Search & Rescue

Rescue workers have abandoned their search for the source of an aircraft distress signal along the lower Yukon River in Southwest Alaska.

Two weekends ago, on Aug. 29, Alaska State Troopers were notified of an aircraft emergency locator signal originating 38 miles northwest of the community of St. Mary’s. Over the following week, various response agencies including the Civil Air Patrol, Alaska Air National Guard and Alaska Army National Guard searched the area by air and by land.

According to trooper spokesperson Austin McDaniel, the groups stopped their search on Sept. 4 after not finding any source of the beacon signal. Troopers said that no planes were reported overdue in the area.

A man was rescued from a remote beach near Naked Island, about 20 miles east of Hoonah, on Monday morning, thanks in part to the light from his cracked cell phone screen.

The Coast Guard in Juneau received word around 10:30 p.m. on Sunday about an overdue boater. Lieutenant Tim Keily, a helicopter pilot with Air Station Sitka, said he and three other crew members responded to the search and rescue call. Keily said the boater was traveling in an 18-foot skiff from Auke Bay to Hoonah and had made it around a third of the way when his bilge pump gave out.

“Once the bilge pump was out, the water just flooded into the back of the boat a little bit in some choppy seas.  His first engine shut down. Then he had a trolling motor, a backup motor, and that also failed him,” Keily said. “It was just enough to get him to his shoreline, but it wasn’t going to be enough for him to complete his trip.”

Keily said his crew had been searching from the air for about an hour when the Coast Guard Cutter Liberty called with a possible lead on the shoreline near the north end of Admiralty Island.

“And they wanted us to check it out. So as we headed towards the cutter’s position, we actually saw something shining on the shoreline,” he said. “So instead of going all the way to where the cutter was pointing, we broke off. And then, on the shoreline, we saw the person and the boat.”

What captured the helicopter pilot’s eye wasn’t a flare. It was the light from a cracked cell phone screen.

“Just the cell phone light was enough under our night vision goggles. It actually magnifies it quite a bit. We thought he had something much brighter,” Keily said.

“It almost looked like a fire under the goggles. But it turns out was just that little cell phone screen, and the night vision goggles just really amplify the light and really help our search,” he said.

Keily said the man was dressed in warm gear and had been stranded for at least 6 hours when the team found him. According to a Coast Guard press release, on scene weather was 52 degrees with 5-mph winds and less than 10-mile visibility.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated where the man was rescued from on Monday. He was on a remote beach near Naked Island. He was not on Naked Island.

Family and friends are offering a $5,000 reward for help finding an Oregon man who is still missing in Juneau after ten days.

Joe Clayton has been missing since he left for a hike Aug. 20. His car was found at the Auke Lake boat ramp that evening. His keys, wallet, backpack and binoculars were found four days later at an abandoned campsite in a wooded area near the University of Alaska Southeast.

Clayton’s sister Michelle Lyman says they’ve been talking to people and putting up fliers around Juneau to get the word out about his disappearance.

Lyman says her brother disappeared once before in Florida, in the aftermath of a divorce, but she says they didn’t see any recent signs that he would disappear again.

She says Clayton likes people and animals and is usually not shy about talking with other people.

Lyman says they plan to look at surveillance footage at the Auke Bay ferry terminal to determine whether he got on a state ferry to Sitka or another Southeast community.

Clayton is a 48-year-old white male, about 6-foot-2 and 220 pounds. He was last seen wearing a t-shirt and jeans. Lyman says he also may be wearing his brown Carhartt jacket with a hood.

Juneau Police ask that anyone who spots Clayton call them right away at 586-0600 and then stay within eyesight until an officer can arrive and verify his identity.

A Coast Guard helicopter crew from Air Station Sitka medevaced a man in cardiac distress from a fishing vessel in West Crawfish Inlet on Aug. 19.

Watchstanders in Sitka received a call around 1:30 p.m. from the F/V Minke. Crew from the Minke relayed that the 68-year-old captain of another boat, the F/V Lady Cyprus, was experiencing a possible heart attack.

West Crawfish Inlet is around 16 miles south of Sitka. Due to the surrounding high terrain, the inlet is considered a “communication dead zone,” and crew from the Lady Cyprus were unable to contact the Coast Guard themselves.

Lt. John Orthman is a Jayhawk pilot for Air Station Sitka. He said the nearby good Samaritans were an essential part of the rescue.

“It still doesn’t cease to amaze me how much everyone is looking out for one another in Southeast Alaska,” Orthman said. “If the Minke wasn’t able to relay that message, I think the crew probably would have had to drive out to outside waters in order to get ahold of us at that point.”

By the time the helicopter crew reached the scene several minutes after the call was placed, a larger fishing vessel, the Beaufort Sea, was transferring the patient to their boat in anticipation of the hoist.

According to Orthman, the captain was conscious and alert but in need of medical attention.

“We hoisted our rescue swimmer down to the Beaufort Sea to assess the captain. He very quickly packaged the patient up, and we recovered both the captain of the Lady Cyprus and our rescue swimmer and then transported them back to Sitk,a where EMS was already awaiting us,” Orthman said.

EMS transferred the patient to the hospital, where he received treatment.

The body of a Ketchikan man who was missing over the weekend has been recovered in Misty Fjords National Monument Wilderness.

In an online statement, state troopers say 52-year-old Derek Kelley was reported overdue Saturday from a boating trip to a cabin on the Unuk River. A chartered helicopter assisting the Ketchikan Volunteer Rescue Squad reportedly found Kelley’s body near Grant Creek on Sunday afternoon.

The body will be sent to the state medical examiner’s office for review. Authorities say foul play is not suspected.