Dear Betty,
My deepest sympathy for your recent loss.
Sadly, I was the first person to discover the crash yesterday, August 29
at around 4:30PM Alaska time. The FAA had asked me if I could check the area
around Winstanley Lake for any signs of the helicopter that was overdue by 3
hours, when I was on my way to fly a tour through the Misty Fjords National
Monument. This lake is very close to the route of flight I was planning
anyway. From over the top of the lake I could see something unusual on the
lake so I decieded to land and have a better look. What I found was your
brothers helicopter turned upsidedown floating on the lake not too far from
shore.
Helicopters do not have fixed pontoons generally. However, most of them
have pontoons that can be deployed in an emergency. The emergency pontoons
were deployed on your brothers helicopter, which was the only resaon the
helicopter was still floating on the lake. Another plane landed shortly after
me, Dave Doyon. His plane was empty (no passengers) so he decieded to stay
and have a look for survivors on the shore. At this time we had no idea how
many people were onboard, and if any of them had made it to the shore. About
an hour later, Steve Shrum (who flies the Ketchikan Volunteer Rescue Squad
plane) came to the lake with a diver. They discovered that there were two
bodies inside the helicopter but were unable to get the bodies out of the
helicopter as it was getting dark and they needed to fly back to Ketchikan
before dark.
There was a GPS found floating on the lake (a navigational tool) which had
your brothers flights recorded on it. The last flight time was 1/10 hour or
about 1 to 6 minutes of flight time. There was another record which showed
his flight from Ketchikan to Winstanley lake. From this information it would
stand to reason that he was attempting to leave Winstanley Lake when the crash
occurred. Also I found fresh footprints at the Winstanley Lake US Forest
Service cabin site. These may or may not have been from your brother if he
had spent the night at the cabin. His departure from Ketchikan on August
28th, as reported by the FAA, 03:49 PM is Alaska time, which is one hour
earlier than Seattle. So he departed from here Wednesday afternoon.
As for why the helicopter crashed in the first place, it is likely that we
will never know for certain just what happened there at Winstanley Lake as is
the case with most accidents of this nature. It could have been bad weather
or a mechanical failure or even a physical probelm of some kind that caused
the copter to crash.
...