Tourists have a smashing good time on glacier

Discovery Channel and Dateline picked up story of multi-helicopter crash on Alaska glacier near Juneau

	The Mendenhall Glacier, seen here in mid-summer, looks benign enough from this vantage point. You can kayak out there in the lake, learn the geological history by touring the brand new visitors' center (not shown), or hike on trails all around the area. But this picture only shows the bottom portion of the glacier, where it feeds the lake as chunks of ice "calve" into the water. Think about the upper reaches, where Mendenhall, Herbert, and several other glaciers make up the giant Juneau Icefield in the midst of jagged mountain peaks thousands of feet high. One of the more popular summer tourist activities is to take a "flight-seeing tour" of these glaciers.
One typical day last summer, a helicopter was on one of its regular flight-seeing trips, when the light conditions suddenly changed to what is called "flat light." To the pilot, everything became instantly gray--the mountain, the sky, the snow and ice. Instead of landing, the helicopter flew headfirst into a mountain. As the tail came straight up and continued over the top, the whole thing flipped, and the copter landed on its rotors, smashing all the radio equipment as it hit the glacier. The pilot and passengers found themselves upside down, but miraculously no one was seriously injured. When a second helicopter was sent to assist, exactly the same thing happened to it! And guess what happened to a THIRD helicopter? Yup, that's right--same fate. Three helicopters, three pilots, a couple of mechanics, and several tourists all stranded on a cold mountain!!
	From all accounts, the people kept their wits about them and retained their sense of humor. They even built a snow fort--see picture at left--by using a Rubbermaid tote to form the snow blocks (I understand the story will be used in a Rubbermaid commercial to expound on the toughness of their products!). In late April, the Discovery Channel and Dateline both aired stories about the crash and rescue. One of my co-workers is a member of the Juneau Search and Rescue Team, and he assisted in the rescue effort. He told me "I did my best to avoid the cameras, but with any luck you'll see my guys and maybe the Coast Guard commander who got me the C-130 and the Public Affairs officer that kept CNN, ABC, and Fox off of our okoles so we could get the job done." (Crash photos and quote courtesy of Bruce Bowler.) Hope you had the chance to see one or both of these programs!