ago and he’s asking for cover.”
“Bill Adickes?”
“Yes, sir.”
Adickes wasn’t the kind of guy who asked for cover. Dan Molthen didn’t either. Together, those two guys had close to five thousand hours in the H-60. They didn’t rattle. Why would they want an escort plane?
“Well,” Ted LeFeuvre said, “let’s get them cover.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Call up Kodiak.”
Air Station Kodiak had C-130 turboprops on the ready. It would take roughly forty-five minutes to launch one, Ted LeFeuvre thought, and another two and a half hours for the plane to make the Fairweather Grounds.
“Actually, Captain,” Durham said, “we just got off the phone with Kodiak. They said they’re having a real bad snowstorm.”
“Great.”
“There was an avalanche and snow is blocking the road to the base. The ready crew is having a hard time getting in. The runway’s buried, too. They’re digging out but it’s hard to say when they’ll get a plane up.”
Ted LeFeuvre said, “Let’s launch our own, then. We can get there quicker. And anyway, it’s probably just going to be a false alarm.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’ll be back home before they ever get on scene.”
“I’m going to put together a crew,” Durham said. “We’ll just…”
The call was breaking up.
“Repeat that,” Ted LeFeuvre said. “Dave, say again?”
“… won’t take too…”
“Repeat that. Hello? Hello?”
Durham’s voice returned. “Captain,” he said, “I was just saying that I’ll put together a crew and get airborne right away.”
“Negative,” Ted LeFeuvre said. “Assemble a crew but hold on deck and wait to see how things go. With the tailwind, you guys can get out there quick. If they still want cover later, then you’ll launch and give them cover.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Keep me posted.”
He hung up and went back in the gym. He climbed back up through the crowd. Betty Jo smiled at him.
“Everything okay?”
“Sure,” he said.
“Ted?”
Ted LeFeuvre was looking in the direction of the court but it was as though he wasn’t seeing it.
“Ted, if you need to leave —”
“No, no. Not yet.”
The game was very close. The lead changed hands over and over, and the crowd was screaming with every shot, every rebound. Ted LeFeuvre was only half aware. His eyes had a stony look. He stood up.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m calling the station again.”
The ops phone rang once when Durham picked up. “Okay, Dave,” Ted LeFeuvre said, “what’s the latest?”
“I was just going to call you, Captain. Kodiak has been unable to launch. Our 6018 is en route. But, sir, on their last call they reported wind speeds greater than seventy knots.”
“Seventy knots?”
“Yes, sir.”
Ted LeFeuvre felt like he’d been hit in the abdomen with a club.
“Oh.”
“You know, sir,” Durham said, “I’ve got Russ Zullick here to fly with me, and we’ve got a flight mech and a rescue swimmer ready to go. Rather than wait, I’d like to launch now.”
Seventy knots, Ted LeFeuvre was thinking. That meant the wind was blowing over 90 mph. Anything above 64 mph was considered hurricane force. What were those crewmen flying into?
“Captain?”
“Yes, yes. Go ahead, Dave. Get going.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
“No, thank you.”
Ted LeFeuvre hurried back inside the gym and pushed his way through the crowd and up into the bleachers.
“Listen,” he said to Betty Jo. “I need to go to the station. I could take you home now or you can get a ride with Angelina.” Angelina was Betty Jo’s daughter.
“What’s wrong?”
“We’re launching a second crew.”
“Oh,” she said. “We better go, then.”
Ted LeFeuvre dropped off Betty Jo and one of her friends and then drove straight to the air station. As he swung the Cherokee into the parking lot he noticed a tow tractor pulling an H-60 out of the near runway. The rotor blades were flapping up and down in the wind.
Throwing open the side-entrance door, he hustled up the stairway and down the hall to the operations and radio center. Behind the desk, a man in a flight suit sat hunched over, talking on the phone.
“Yogi?” Ted LeFeuvre said.
Guy Pearce, one of his pilots, hung up the phone and turned around. Sitting across from Pearce was a female storekeeper who normally worked the ops desk at night. She was on the high-frequency radio.
“Yogi,” Ted LeFeuvre repeated, “what are you doing here?”
“Mr. Durham called me in, sir,” Pearce said. “He asked me to handle the desk tonight.”
“Oh,” Ted LeFeuvre said. “What’s the latest?”
A second helicopter, the 6029, was preparing for takeoff. Dave Durham was in the pilot’s seat. Russ Zullick was copilot. Flight mechanic Chris Windnagle and rescue swimmer A. J. Thompson were going along for the ride. A half hour earlier, District 17 headquarters had confirmed that the distress signal was originating from the Fairweather Grounds, latitude 58°13.8’ north,
longitude 138°19.4’ west. Sitka was reporting a two-thousand-foot cloud cover, twenty- to thirty-knot winds and visibility of six miles.
“That doesn’t sound too bad,” Ted LeFeuvre said.
“No,” Pearce said. “But now listen to what the first helicopter crew said.”
Outside of Sitka Sound, Adickes had reported sustained winds of seventy-five knots. Visibility was a few hundred yards in blowing hail, snow and sleet. Over the ocean the cloud ceiling was 350 feet; the atmospheric freezing level was below 800 feet.
“Is that what he said?”
“That’s what he said.”
Nobody will be able to fly over the storm, Ted LeFeuvre thought. Helicopters couldn’t last long above the freezing level. The Jayhawk had a deicer, but it only worked on the windscreen and rotors. Any more than a few minutes above the freezing level and the Jayhawk would load up with ice and drop like a Popsicle from the sky.
“All right,” Ted LeFeuvre said. “When was the last time we heard from Adickes?”
Pearce paused.
“His 2045 radio guard.”
“What?”
“Eight forty-five, sir.”
“That’s an hour ago.”
“Yes, sir.”
Ted LeFeuvre could feel his voice rising. “Get Juneau on the phone. Now.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I want to know what’s going on out there.”
Coast Guard aircraft were required to keep a radio guard every fifteen minutes. That was one of the rescue swimmer’s in-flight jobs—to keep radio contact with the Rescue Coordination Center in Juneau. But they hadn’t. Why not? When an aircraft missed two consecutive guards, it was procedure for Juneau to alert the launch station. Why hadn’t Juneau done that?
Pearce hung up the phone.
“Captain?”
“Yes?”
“The last time Juneau heard from the 6018 was at 2045. The helicopter was weak transmitting. Kodiak was talking to them for a while but lost them.”
Ted LeFeuvre looked at the wall clock. It was almost ten minutes to ten.