A winter Dunking
or
Many Lessons Learned (the hard way)
by
Jay Kelley
© 2004 Jay Kelley
All rights reserved
This story has been written in hopes that any pilot reading it can learn that succumbing to external and
internal emotional pressures in deciding to take any given flight assignment, can lead to disaster. This story
also points out that emotional influences can seriously and negatively effect a pilot’s judgment, decision making
processes and ability to adhere to usual procedural habits.
In 1982 I was the only winter pilot for an operator in Cordova. (He died years ago and had long before that, gone out
of business). The owner was a bit of a rogue and in spite of his charming demeanor, flattery and encouraging words,
he was a clever scammer, prone to taking short cuts on maintenance and operated on the thin edge of legality. Flights
were few and far between that time of year. Myself, my wife and my 4 children all lived in a cute little house with a
fantastic view overlooking the Cordova boat harbor and Prince William Sound. We had a great view for weather watching.
This day, December 2nd 1982, had all the earmarks for becoming stormy. There were mid-level fracto-cumulus clouds
moving in from the southeast and the wind was beginning to pickup. There was a pall of dust off to the east that I
knew from experience was being raised from the sand dunes along the Copper River. The Copper River flows out of the
Chugach Mountains about 30 miles east of Cordova and from there spreads out in a 30-mile-wide alluvial fan as it flows
into the Gulf of Alaska. When a low pressure system out in the gulf approaches from the southeast, and a high pressure
area up north in the interior of Alaska try to equalize with each other, the result is a huge north wind which blows
down the deep canyon formed over thousands of years by the Copper River. This wind is confined to the Copper River
drainage and can often exceed 100 kts or more.
I wasn’t concerned about it however, because there was no flying that day. But then the phone rang. It was my
employer, the owner of the airtaxi outfit I was flying for. “Jay,” he said, “Come on down , we’ve gotta flight for
ya.” ‘Hmmm,’ I thought. “Where to?” I said. He replied, “We need you to take the new hatchery manager and his
assistant out to Port San Juan, drop them off at the dock and bring a couple of other people back to Cordova.
Get down here as fast as you can, we want you to get going and get back before the weather turns sour.”
He then added, “I told them we’ve got our ace pilot, Jay kelley, headed down here to take them out.”
My immediate feeling was one of reluctance and dread, but I grabbed my gear and headed to the lake to take the flight.
When I arrived at the office, he said, “Take the 185 amphib, it’s all fueled and ready to go...it’s tied down up the
line near the fuel truck.” The lake was frozen over, so we were using the amphib for some flights and a Beaver on
floats docked in the boat harbor for some of the heavier loads. The amphib was a little faster but was a real hog
getting out of the water because of the additional weight and drag of the amphibious floats. For the start of this
trip, however, we would be departing from the Eyak Lake landing strip.
Feeling rushed, I said, I’ll check the weather first.” I checked the marine weather for the North Gulf Coast and heard
the ominous forecast for later that afternoon stating ‘storm warning’ with the wind increasing to 60 kts. southeast
with gusts to 80...20 foot seas and heavy rain. It was already 10:00 a.m. There wasn’t much of a weather window for
this flight, but my last two week paycheck had been for only $163 and there were six mouths to feed. I was two months
behind on my house payments and increasing pressure was being applied by my boss to “get going while you’ve still got good
weather. Your airplane is pre-flighted, fueled and ready to go.”
Still feeling stressed, rushed, and a little flustered, I drove the two passengers along the flight line to the plane.
We quickly untied it climbed in and I started the engine. There had been a recent thaw. The gravel parking spot was
soggy. The airplane refused to pull out. I used as much power as I could without sucking gravel through the
propeller, but to no avail. So I said to my two passengers, “I’m going to shut it down and I need both of you to get
out. I want one of you to stand behind the left wing strut and the other behind the right wing
strut. When you’re safely in position, I'll start the engine and with both of you pushing, and a little power,
we should be able to pull out of this gravelly mud hole.”
I shut down the engine. They unfastened their seat belts, crawled out of the airplane and stationed themselves behind
the wing struts. I said loudly, “You guys ready? I’m going to fire it up.” They both gave me the thumbs up. I
started the engine, and by rocking, pushing and advancing the throttle each time they pushed, we were finally
able to sort of lunge up and out of the muddy ruts onto the gravel road which parallels the runway and the shoreline of
Eyak Lake.
I shut the engine off and they got back in again, fastened their seat belts and once again I started the engine. We
taxied up the road toward town to make our takeoff to the east. As we taxied, I turned on the radios and reached for
the microphone to check in with the office, give them my flight plan, and my expected arrival time back in Cordova. If
everything went smoothly, the round trip would take about two and a half hours.
There was no microphone. Nuts! Feeling even more flustered, ill-prepared and a little stupid, I shut the engine off
again and with a quick apology to my two passengers, undid my seat belt, opened the door, climbed down off the float
and ran down the flight line about a hundred yards to another company airplane, opened the door, grabbed the mike and
ran back to the amphib. I was a little out of breath, but again fired up the engine, plugged in the mike, turned on the
radios and called the office to announce my departure, route of flight, and return time. They rogered the information I
gave them. I taxied into position, did a quick mag check, checked the controls, set the flaps and took off down the
runway. I had not yet even glanced at the fuel gauges. In my flustered mind I had assumed the tanks were full because
he had told me they were full.
The takeoff was normal for an amphib…(it’s kind of like taking off in a shopping cart). We turned over the lake,
headed out over the boat harbor and proceeded south over Orca Inlet. The flight would take us south about 150 miles,
past five big islands, a lot of open water and finally to the north tip of Evans Island and on into Sawmill Bay
also referred to as Port San Juan. The salmon hatchery was at the very head of Sawmill bay.
We were only about ten miles out of town flying along the east shoreline of Hawkins Island and about to cross the mouth of
Canoe Pass on Hawkins, when I finally, for the first time, looked at the fuel gauges. They were showing less than a
quarter of a tank each. A silent exclamation...’What the hell’ ran through my mind. I got on the radio again, called
home base and explained that I was at Canoe Pass and returning to Cordova for fuel. “Okay, come on back we’ll be
waiting with the fuel truck.” With increasing embarrassment at what was turning into a comedy of errors, omissions,
and truly flawed judgment, I explained to my amazingly patient passengers that we were returning to Cordova for fuel.
We landed a few minutes later and all got out of the plane. I topped it off, drained the sumps, we got back in, fired
it up and took off again. I should have taken all of these false starts, screw-ups, and the hurry-up-and-go urgency as
ample reason to abort the flight and do it on another day, but I pressed on.
By the time we were finally under way, over an hour and a half had been wasted. It was 11:30 a.m. The “weather window”
was getting pretty small. We flew south,and the wind continued to pickup. As we crossed the mouth of Knight
Island Passage nearing our destination, I could see by the water below that the wind was blowing in
excess of 35 kts. There were 3 to 4 foot whitecapping waves, long streaks of foam and spindrift. This in itself is
usually not a problem as long as you have a place in the lee of the wind from which to land and takeoff. But landing
in Sawmill Bay with that kind of a wind can be tricky to say the least. When the wind blows 35 to 40 kts out of the
southeast, Sawmill Bay becomes a maelstrom of gusty down drafts, wiliwaws and rough choppy water with the wind swirling
around from every direction.
We flew in over the bay and it looked really bad. The wind was down drafting and blowing from all directions. I
circled three times trying to get a read on the best direction for landing. There was no 'best direction,' so I made
the approach close to the head of the bay where the water was the least rough. The final approach was very turbulent
and just as we were touching down a loud steady beeping noise came through my headset.
By some quirk of fate we settled onto the water very smoothly , and as we slowed down to come off the step, I started
turning off switches to try and determine what was causing the beeping noise. When I switched off the rotating
beacon, the noise stopped. We taxied up to the hatchery dock, turned into the wind, and pulled in behind a big commercial salmon fishing
boat, a purse seiner. There were several people at the dock to catch us, grab our lines and tie us up. The wind was
gusting to 40 at the dock and the water was rough. I wanted to leave as quickly as possible. It was 1:00 p.m. My two
passengers got out and headed up to the hatchery headquarters.
The two return passengers, Tony and Grace, had motored over from LaTouche Island in a small boat several hours earlier.
I was glad that I didn’t have to fly the short distance to pick them up from the rocky beach at LaTouche. Tony was huge, close
to 300 lbs and had a couple of large heavy tool chests. Grace, his wife, was not tiny, and she had a couple of big
duffles. We loaded their stuff into the back of the plane and tied it down. They got in after me, we fastened our seat
belts. I switched the fuel selector to the fullest tank and cranked the starter. The propeller went about a quarter of a turn and that was it.
It wouldn’t start. The wind was gusting harder. The water was getting rougher and I didn’t want the airplane to
self-destruct at the dock with the pounding it was taking from the waves.
We all got out. I undid the cowl as far as I dared with the wind gusting so hard and checked the primary electrical
connections. Everything was tight. I re-fastened the cowl. The skipper of the seine boat said, “Jay we’ll give you a
jump start with the big cat battery that starts our twin diesels.” I asked him what the voltage was and he told me 12
volts. The airplane had a 28 volt system, but there seemed to be no other option, so it was worth a try even though I
was doubtful that it would work.
To get at the battery in this Cessna 185, we had to unload the tool boxes and bags. The battery compartment was aft
under the floor. The aluminum cover of the compartment had to be removed first. This involved unscrewing several
screws. Beneath that, a rubber-gasketed water-tight plexiglass cover was fastened with several more screws to the top
of the battery case. The task took at least 15 minutes. We ran the jumper cables in through the passenger side
door and hooked them up. I got into the pilot’s seat, and cranked the starter.
The prop barely moved; It wouldn’t start. The wind was still increasing. It was raining hard.
One of the hatchery workers said, “Hey we’ve got a big battery charger on a cart up in the shop. It can be set for 28
volts. I’ll go get it.” He was gone for about 10 minutes and finally came trundling down to the dock with a huge
charger on a dolly.
He wheeled it along the dock to the plane and we again ran the jumper cables in through the passenger side door and
hooked them up to the airplane battery. With the jumper cables in place, I scrambled into the pilots seat and cranked
the starter. It started easily. I adjusted the throttle to 1000 rpm and with the plane still tied to the dock,
scrambled back to the battery compartment, disconnected the jumper cables and began re-installing the battery covers
with all of the screws. I had some difficulty getting the rubber gasket properly seated beneath the plexiglass cover,
but finally got it right. Securely fastening the battery covers took about 20 minutes. We re-loaded the tool boxes
and luggage, I was tying the load down when the idling engine began to falter, I scrambled
forward, reached for the the throttle over the two front seats to add a little power, but was a split second too late and the
engine quit. The wind was now gusting to 60 kts at the dock. The airplane was banging against the dock in the increasingly rough
water. We had to get into the air soon, or the airplane would be damaged by the constant slamming from the waves.
For the second time we unloaded the tools and luggage and I re-undid the battery covers, hooked up the jumpers and
re-started the engine. I set the throttle at 1200 rpm, removed the jumpers, secured the battery covers, and re-loaded
the tools and luggage. I got into the pilots seat, Grace got into the seat behind me and Tony sat in the co-pilots
seat. The crew from the boat untied the lines holding the plane and then carefully guided the plane, still idling at
1200 rpm, out around the side of the boat and free of further obstructions. It was now about 3:00 in the afternoon and
the storm was upon us.
We were heaving up and down in the waves as we pulled away from the dock, but at this point the wind was coming straight
at us at 50 kts and gusting, so I said to Tony and Grace, “Seat belts tight and ready to go?” Tony looked at Grace,
then turned to me and said, “We’re ready, let’s do it.”
I set the flaps at 20 degrees, gave it full throttle and away we went. Within the first 100 feet of our takeoff run we
were in the air for several seconds and slammed back down again onto the water by a downdraft, picked up again, slammed
down again and then finally airborne and climbing toward the mouth of the bay. As we climbed through 150 feet, I raised
the flaps for a little more speed and control. Just about 500 yards short of the mouth of the bay and now climbing
through 300 feet I saw an intense downdraft directly in front of us. It was very strong, but not
very big. It was flattening the water at its center, but a rapidly rising twisting wall of sea spray was being gouged
out of the water at its periphery and cats-paw wind patterns were wildly fanning out in every direction across the water
from around its edges.
The downdraft appeared to be considerably less than a quarter of a mile across. The nearby terrain prevented me from
going around it. I elected to dive through it, (the quickest way to get through a [visible] down draft). I figured that once we
were clear of the bay which is ringed by mountains and hills, we would be free of the downdrafts created by the wind
blowing over the terrain and then have only the high-velocity but somewhat predictable wind to contend with until we
got to Cordova.
I throttled back to climb power, dove into the downdraft at about 10 degrees nose down and the engine quit!...
stopped dead. It didn’t falter. It gave no warning. It just quit. We were in this horrible down
draft without power at about 300 feet above the churning water beneath us. The airspeed dropped off instantly.
I dumped the nose to about 45 degrees nose down, snatched a couple of notches of flap with the manual flap handle and
was working lock to lock on the rudder pedals and ailerons trying to keep the airplane from stalling and rolling over.
There was almost no airspeed in spite of the extreme nose down attitude. I had no time to try any kind of a re-start or
to do any trouble shooting. The airplane wanted to roll over. I lowered the nose even more, but the water was coming up
fast and I couldn’t just dive into it. About 30 feet off the water I tried to level off to land in the five foot waves.
The plane leveled off briefly then stalled. The nose fell through, the airplane rolled to the left and we crashed into
the waves in a 45 degree left slip and about 20 degrees nose down.
It was a surprisingly soft impact, but it was definitely not a landing. We were half submerged. The pilots side window
was completely under green water, and green water covered half the windshield at a 45 degree angle. I looked at Tony
and said are you OK?
He nodded. I turned to Grace, she was ok too. I handed them inflatable life vests from the seat pockets and said, “We
gotta get out of this airplane before it sinks.” The right wing was pointed high in the air and the right door was
clear of the water. Tony opened the door and climbed up onto the side of the right float, gave Grace a hand getting
out, and I followed. They donned their life jackets as we stood there on the side of the right float. The right wing
now pointing almost straight up. The impact had broken off the left float and somehow, still attached, it was smashed
belly to belly up against the right float.
The airplane, slowly sinking, was being swept out into the mouth of the bay by the wind and current. We were within about a
hundred yards of the east shoreline of the mouth of the bay. I said to them, “We need to abandon ship and try to make
it to shore before the plane sinks and before we get swept out into LaTouche entrance out of sight of the Hatchery. I
didn’t know if anyone had seen this accident happen but was hoping that the boat crew at the dock had watched the
takeoff and crash and would come and rescue us.
It was the middle of the winter and the water was cold. The waves were 5 to 6 feet high at the mouth of the bay. We
lowered ourselves into the water. I was grateful for my float coat which I always wore when flying over water for any distance.
I tucked my face into my armpit as the waves washed over my head, and side-stroked toward shore. I could hear Tony and
Grace several feet away, retching and gagging as the salt water got into their mouths and noses, but they were afloat
and there was nothing I could do to help them. I headed toward the nearest shoreline and soon found that the current
was carrying me in that direction anyway, so I quit swimming to preserve body heat and just drifted with the waves.
After several minutes I heard a motor. At first I thought it was an airplane and thought, 'No help there,' because it
was too rough to land.
Then from the top of a wave I saw a small outboard heading our way 100 yards to the west, but he turned back when he was
almost swamped by the rough water. Soon after that I smelled diesel smoke. Within minutes the seine boat
that had been at the dock, was heading toward us. The boat pulled up first to Tony and Grace. The crew was able to
lift Grace aboard, but Tony was hypothermic, too heavy and too weak from swallowing salt water to climb aboard, and
too heavy for the crew to lift so the they put a crewman in the water with a purse line (five eighths inch braided nylon line).
The crewman secured the purse line around Tony. They ran the line through the power block on the end of the picking
boom, swung the boom out to the side and hoisted him aboard with the boat’s hydraulics.
By the time they had rescued Tony and Grace, a good 25 minutes had elapsed and I had drifted into a rocky area close to
the shoreline. Someone on the boat yelled out to me, “Jay, we’ll be over to get you as soon as we can.” The 52 foot
seine boat backed slowly toward me but they were unable to get closer than about 40 feet because of the rocks.
One of the crewmen, grabbed a life ring, attached a line to it and with a fantastically accurate throw, dropped it a
foot from my face. I grabbed it and hooked my elbow through it. They were dangerously close to the rocks so they
towed me out into deeper water and then pulled me over to the 5 rung ladder hanging off the starboard side at the
stern of the boat.
I started to climb the ladder but by the second rung up, 4 arms reached down and lifted me onto the deck. I had been
in the water for over half an hour and was very hypothermic myself. As soon as my feet touched the deck, my knees
buckled and they helped me down into the cabin. I stood by the stove, but couldn't get warm. I
started to feel faint and a little nauseated. I wanted to lie down in one of the forward bunks. They helped me get to
the bunk and one of the crewmen said, “I’ll get you warm. Take off your clothes and lie on your side facing the wall.”
I left my under shorts on and did as he said. He too took off everything except his shorts and then lay down and
wrapped himself around me spoon style, skin–to-skin, his chest and stomach to my back. This was the best solution to
my being cold. We switched positions once before arriving back at the dock. It took about 20 minutes to get back and by
the time we got there I no longer felt so cold. From a previous emersion in cold water, I knew, however, that my core
temperature was quite low and that it would be a while before I was no longer hypothermic.
When we arrived at the dock, someone loaned me some dry clothes and we walked up to the hatchery. At that point I took
a nap. A couple of hours later I woke up feeling hungry and surprisingly refreshed. I went down to the dining area of
the hatchery. Tony showed up looking good and feeling good. “Jay,” he said, could I offer you a shot of Jack Daniels
Black Label. I accepted is offer. We had a delicious supper at the hatchery and the storm raged on for the next two
and a half days.
That following week I was supposed to present an aviation safety seminar in Cordova and spent the next two days at the
hatchery composing my presentation. I thought it was somewhat ironic considering all of the mistakes I had made in
even agreeing to take this disastrous flight, much less continue it after all that had gone on before we finally got
underway for the final time.
There were many things that had pointed to my not taking that flight. In fact I shouldn’t have flown this airplane
under any circumstances because it had been sunk in the boat harbor (salt water)
during another big storm the previous winter. The airplane had been raised and the fuel system rebuilt according to
the boss/owner. Nevertheless, it suffered from an ongoing fuel flow problem. On flights during the
summer preceding its final trip (and my last trip for that company), the fuel flow indicator, which I set at 15
gallons per hour (gph) during cruise flight, would suddenly show a drop to 12 gallons per hour. In order to bring it
back up to 15 gallons per hour, the pilot would have to push the mixture control to full rich. After a landing and
takeoff it would revert back to normal fuel flow and sometimes stay that way, but other times would drop back to 12 gph.
The company pilots that summer complained about the intermittent fuel flow problem, but nothing was ever done to fix it
and the owner continued to assure us that the fuel system had been completely rebuilt after the boat-harbor sinking.
So we all continued to fly it anyway. Nevertheless, for a few dumb reasons, I succumbed to the pressure to take that
flight:
1. The urgency of the trip was emphatically imparted to me by my boss,...“Ya gotta get going, Jay.” He was expecting to
land a contract with the salmon hatchery for the rest of the winter, transporting personnel, equipment, mail and
supplies. I would have been the pilot for that contract.
2. He bragged several times to the passengers prior to the flight about my “great skill” as a pilot,
so I felt some sort of misplaced obligation to live up to his claims.
3. With 6 mouths to feed and 2 overdue house payments, my own shaky financial condition
contributed to my decision to go.
I suspended my own usual good judgment as a result of both external and internal emotional pressures. I failed to
preflight the airplane myself, but instead relied on the word of my boss who said it had been preflighted, fueled and was
ready to go. The urgency of “get going before the storm comes,” clouded my thinking which resulted in my not even checking
the fuel quantity until I happened to notice the fuel gauges after we had finally departed. All in all, I let
myself be coerced by a greedy and manipulative boss, and by my need to produce some much needed income. I was in such a
dither by the time we boarded the plane the first time, that all of my training and usual preflight preparation
procedures had vaporized from my brain and gone out the window.
The crunched 185 amphib had drifted a few hundred feet further and sank. Someone flew out to the hatchery on the third day
when the storm had let up and flew us back to Cordova. The weekly Cordova news paper had come out during my absence and
my boss had published a little article stating that Jay Kelley at the controls of one of the company airplanes had been
flipped over in the wind while taxiing for take off from the Port San Juan hatchery. Needless to say I was a bit ticked
with that version of the event, but instead of trying to refute it, I called him on the phone and told him I needed a
guaranteed monthly salary of at least $1500. His response was, “I can’t do it, Jay.” I said, well then, Jack, find
yourself another winter pilot, because your maintenance is lousy, your airplanes are unsafe and I quit.”
© 2004 Jay Kelley
All rights reserved