Singlecoil
I don't reMember
- Joined
- Jul 26, 2002
- Posts
- 1,273
Another day for armbands. February 27, 1995
It was just another boring flight on a clear day out to the tip of the Seward Peninsula. I was having a casual chat with a Markair Express Twin Otter pilot who was a few miles in front of me also heading for Wales. He was one of the guys I shared some bear butter with in Noorvik a few months earlier. I was so bored I was switching my radio one click at a time trying to find radio stations. Uncharacteristically, this 207 had one of the best radios I had ever come across. I was able to pick up stations from as far away as Barrow, Fairbanks, and even Anchorage, a good 600 miles away. Nothing like a little big city music.
As we approached Wales, we could see some ground fog and blowing snow in the vicinity of the airport. The Otter was ahead of me so I had the luxury of letting them find out how bad it was. I could see them approaching the runway at about a 45-degree angle and then turn at the last second to land. Not your normal approach but after all, these guys worked for Markair. As I descended into the fog layer they came on the radio saying, “The visibility is very low right near the ground here.” “Yeah, thanks.” Markair woosies, don’t they know who I am? I turn to a heading that I think will line me up with the runway, relying heavily on my GPS, also known as my eggbasket.
Descending through 400 feet I see nothing but hazy whiteness and strangely, the Markair plane. If that’s the ramp, the runway must be around here somewhere. I finally see the runway and attempt to line up, only I can’t. Apparently those guys forget to mention the 25-knot crosswind. Just as I cross the threshold, my plane tilts into the wind. I consider going around, but for some reason decide not to. As I touch down, the plane weathervanes into the wind. I’m sliding sideways down the ice-covered runway, gunning the throttle to dodge the runway lights. I turn around to taxi in and can’t see anything; the visibility must be 1/16 to 1/8 of a mile, well below legal limits. And for what? 99 pounds of mail, not a very good reason. On my way back to Nome I was contemplating my decision-making process, what else is a Psych degree good for, when I heard an unusual radio call.
“See if you can find a gravel bar with some smooth gravel to set it down on.”
Hmmm. The Markair plane called the pilot and asked what was going on.
“Well, we’ve got a Yute Air 207 burning in a valley down here.”
The instrument panel shrunk before me as my vision narrowed. This was somewhere around Kotzebue, and I knew all of Yute’s pilots. Two of them were close friends from college. You don’t expect to hear things like this on a perfectly clear day like this one. I thought about their “new guy” from Chicago. I helped him fix his computer when he moved to Kotzebue a few months earlier. He struck me as a very cocky individual, flipping my roommate and I sh!t like he’d known us for years. Back in Nome, I called up to Kotzebue for the grim details. All I was able to find out was that it wasn’t either of my two close friends. Later in the day I discovered that it was indeed the new guy, and that he was the only occupant. He never called out a mayday, and was certainly killed on impact. The cause may never be known, but it has been reported that one of the other pilots was talking to him minutes before the fiery crash. The pilot was having trouble receiving him, but the new guy said that was because he was flying low over the hills. I knew there was a reason why I don’t do that sh!t anymore.
It was just another boring flight on a clear day out to the tip of the Seward Peninsula. I was having a casual chat with a Markair Express Twin Otter pilot who was a few miles in front of me also heading for Wales. He was one of the guys I shared some bear butter with in Noorvik a few months earlier. I was so bored I was switching my radio one click at a time trying to find radio stations. Uncharacteristically, this 207 had one of the best radios I had ever come across. I was able to pick up stations from as far away as Barrow, Fairbanks, and even Anchorage, a good 600 miles away. Nothing like a little big city music.
As we approached Wales, we could see some ground fog and blowing snow in the vicinity of the airport. The Otter was ahead of me so I had the luxury of letting them find out how bad it was. I could see them approaching the runway at about a 45-degree angle and then turn at the last second to land. Not your normal approach but after all, these guys worked for Markair. As I descended into the fog layer they came on the radio saying, “The visibility is very low right near the ground here.” “Yeah, thanks.” Markair woosies, don’t they know who I am? I turn to a heading that I think will line me up with the runway, relying heavily on my GPS, also known as my eggbasket.
Descending through 400 feet I see nothing but hazy whiteness and strangely, the Markair plane. If that’s the ramp, the runway must be around here somewhere. I finally see the runway and attempt to line up, only I can’t. Apparently those guys forget to mention the 25-knot crosswind. Just as I cross the threshold, my plane tilts into the wind. I consider going around, but for some reason decide not to. As I touch down, the plane weathervanes into the wind. I’m sliding sideways down the ice-covered runway, gunning the throttle to dodge the runway lights. I turn around to taxi in and can’t see anything; the visibility must be 1/16 to 1/8 of a mile, well below legal limits. And for what? 99 pounds of mail, not a very good reason. On my way back to Nome I was contemplating my decision-making process, what else is a Psych degree good for, when I heard an unusual radio call.
“See if you can find a gravel bar with some smooth gravel to set it down on.”
Hmmm. The Markair plane called the pilot and asked what was going on.
“Well, we’ve got a Yute Air 207 burning in a valley down here.”
The instrument panel shrunk before me as my vision narrowed. This was somewhere around Kotzebue, and I knew all of Yute’s pilots. Two of them were close friends from college. You don’t expect to hear things like this on a perfectly clear day like this one. I thought about their “new guy” from Chicago. I helped him fix his computer when he moved to Kotzebue a few months earlier. He struck me as a very cocky individual, flipping my roommate and I sh!t like he’d known us for years. Back in Nome, I called up to Kotzebue for the grim details. All I was able to find out was that it wasn’t either of my two close friends. Later in the day I discovered that it was indeed the new guy, and that he was the only occupant. He never called out a mayday, and was certainly killed on impact. The cause may never be known, but it has been reported that one of the other pilots was talking to him minutes before the fiery crash. The pilot was having trouble receiving him, but the new guy said that was because he was flying low over the hills. I knew there was a reason why I don’t do that sh!t anymore.
