Looking for old magazine article

Tater · July 18, 2008, 06:04:07 PM

I just completed the AFRCC SAR Management Course during which an article was referenced about a sad SAR failure many years ago. The article was in the Jan. 13, 1968 issue of Saturday Evening Post titled "Please Hurry Someone". My understanding is that this situation impacted the way SAR is done in a big way. In any event, I would like to get a copy of this article. If any reader can direct me, it would be much appreciated. Thanks!

N Harmon · July 18, 2008, 09:44:45 PM

Here is the TIME magazine article on the crash. I may be able to help with the Post article too.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,837366,00.html

Tubacap · July 19, 2008, 01:08:08 AM

That is awful. Is this pre-ELT?

N Harmon · July 20, 2008, 04:17:30 AM

Quote from: Tubacap on July 19, 2008, 01:08:08 AM
That is awful. Is this pre-ELT?

Not really pre-ELT, but it was before ELTs were required equipment. This was the first of a few high profile crashes that led to ELTs being required.

Short Field · July 20, 2008, 04:33:31 AM

We studied the Dennis Martin Case (14 Jun - Sep 1969) when I attended the AFRCC SAR Planners Course. If you search for it, you will find several of the hits comment that it changed the way SAR is conducted today. The search referenced in the Time magazine was never mentioned.

N Harmon · July 20, 2008, 03:37:08 PM

Quote from: Short Field on July 20, 2008, 04:33:31 AMThe search referenced in the Time magazine was never mentioned.

I have only heard it mentioned as either one of the high profile SAR cases that led to ELTs being required on aircraft, or as a counterexample to the claim that missing persons do not survive more than a few days. Phyllis Oien and Carla Corbus survived for nearly 6 weeks after Civil Air Patrol called off the search (although I don't really take that as meaning CAP made a mistake in calling the search off).

The Dennis Martin case is good one to study.

KyCAP · July 20, 2008, 07:17:20 PM

Some of the Alaska guys will know the nitty gritty, but shortly after a US Senator and his bush pilot disappeared into a crevace (sp?) in glacier fields of Alaska his peers (in Washington, D.C) seemed to realize the value to ELTs on aircraft... (my perception of the history)

N Harmon · July 21, 2008, 01:34:48 AM

This is a CAP news story which was reprinted by Washington State Dept of Transportation. It gives a pretty good history of how ELTs came to be mandated in all US based aircraft.

http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/aviation/SAR/ELT_History.htm

california IC · July 22, 2008, 01:09:26 AM

Saturday Evening Post January 13, 1968 Story title "Please hurry, someone" Page 30 author Harold Martin.
Good luck on finding one...Try EBAY

RiverAux · July 22, 2008, 01:31:58 AM

If you've got a fairly large university library in your town you might find it in the stacks. Or pretty much any library could get it for you through interlibrary loan for free.

Tater · July 22, 2008, 03:49:04 AM

Thanks everyone. The information presented at the course included photocopies of the teenage girl's calendar with the diary notes. Also there was a picture of the crashed aircraft that seemed to be fairly intact and visible. I am not sure if that was part of the article or additional info. I did look on ebay to no avail and will also check local libraries. In any case, though 40 years old, it still tugs hard if you are involved in SAR and would be an excellent study for new folks and old heads regarding both survivability and the importance of every mission no matter how unlikely the chance of a "good" outcome. Again, if anyone can get the article, pictures or anything related to the incident, it would be greatly appreciated.

jimmydeanno · July 22, 2008, 01:51:25 PM

Library of Congress? You could either go there and get a reader card or your local library might be able to get it from them through the interlibrary loan system.

EDIT:

Just found this site too - looks like you can order articles / full issues of the magazine: http://millionmagazines.com/order.html

NIN · July 22, 2008, 02:42:19 PM

Just found the thing, but its a > 5mb PDF from Ebscohost (heh, working at a college has its benefits!)

Let me know where I can send it to you.

Tater · July 22, 2008, 06:08:05 PM

Thank you Darin. PM sent... I think... maybe several times. Appreciate the help!

alice · August 05, 2008, 12:21:12 AM

That WSDOT article online was a reprint of an article on ELTs in CAP News from about 2001. I should know. I wrote that article.

Many people continue to think the mandatory installed ELT statute was thanks to the 1972 search for Congressman Hale Boggs. It wasn't. It was thanks to a Colorado Congressman who was upset by the search featured in the Saturday Evening Post which reprinted a few pages of a diary by one aboard inferring she died of starvation after surviving more than a month. The ELT law was signed by President Nixon on December 20, 1970 (Public Law 91-596, Section 31) after it was first passed in 1969 but inadvertantly did not get to Nixon's desk, so it was passed again in 1970 and tacked onto the law creating OSHA. Glad to know AFRCC is teaching that 1960's search.

When Jim Bigelow retired from CAP he gave me his copy of that 1960's Saturday Evening Post article. Jim had talked more than once with the son of the missing pilot who apologized to him at the Sky Kitchen Restaurant at San Carlos Airport, CA for saying some rather nasty things about CAP in that Post article. The son was an airliner pilot who wasa involved in the search for his Dad, stepmother and stepsister, Carla.

A hunter found the wreckage less than about a hundred yards from a logging road which was almost a straight shot northbound to the highway connecting Redding and Weaverville. The son sold Carla's crash diary to the Saturday Evening Post. The company which bought out the Post and its archives has no record of that diary as of about 7 years ago. The Post article said Carla and her Mom had at least one ankle injury and one arm injury between the two of them as I recall. They could move about the cabin and could play cards.

The wreckage was within normal earshot of the highway. Carla and her Mom would have heard trucks gearing up and down the summit.

After a SAREx in Redding a few years ago, I went out to Weaverville to see the county coronor's records for the pilot since he had not been found before the Post article appeared, as I recall. He had crawled across county lines westbound and was found curled up by a big log with at least one bad bone injury. I spoke with the son of the coronor who examined the pilot. They still wonder in Weaverville why those aboard did not try to go towards the paved highway easily audible to the wreckage site. The mother was a nurse cabable of splinting their bone injuries. Also, the pilot left all sorts of written detailed instructions in a pocket about what his heir should do with the hotel the pilot owned in Portland and other financial info, but not a peep about where the crash sight was nor any other info about the crash and those left at the wreckage, which to that day baffled the coronors.

The autopsy reports for Carla and her Mom I could not find. They are supposed to be with the coronor in Redding. Maybe someone will have better luck than I getting those.

Federal officials determined cause of crash was flight into known icing conditions. The pilot and mother were determined to separate Carla from a boyfriend they did not like by taking a trip to the SF Bay Area and spend time with the son on a layover. Carla's diary records her Mom agreeing with her the boyfriend was OK.

I don't think that search and crash investigation will be really closed until a neutral researcher gets hold of Carla's entire crash diary and looks at the autopsy reports for her and her mother.

Alice