Search & Rescue

Forty-one years ago,  a Kodiak-bound fishing boat out of Mobile,  Alabama, disappeared without a trace, taking all hands with it.  Now the Coast Guard says the fishing vessel Katmai  has been found.

A Schmidt Ocean Institute survey of the ocean floor came across the Katmai in December, while working for the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy  Management.

The crew of the research vessel Falkor saw an unknown sonar  blip about 200 miles offshore of Mobile, in the Gulf of Mexico, but had no record of a sunken vessel in that spot. They sent a remote operating vehicle, or ROV, to investigate, and found the Katmai in 9,000 feet underwater — in remarkably good shape.

The Coast Guard was notified and initiated a cold-case investigation.

They determined the  vessel was constructed by Bender Ship Building  and it departed Mobile on February 18, 1972.  It never  made its destination of Alaska, or even as far as the Panama Canal, and was presumed at the time to have sunk in the Gulf of Mexico.

It was skippered by owner Oskar Joos.  His wife and their  eight-year-old child were on board, and crewman Clinton Hollevoet.

The Coast Guard has contacted the families of the victims and told  them what happened to their loved ones.

 

 

 

The weather cleared up Saturday in the Bristol Bay region allowing the Alaska National Guard to recover the bodies of the pilot and copilot that were killed in Friday’s cargo plane crash north of Dillingham.

The crew onboard an Air national Guard HH-60 Pavehawk helicopter located the wreckage of the downed Beech 1900 aircraft about 6-am Saturday. Kalei Rupp is a spokeswoman with the Alaska National Guard. KDLG news spoke with her Saturday morning.

“We were able to land nearby. Because of the possible oncoming inclement weather and the terrain the Alaska State Troopers requested that the Alaska National Guard recover the bodies.”

The bodies were turned over to the State Medical Examiner’s Office and they were identified as 38-year old Jeff Day and 20-year old Neil Jensen. Day was the pilot and Jensen was the co-pilot. They were both from Anchorage. The Ace Air Cargo plane was flying to Dillingham from King Salmon but it never arrived in Dillingham. Instead it dropped off radar around 8:30 Friday morning. A statement from the Alaska State Troopers indicates that the aircraft was flying under  instrument flight rules and was cleared to land at the Dillingham Airport. Around 9:15 Friday morning the plane’s “Emergency Locator Beacon” began transmitting from a location about 20-miles northeast of Dillingham in the Muklung  Hills. Troopers and several volunteers tried to reach the crash site on snowmachines but they were turned around due to poor weather and snow conditions. Rupp say’s that’s why the Alaska National Guard was called in to assist in the   search and rescue effort.

“We serve a civilian search and rescue function in the State of Alaska. We are equipped to search in difficult terrain and our Guardian Angel teams have lots of experience searching in mountainous regions.”

Friday’s search effort was hampered by a low cloud ceiling and poor visibility. It also snowed much of Friday in the area that apparently forced caution on the part of emergency responders due to icing conditions. Both the FAA and the NTSB are investigating Friday’s plane crash with NTSB taking the lead.

 

View Plane crash near Muklung Hills in a larger map

Updated: March 5 at 7:oo a.m.

One person is dead and two are injured after a backcountry skiing accident near Haines on Sunday.

The Haines Police Department received an ambulance call Sunday afternoon to the Haines Airport where a helicopter brought an injured skier. The skier was transported to the Haines clinic where he was pronounced dead. Two injured skiers were also brought to the clinic. Haines police notified Alaska State Troopers, who is the lead investigating agency on the incident. A trooper arrived in Haines from Juneau on Monday, according to trooper spokesperson Megan Peters.

“He’s been trying to do interviews; he was able to fly over the area to see it. He has a couple more interviews lined up before he leaves town and has to get back to Juneau,” Peters says.

Troopers identified the deceased as 34-year-old Christian Cabanilla of Haines.

Cabanilla is a guide with Haines heliski company Southeast Alaska Backcountry Adventures. But company owner, Scott Sundberg, said Monday Cabanilla was skiing recreationally with a group of skiers, and he was not the official guide of the group.

Sundberg said the two injured skiers were in stable condition on Monday. Both were medevaced to Bartlett Regional Hospital in Juneau and one of the skiers was later sent to the Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

The group of five was skiing as part of a commercial tour with the company just west of Haines when the incident occurred, according to Sundberg. He said reports indicate the incident might have been caused by a massive cornice failure, but not an avalanche. Troopers’ preliminary findings are similar, Peters said.

“And from what it sounds like, they were traversing an area and snow collapsed from under them, but I don’t know how far the fall was,” Peters says.

Unconfirmed reports describe a fourth member of ski group escaped injury when he deployed an inflatable airbag he was wearing. A fifth member was not involved in the fall.

Cabanilla’s biography on the company’s website says he is an international backcountry snowboard guide working in Alaska, Chilean Patagonia and Antarctica with more than a decade of experience in the Alaska heli-ski industry. It says he is also a commercial helicopter pilot in Alaska. He is originally from Vasalia, Calif.

This is Haines third heliskiing fatality in two years. Last year a guide and skier were killed in a March avalanche while skiing with a different company.

 

Original Story: March 3 at 11:16 p.m.

One person is dead and two are injured after a backcountry skiing accident near Haines on Sunday.

Alaska State Trooper spokesperson Megan Peters said troopers received a call from Haines Police on Sunday afternoon about an accident in the backcountry, although she didn’t know the exact location.

The Haines trooper is out of town on a patrol and wasn’t able to respond immediately. A trooper will arrive in Haines from Juneau on Monday to conduct an investigation, Peters said. Haines Police had no comment and referred questions to the troopers.

The deceased was identified by troopers as Christian Cabainilla. He is listed as a guide for the local heliskiing company, Southeast Alaska Backcountry Adventures, on its website. The company did not respond to messages on Sunday evening.

Cabainilla’s biography on the company’s website says he is an international backcountry snowboard guide working in Alaska, Chilean Patagonia and Antarctica with more than a decade of experience in the Alaska heli-ski industry. It says he is also a commercial helicopter pilot in Alaska.

Trooper spokeswoman Peters said she did not have any information on what caused the death and injuries or whether an avalanche had occurred. She said the two injured skiers had non-life-threatening injuries. Two medevac planes were seen arriving and leaving Haines on Sunday afternoon.

Peter’s said by the time the troopers received the call, everyone involved was already out of the field and in Haines receiving medical treatment.

This is Haines third heliskiing fatality in two years. Last year a guide and skier were killed in a March avalanche while skiing with a different company.

A Juneau man is warning of unsafe ice conditions after going into the water at Mendenhall Lake on Wednesday.

Scott Fischer of the Juneau Nordic Ski Club was preparing to groom part of the lake when his snowmachine got bogged down in the slushy overflow. The snowmachine sank at least two feet on a partially-submerged layer of ice and Fischer was forced to try swimming out.

“I did get about twenty-feet and, finally, I was able to scoot myself up on to the ice,” remembers Fischer.

“It broke under me a couple times, but eventually it held me. I was able to crawl on my stomach for about twenty feet, and then get to my hands and knees, and then eventually to my feet,” said Fischer.

“And then I walked ashore.”

Even though temperatures ranged from the single digits to the twenties this week, recent snowfall may have insulated the overflow and prevented it from freezing up. The snow also hindered a visual assessment of the lake ice.

Fischer recommends staying off Mendenhall Lake because of the dangerous conditions that will only get worse with rising temperatures.

Retrieving the snowmobile

Fischer, Peter Ord, Del Carnes and Don Thomas returned to the snowmachine on Thursday, with a plan to use a helicopter to hoist it out, but fog and low clouds delayed the recovery.  While they were waiting for the clouds to lift, Ord and Fischer decided to try a come along winch.

“So we put in four ice screws about 100 feet away from the machine and attached kind of a very simple, cheesy little come along to the ice screws and a rope to the snow machine and just started working it forward,” Ord said. “It actually moved quite easily. So with 45 minutes of repeating and resetting the come along we had it (snowmobile) on top of the ice. ”

Ord calls the helicopter idea “over-thinking” the problem.  “But in the beginning we were just too nervous about how thick the ice was underneath the machine.  There was two feet of water on top of that ice,” Ord says.

The snowmobile was submerged up to the seat, with the top part of the seat, the handlebars and upper part of the cowling exposed.

Ord says once Don Thomas measured the ice under the snowmobile and found it was really quite thick, they were less concerned.   When the machine was finally pulled out, it was towed to shore and taken to Carnes’ shop for repair.

 

 

 

No major injuries reported after a fishing vessel ran aground near Kodiak.

The 56-foot ‘Neptune’ hit some rocks off Raspberry Island about two o’clock on Thursday morning.

The vessel suffered an eight-by-three inch hole in the hull. The bow is out of the water, but the vessel apparently started flooding.

A Coast Guard H-60 helicopter crew dropped some pumps to dewater the vessel. Three Good Samaritan vessels stood by to help as needed.

Four people were reported on board.

The Coast Guard says they’ll have a better idea of damage and any further action later on Thursday.

A Christmas Eve fire at the Fosbee Apartments near the Governor’s Mansion caused $5,000 damage, but no injuries.

According to a release from Capital City Fire and Rescue, the fire in a second floor apartment was caused by Christmas lights. The tenant found the fire and a maintenance worker used a fire extinguisher to put it out.

Firefighters evacuated the building until the smoke cleared and to make sure there were no hotspots.