AOPA Pilot Magazine - June 2022 - 103

searchers could home in on, the ELTs have
become much more sophisticated, transmitting
data on the aircraft via satellite.
But back then, an ELT was just a screeching
sound in your headset. In Coast Guard
aircraft, we had an automatic director
finder (ADF), which when tuned to 121.5
MHz would point to the source of the beacon.
We could follow the needle to the site
of the crash.
We arrived at Wrangell and flew just
offshore. Immediately our ADF picked
up the signal that we heard in our headsets.
The needle pointed to a hillside just
northeast of town. As we approached
the hillside, the needle started swinging
widely. When we flew offshore again, the
needle settled down. We approached the
hillside again, and again the needle swung
erratically, pointing to no single position.
We realized then that the ELT and the
ADF were of no further use to us. We had
to start searching the old-fashioned way,
by sight alone.
Our target was a Cessna 150. The pilot
had just flown a hundred miles from Sitka,
Alaska, landed at Wrangell, and then took
off again without refueling for a quick
sightseeing hop around town. He never
made it back. The Cessna was painted
green and white. In a cold, steady rain, we
were searching a four-square-mile hillside
of tall timber, for a green aircraft in
a rainforest.
That's when the reality dawned upon
me that we were searching for an aircraft,
perhaps with survivors, that lay within
close proximity but was perfectly camouflaged.
We moved slowly back and forth
across the slope, in a track line search
pattern designed to maximize our likelihood
of seeing the target. Unlike a search
over flat terrain, due to the thick timber
and heavy undergrowth, we could not
look out at an angle but could only look
straight down, with the gray sky reflected
off the many puddles in the muskeg below.
We searched all afternoon. We landed at
Wrangell, refueled, and took off again with
a " Nightsun " searchlight mounted under
the aircraft. We gave up near midnight,
with plans to start again at first light.
The following day around noon, our
other crewman Billy saw something.
" Hold! " he said into his mic. Looking
The Cessna was painted green
and white. In a cold, steady rain,
we were searching a four-squaremile
hillside of tall timber, for a
green aircraft in a rainforest.
straight down, we could see a large white
number silhouetted against the muskeg.
We did not see an aircraft, just one large
number. Billy hoisted me down through
the thick branches, using all 200 feet of
the cable on the drum.
I felt like I was like entering a forbidden
place, like an ancient tomb. Despite
the roar of the Sikorsky rotors overhead, I
was struck by the quiet on the forest floor.
The rainforest canopy kept out both light
and sound. I could see where the aircraft
had struck the treetops overhead, then
scraped the bark off as it plunged down
into the muskeg. The forest canopy had
then closed back up. As I stood in the rain,
I saw that, upon impact, the green fuselage
had folded over onto the wing, so that only
the green hull, with a few white numbers,
was exposed to the sky.
There were four people on board the
Cessna 150, with two small boys unbelted
in the baggage compartment, if you can call
it that. One of the four was still alive. It was
my job to get him out.
Years later I cannot help but wonder
if we could have seen that aircraft
sooner if it had not blended so well with
its environment; that is, in the northern
rainforest of southeast Alaska with some
of the thickest timber on the planet. What
if it had been painted orange, or sunburst?
Would more have survived? Did the others
die while listening to us searching for
them, only yards away?
Take a look at the aircraft at your airport.
Are any of them painted to stand out
against a background, whether sky or forest?
Mine is red and white.
I think often of the victims of that
flight. I think of the lesson that I learned
and how I learned this one the hard way.
Thomas W. Gross is a retired United States
Air Force colonel, pilot, and A&P. He owns
a Cessna 180.
AOPA PILOT / June 2022
103
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - June 2022

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