CAP Largest Save Mission (1978)

8/9/2019 CAP Largest Save Mission (1978)

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December 4, 1978. 7:39 PM

FAA radio traffic rolled and faded. Back and forth, at first routine then building in

anxiety, the radio squelched and hissed between Denver Center in Longmont, Colorado

and Rocky Mountain Airways Flight 217, somewhere east of Steamboat Springs.

Rocky Mountain 217 Center Be aware that we have a little problem here.

Denver Center Rocky Mountain 217 Whats your approximate location?

Rocky Mountain 217 Were Victor 101 crossing the 335 Kremmling (garble)

13,000 (garble)

Denver Center Rocky Mountain 217. Go ahead, sir.

Denver Center Rocky Mountain 217. Go ahead. Rocky Mountain 217,

(in a voice becoming do you copy? Denver Center to Flight 217 ... Denver

ever more urgent) Center, how do you read? ... over ... do you copy, over ...

Flight 217, a DeHavilland Twin

Otter, launched from Steamboat

Springs and flew for forty-five

minutes, but it had gotten only a

short distance. In the normal time it

takes to get by air from Steamboat to

Denver, they had welded heavy coats

of ice to their wings. The loss of lift

and an untimely clash with a vicious

mountain wave kept them from

climbing high enough to make it

over the mountains ahead. In

desperation, they turned back. But as their altitude fell, they missed the navigation

markers and when ice on the planes antennas built and transmissions fried to

intermittent, Flight 217 fought, thrashed, then surrendered and was gone.

In the middle of a dark night in the core of Colorados toughest terrain in the middle

of nowhere in the middle of a heart-pounding winter storm, with blinding snow and

winds chilled to 50 below, on a night that as one investigator put it The sky was so thick

that if youd thrown a brick into it it wouldnt have come down ... in this cauldron,

Flight 217 was down and for the next fifteen hours dreadful consequence played hide and

seek with the most successful rescue team ever fielded by the Civil Air Patrol.

Rocky Mountain Airways Twin Otter boarding at the SteamboatS rin s air ort.


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The Civil Air Patrol is among a

handful of Americas most highly

trained and qualified volunteer

frontline first responders. When a

plane goes down, they fly, drive,

race, and run to help. This is the

story of the largest single mission

save in CAP history, the story of

Rocky Mountain Airways Flight

217, on December 4th, 1978.

THE KICKOFF

Along the Front Range of Colorado. 8:05 PM

Denver was cloudy and seasonably frosty. The Chargers and the Bears had just kicked off

onMonday Night Football. Dinner was done and a cold night settled in. At Earl and

Betty Bergers house in Boulder emergency radios crackled to life, phones rang, and

nearly simultaneously at Sonny Elgins house, 25 miles

east of Denver, and at Jim Alsums in Aurora, too.

RedRiver-50 Stand by, RedRiver-17 Stand by,

RedRiverR-19 Stand By, RedRiver-145 Stand by.

Each woman and man came to their radio, each cross-

checked their phone. Each stood by.

Jim Alsum is nothing if not his own man. A Denver

area home builder by trade with a crew of fit young

men, Jim had put together a team that was hearty

enough for the weather, talented enough for the work,

and equipped to get the mission done. Jims team

included his two sons, Jerry and Dan Alsum, RickHopp, Don Niekirk, and on this night, Harry Blakeman, and Stan Kilgore. From up and

down the northern Front Range of Colorado men slipped quietly but quickly into layers

of winter gear. They picked their personal supplies from storage closets, sorted through

their search and rescue bags added or dumped as needed for the mission and

stood-by for what sounded like a big Red Cap.

Even in fair weather, the mountains between Steamboat Springsand the Front Range present a rugged and complex challenge,even for experienced SAR crews.

Sonny Elgin, CAP ES Director atthe time of the Flight 217 rescue.


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Each will describe the next few

minutes in his own way, from

tense anticipation full of

adrenaline to the nights last

quiet moments. From Mission

Command at Scott Air Force

Base near St. Louis came the first

call, the request for tributaries of

CAP Rescuers from little and big

towns in the mountains and along

the Front Range. These tributaries merged into a

river of response, swelling and surging. To look

for, to find, to help rescue the twenty-two on

board Flight 217.

At Jims house, son Dan Alsum double-checked

the just-completed Rescue Trailer and found it, as

it always was, ready to go. Hed just add water,

five gallons out of the tap and into the container. Dan swung the trailer and hitched it to

the Jimmy SUV. Meanwhile, his older brother Jerry, the only EMT on the team, sorted

through medical supplies and figured, we might need everything.

Colonel Sonny Elgin, Incident Commander, and Major Jim Alsum, Team Leader, werethe organizers of the Colorado CAP Emergency Services Team. These men had put

together a bunch of carpenters and construction workers financed from their own

pockets along with other ad-hoc sources and dropped them into a search and rescue

training regime that few crews professional, volunteer, or military, will likely ever

duplicate. It was a blue collar crew, a get your damn boots in the mud bunch, forged

through numerous missions, and it was spooling up to roll.

This team had an astonishing blend of sage wisdom and fire in the belly bravado but most

of all, they were a team. By the time Flight 217 went down theyd already done 50

searches and a few saves. Before they finished their rescue careers theyd do hundreds

more. From 1974 through 2003 this team saved 50 people, participated in 300-plus search

and rescue operations, and found 175 to 200 crash-sites or wrecks where, as Jim put it:

Places [that were] filled with the dead and the just fine. When a plane goes down in

Colorado, there are the lucky and the dead theres no in-betweens. On the night of

Top: A reunion inearly 2008 of someof the CAP rescuecrew (left to right:

Rick Hopp, DonNiekirk, Dan Alsum,Jim Alsum.Right: Jerry Alsum.


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December 4th, 1978, they faced a daunting task with the growing confidence that

experience brings. But, Jerry Alsum was right, tonight theyd need everything.

THE GATHERING

8:45 PM Midnight

Within forty-five minutes of the first call, gear and men were locked and loaded. They

gathered from various suburbs and hamlets in the plains east of Denver, Ft. Collins, and

Boulder, hurriedly filling their tanks with gas and talking plans, set-ups, and options over

their radios.

Harry Blakeman told them to meet in the Idaho Spring Safeway parking lot. Within an

hour everyone arrived. Don Niekirk took out a little L-per and got a signal. Wed made

personal bets among ourselves, said Jim Alsum, that we wouldnt get a signal here. We

were surprised. None of the team needed much encouragement to keep moving, but

that ELT beacon knowing that people might be alive and waiting made it real.

The time was 9:45 PM. Flight 217 had been down for a little less than two hours.

The high voltage powerline that transversed the terrain to the northeast of Steamboat Springs, runningover Buffalo Pass, became a critical element in the search for the missing Flight 217.

SteamboatSprings

Walden

High VoltagePowerline


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Up I-70 through the Eisenhower Tunnel, the caravan drove fast, faster than was probably

prudent in the worsening conditions. Snow is usual up here this time of year, but as they

made the turn at Silverthorn, black ice stacked up and the visibility dropped. Over

Highway 9 they drove north, faster now, slipping between Green Mountain Reservoir on

one side and the Williams Fork Mountains on the other into little ditches and back on

to the road through the treacherous weather, catching scraping blows from bulwarks of

plowed snow that chafed bumpers and chattered under fenders. Except for the CAP

caravan, traffic was non-existent. It must have looked like a conga line of drunks said

one rescuer, but we were relentless. The next gathering spot was Kremmling. Wasted

time met dying people, so we just kept going.

An Air Force C-130 Hercules working that night near Grand Junction had been re-tasked

by Scott Air Base to fly toward Flight 217s emergency beacon. They reported the signal

to be near Hebron, Colorado. Other teams picked up echoes and ricochets of the planesELT seemingly everywhere. From Cheyenne, Wyoming, to Grand Junction, Colorado,

there were spurious emanations, eradicate and misleading. The atmospherics and terrain

played mischief with the emergency signal. But there was something more, something

A satellite image of the search area, photographed during a greener season. The white circle on the rightis the Grizzly Creek Campground. The white circle on the left is are where the powerline crosses BuffaloPass.

CRASH SITE

GRIZZLY CREEK

CAMPGROUND

HIGH VOLTAGE

POWERLINE


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unusual and never experienced before by any in the team. That puzzle is what makes the

next piece of the story even more remarkable, some might say miraculous.

Sonny Elgin put two and two together but came up with 1, 3 or 5, and so did everybody

else. The standard ELT signal pattern was errant and illusive, an erratic barrage that

masked any sense of a hard target. In spite of this, the search area was focused down to

about 500 square miles. Still too large an area to properly search in this weather. Too

large an area to work in a coordinated fashion. Too large a territory in which to play hide

and seek.

Sonny had grown up in Steamboat Springs. Hed learn to fly in this same piece of

territory. As recently as the previous year hed been elk hunting on the same ground

where another vital clue began unlocking the pieces of the predicament. Sonny heard on

the radio of a momentary power surge on the main electric lines coming over Buffalo

Pass. Lights in a single town had flickered, but just for an instant. Luminosity from all

over the valley had wavered, dimmed and brightened just about the time the plane went

down. As Sonny drove deeper into the blizzard, he worked this information deeper into

his head.

The sky just fell in and took a plane with it. Jackson County Sheriffs dispatcher.

THE SEARCH

Midnight 2:45 AM

Along the route the group stopped periodically to take out the direction finding gear. At

one of the stops the CAP team came across an under-sheriff who said hed seen a flash to

the northwest and sent other teams to search around

Muddy Pass.

But to Sonny and Jims crew the best plan was to

push toward Hebron, an intersection with a single

house. The snow got deeper. Ice pellets bombarded

the direction finders. Ice clung to everything in the

same way it likely had the antennas, the flying

surfaces, and the body of Flight 217. The same ice

probably tormenting survivors, if there were any,

wherever they were. Jim Alsum remembers, it was

miserable, just miserable. A tractor trailer with a

David Lindows snowcat in action in the Coloradohigh country in severe winter conditions.


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snowcat on board passed the team. They flagged it down. Inside the cab was David

Lindow, the snowcats owner-operator, and Steve Paulsen, a member of Rocky Mountain

Rescue, also on the hunt. The teams merged. As the DF signals kept pointing west, this

ad-hoc group, and a well-used but good-to-go old snowcat headed west, too.

A few miles later the plowed road gave out and the 4-wheel drives could make it no further.

The location was the parking lot at the Grizzly Creek Campground. They dismounted and

planned the next move. Sonny knew there was good chance this was it ... the plane had most

likely contacted the wires of a 230,000 volt transmission line that ran over Buffalo Pass at

10,300 feet, a major electrical conduit and the

probable source of the power surge. This high

voltage line and its connecting towers were

charged with the induced energy and radio

signals coming from the ELT. Instead of asteady single source, the signal moved and

flowed everywhere that line traveled,

Sonny thought. In his mental re-enactment of

the planes actions, he reasoned theyd

probably find it up high and near the wires at

the top of the pass. The time was 2:45 AM,

December 5th.

THE FIND

2:45 6:00 AM

Jim Alsum sorted out his team. He and Sonny would work the radios and set up a base

camp. Jerry Alsum, the only EMT present, and Steve Paulsen of Rocky Mountain Rescue

would set out on David Lindows snowcat, along with Don Niekirk (an experienced

rescuer who had just begun his EMT training). Jim and Sonny saw a Rangers cabin at

the end of the parking lot. That would become the Rescue Base. The pace quickened as

the weather got worse. Jerry, Dan Alsum, Don Niekirk, and Steve Paulsen organized the

trauma kit, back boards, casualty bags, blankets, and the other gear and loaded the

snowcats tiny cargo bed. With room for David and one more in the cab the gear,

Jerry, and Steve rode in the back, unprotected it would be a tight fit along a bumpy

forest service road, for an unknown distance and to an unknown destination.

Ranger cabin at the Grizzly Creek campground duringthe snowstorm of December 4-5.


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Sonny and Jim broke into the cabin and started a fire in the stove. Other rescue teams had

moved closer from their assembly points in Walden and Kremmling. As soon as the plane

was found theyd get all the help that could be marshaled. That said, no one could move

until the CAP found the plane. Every hope crowded into the cab of that little snowcat;

every ounce of faith rode exposed with the CAP that night.

Jerry Alsum later recalled, We were up the trail about two miles when we decided to

take a reading on the ELT. The reading was sketchy and multi-directional but headed us

toward the top of the pass. We decided to continue we saw a sign that said Rough

Road, 4 wheel drive only. We knew we were on the right road.

Each time the rescue team took a reading theyd call back with their approximate location

and where the signal pointed. Sonny had been right, the electric lines were the key. David

Lindow kept trying one road after another. A logging road would look promising one

moment but head the wrong direction the next. With the weather down and the visibility

bad, the tortuous trek was maddening. Don and Steve held on tight. It was a labyrinthine

three hours of DFing, backing up, changing directions, but the ELT signal kept

improving. From base camp Sonny and Jim urged them to, head toward the wires,

look for the towers, and stay under the lines.

The snowcat-crew was in danger of rolling off the mountain many times. The ability to

see was near zero as the roads got narrower, steeper, and worse. The treachery of the

conditions obliged caution to their every effort and so it

went until about 6:00 AM. They were nearly 13 miles

from base camp but finally under the wires. They

stopped.

Steve Paulsen and Don Niekirk stepped to the rear of the

snowcat to take another DF. David Lindow and Jerry

Alsum were in front, looking down a very steep ravine.

Certain that they shouldnt go down it unless they could

get back up, they hesitated. It was quiet.

In the silence, they heard ... voices, Jerry heard voices.

David heard voices. They were not far away. The voices

were coming from the trees directly ahead. Nothing was

visible but these voices were distinct and real. Jerry transmitted a radio message, Base

camp we found the plane and there are SURVIVORS! It was 6:04 AM.

An image of the crash scene taken from filmfootage shot by Channel 9 (KUSA, Denver).


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THE SAVE

While the snowcat crew pushed their way to the crash site,

new rescue parties made their way to the Ranger Cabin

base camp. Two more snowcats, a sheriffs patrol, a Rocky

Mountain Rescue team, and the Steamboat Ski Patrol filled

the parking lot of the campground with a rescue force

nearing seventy-five. While they waited for signs of life,

options were weighed and assignments made. The wind

chill belligerently clung to 50 below.

When the initial radio call came in, the number-one follow-

on team at Grizzly Creek Base Camp mounted up and charged toward the precious

sounds of life. It headed up the same tortuous trail, filled with the same incessant blind

alleys, back-trackings, and red-herring routes. It would take another hour or two for them

to arrive on-scene.

Jerry reported later that David and he went about 50 yards and looked off to our right ...

In the glow of our headlights we saw people waving along [and] what looked like the tail

of the plane. There were no trees around the plane so David headed straight for it. Jerry

asked David if he thought they could get back up the sharply descending grade David

shot back, I dont care, do you?

We could see five or six people standing near the

front of the plane one of them holding a baby. We

had no idea there was a baby

Left: The rescued baby after he had been carried down to thetriage site. Below: An excerpt from the incident report typedshortly after by Jerry Alsum.

Additional Image taken from onsite filmfootage from Channel 9.


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Jerry reported, We have many survivors! The first

people appeared to be in shock but could walk and

talk. Passenger John Pratt walked forward to greet

us. He seemed to be in good shape with just a bump

over his eye. Don Niekirk headed to the cockpit

and Jerry to the back of the plane. Both men

reported that their first impression, the one that still

lives with them and still makes them pause was a

terrible smell. Both men reeled from this nose-

splitting surprise.

Jerry recollected his first view inside the baggage

compartment and cabin: The scene was that of people laying

one atop the other with legs and arms intertwined. It was hardto tell where one person started and another ended. We threw

in some blankets so they could cover themselves.

With the next report more snowcats and personnel headed

toward the pass. Temporary first-aid was administered at the

crash site. The flight crew seemed bad off. The Captain

(Scott Klopfenstein) had been in the left seat but had already

been moved by the passengers to the baggage area along with

another woman, Mary Kay Hardin. Jerry said he black tagged them both. (Triageshorthand for survivors who wouldnt likely survive much longer and therefore wouldnt

receive immediate attention. At this point Ms. Hardin, the passenger, was dead; Capt.

Klopfenstein would die four days later.)

First Officer Gary Coleman was buried to the chest in snow that had leaked and blown in

through the broken cockpits windscreen, then hardened to ice. His core temperature was

in the mid-80s, but the cold kept him from bleeding out. Don Niekirk and soon Rick

Hopp, then Dan Alsum (who arrived at the site on snowmobiles) all worked with what

tools they could scavenge to free the frozen man. Pipes, knives, and skis were all there

was for digging, a task that took an hour. Mr. Coleman was awake for much of it.

About this time the Incident Command responsibility was passed to the Sheriffs

Department. Sonny and Jim assisted as evacuees were taken first to the triage center in

the rangers cabin, checked over by a Doctor and EMTs, and then sped to hospitals in

surrounding communities.

Additional images from the Channel 9film depict the mangled wreckage ofthe Twin Otter, which complicated theextraction of some of the victims, andthe proximity to towers of the highvoltage power line.


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By 11:45 AM the mountain had been cleared of the living and the dead. The parking lot at

Grizzly Creek Campground was busy for a few more hours but it fell quiet by 2 PM. The

mountain was turned over to the NTSB security and investigation teams for further

processing.

THE AFTERMATH

The NTSB judged that Rocky Mountain Airways Capt. Scott Klopfenstein, who died

several days after his evacuation, shouldnt have taken off in the conditions. Likely, he

was spurred on by the companys no pay for no haul rules, meaning if the captain

didnt fly hed wouldnt be paid for that haul. It is the same as being docked pay.

However, it has been noted that Captain Klopfenstein had flown that same route earlier

in the day without incident.

The NTSB also found that if the Flight 217 crew had been wearing shoulder harnesses,

the injuries to Capt. Klopfenstein and First Officer Gary Coleman would have likely

been less severe. Due to this accident, it is now required by the FAA that all Cockpit

Flight Crew in commuter craft as well as larger planes wear shoulder harnesses.

Technology played a critical role in the rescue of Flight 217. In 1978, Emergency

Locator Transmitters (ELTs) were not required on all planes, but this incident

demonstrated the value of such a resource. All planes are now required to fly with an

ELT.

Snapshots of the Grizzly Creek Campground during the snowstorm early in the day on December 5th

.The rangers cabin and the parking lot were transformed into a triage center. From onsite film footagefrom Channel 9.


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And critically, rescue resources worked. Although many teams were involved, they had

a single goal, and through interoperability, a comprehensive rescue plan, and

benchmarked standards, they saved the day. They saved twenty lives.

THE STORYS CHARACTERS

The Baby. Eight-month-old Mathew Kotts sat on his mothers lap throughout the flight

and during the accident. The fact that he was only lightly injured seems to defy physics or

explanation. His face (in photos) and his personal drama became the center of the press

coverage at the time. He is now a 30-year-old CFI-II in Steamboat Springs. He has never

met his rescuers.

The First Officer. Gary Coleman lived to fly again, although he never had the vigor to

fly for Rocky Mountain Airways again over this same route in winter. A few years after

this incident, during the summer, when the Alsum team was out climbing Longs Peak on

a conditioning hike, they came across Mr. Coleman. They talked to him about the day.

On this his memory was hazy and given his state at that time, no one should wonder why.

On-board Heroes. The first rescuers at the scene report there was no panic. Clothes had

been scavenged from the baggage compartment. Some remedial medical treatment had

been given. Through many hours in a long-suffering night amid the cold were two voices

who kept order, organized the scene, and made plans for what looked like a long wait:

David Erb, then 29, and John Pratt, 20 years old and a former Eagle Scout.

On-scene Heroes. The CAP teams, three local county sheriffs departments, Rocky

Mountain Rescue, Dave Lindow, the State Patrol, the Red Cross, approximately 75 other

rescuers who were gathered at the scene, and hundreds of unnamed and unknown people

standing by or digging in from Scott Air Force Base and Ft. Carson. God Bless Them

All!

Gerald (Jerry) Alsum. Currently the senior paramedic of the Aurora Colorado Fire

Department. While a CAP member, Jerry received an additional Medal of Valor for

saving a life. He also has many fire department commendations, but he is most proud of

his service the night of December 4th and 5th, 1978.

CAP Largest Save Mission (1978)

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