Operation bobsled

Flying Safety, July, 2002 by Mark Self

During the early hours of 10 January 2002, two MH-53J helicopters were on a search and rescue mission to find and recover two injured personnel from a small-engine aircraft that had crashed deep within the Rocky Mountains. After locating the downed aircraft approximately 18 miles from Durango Mountain Resort (DMR) Ski Area, the two aircraft were on approach to the crash site when something went drastically wrong. One of the rescue aircraft crashed only seven-tenths of a mile from the original crashed aircraft, and that's when our mission began.

On 10 January, the Group Commander tasked me with the recovery of the downed aircraft. I had recovered four other aircraft, so I built several recovery options after receiving aerial photos of the crash site and the condition of the aircraft. There was only one way to bring out the aircraft, and that was overland. It was clear from the photographs that the aircraft was salvageable, and great care would have to be taken to recover the aircraft intact from the high-altitude, rugged mountainous terrain. I came up with the idea of a huge sled; thus "Operation Bobsled" was born. I contacted SMSgt David Haugh and MSgt Jackie Powell from the 551st Special Operations Squadron and made arrangements to visit the crash site to perform a risk assessment and to survey the damaged aircraft.

On 16 January, I contacted Mr. Tim Dietz of Mesa Verde Aviation and the four of us accompanied the Safety Investigation Board (SIB) Team to the crash site. After an 18-mile Snow Cat ride, followed by a 1.5-mile hike, we arrived at the crash site for an initial evaluation of the aircraft and terrain. I realized this would be the most dangerous recover y I had ever done. There were no roads and the terrain was very steep. Boulders and trees prevented a straight path off the mountain. In addition to the evaluation of the aircraft, SMSgt Haugh and I assisted the SIB by locating and recovering damaged parts, and then hiking out through waist-deep snow with several black boxes that weighed approximately 150 pounds. At the same time, MSgt Powell provided technical assistance to the SIB and secured the aircraft.

After returning to base, we assembled our 13-person recovery team, completed a comprehensive risk assessment, and built a plan to mitigate the hazards of recovering an aircraft from deep within the mountains under severe winter conditions. After researching other crash recoveries, we found out that, to our knowledge, this would be a first-of-its-kind recovery. It would take three large Caterpillars, a large excavator, a farm tractor and three sleds to recover the aircraft and its components from the crash site. We initially figured it would take 19 days to disassemble and extract the aircraft, and that included two weather days. Now that we had a plan, we presented it to the On-Scene Commander for approval. He authorized us to contract Mesa Verde Aviation for the heavy equipment and operators to assist with the recovery, and he coordinated with the US Forest Service for authorization to extract the aircraft via sled.

The planning stage would be critical to the aircraft recovery due to the austere location. Safety and environmental preservation were our primary concerns. We would have to go into the site from DMR. That meant we would have to go up the ski slope prior to the resort opening in the morning, and could not depart until the resort closed at night. Mitigating the hazards of the recovery, I coordinated with the local airport for an emergency medevac aircraft, should anyone get injured. Then we reviewed satellite imagery and aerial photos to select possible extraction routes. We knew that all extraction routes would have to be hiked, because the deep snow might hide large rocks and ravines that could be impassable.

Next, we reviewed all the technical orders to see what tools and equipment we would need to carry in with us. After building our list, we went' through all the steps for disassembling the aircraft to ensure we had not missed anything. We knew that if we forgot anything, we would have no way to go back and get it, because of the aircraft location. We looked at what tools we would need, because all tools would have to be hand-carried into the site. That meant each member would have to backpack in about 100 pounds of tools and personal equipment the first day. The rest of the heavy equipment could be brought in on the sleds once we selected the extraction route.

Since most of our crew had never worked in severe winter conditions and none of us had performed maintenance at high altitude, we developed a safety briefing to bring the crew up to speed on hypoxia, hypothermia, dehydration, frostbite and basic mountain survival skills. This was necessary because of the location's remoteness, the potential for rapidly changing weather and our limited ready access to medical care. Finally, we built the disassembly plan, outlining a daily plan so that everyone would know what was going on. We also divided the operation into major tasks and identified all notes, cautions and warnings. Our system experts identified the things that could potentially go wrong, and then we developed our primary and alternate plan for each task. We conducted briefings covering our planned maintenance, safety and weather. At the end of each workday we accomplished a hot wash and planned the following day's work.