The Crash of 43 Fox and a Ride on a Chair lift
By Tom Jones
In 1973 I was on the three person helitack crew at the Naches Ranger Station on Chinook Pass. The helicopter we had was a Hughes 500, N9043F, owned by Olympic Helicopters based out of Boeing Field. Our pilot, Dick, was a school teacher. He had flown helicopters in Vietnam and then with the Army National Guard. At 33 years old, he was one of the older Vietnam helicopter pilot veterans.
On August 26 we were dispatched to initial attack a small fire on the Pacific Crest Trail in the Goat Rocks south of the summit of White Pass. We found the fire about 2 miles south of the top of the White Pass ski lift. We circled the fire to size it up. It was small and just smoldering. We landed near by at Shoe Lake and Dick told us he would go get his water bucket. He would poke it down between the trees and drop water to help us mop up.
The three of us, Jim our foreman, myself, and Kelly, got out and hiked a short distance to the fire with shovels and pulaskis and started working. Dick flew down to the Tieton Ranger Station where he met his chase truck. He hooked up the water bucket and took his door off so he could lean out to see the bucket.
He came back to the fire and made a few drops. On about the third or fourth drop he was over the fire at tree top level with a full water bucket when we heard the helicopter engine sound like it went to idle. The rotors started chopping the tops off the trees and pieces of branches and tree trunks were flying in all directions.
The helicopter hit the ground wedged between the trees, nose down and tilted to the pilot's side. The turbine engine was still running. First, I tried to shut the fuel off, but the fuel valve is on the panel and the whole panel was gone. Dick said, "Roll the throttle off, my wrist is broken”. I grabbed the collective but the whole thing came off in my hand. It wasn’t attached to anything.
Jim our helitack crew boss, opened the back door and leaned in to help get Dick out. I took hold of Dick's legs and Jim pushed on his back. We couldn't move him. He was trying to say something. The turbine was whining so loud I had to lean in and put my ear up to his mouth to hear. He said "Seat belt". I unbuckled the seat belt and pulled him out by his legs. I turned around and picked his legs up and Jim carried him by the shoulders. We ran as best we could to get away from the helicopter.
I tripped and fell. Dick's butt landed in a hole from the roots of an uprooted tree. He said, "Don't move me, I think my back's broken". Besides a broken wrist and maybe his back, his nose was broken too. There was a seven person crew there now from the Tieton Ranger station. They had hiked in from the top of White Pass. I had yelled to their crew boss to call for the MAST ( Military Assistance to Safety and Traffic) helicopter. There was one based at the Yakima Firing Center.
In about 20 minutes the Hughes 500 turbine shut down and the Army Huey MAST Helicopter was hovering overhead. The medic came down on the winch line with a wire litter. We got Dick secured on a back board and into the litter. They hoisted him up into the Huey, then hoisted the medic and flew away.
We continued to work on the fire and had it contained by late afternoon. They sent Olympic’s Sikorsky to pick us up. It was a CH-34 Choctaw, the military version of the S-58 Sikorsky. They had bought it from the Israeli Army. The pilot, Rick, always had his big black lab in the helicopter with him. The Tieton crew loaded up. The Sikorsky still had the old radial engine, it was a hot day, and the elevation was a little over 6000 feet.
He lifted to a low hover then settled back down, turned and yelled at his dog to get out. The dog got out and they flew off to the Tieton Ranger Station. By the time the Sikorsky came back to pick up us three and the dog we had decided we had had enough of helicopters for one day and would hike the Pacific Crest Trail out. We radioed our plan to dispatch and started walking.
After a bit dispatch called us and said someone from the Tieton Ranger Station would be at the bottom of the chair lift. There was a telephone at the top and we could call him to start the chair lift and ride it down. It was dark when we got to the top of the chair lift which looked more like a T-bar lift. The chairs consisted of two wooden 1 X 4s for a seat and the same for a back.
There was an old crank phone there on a tree. We called and told the guy to start the lift. None of us had ever ridden a ski lift so were watching trying to figure out how to get on when the phone rang. I answered and he asked what the number on the chair going by was. I said 54. He said, “after number 60 there are some slats missing on the seats so get on quick. Kelly jumped on the next chair and Jim and I jumped on the one after that. It was dark, the chairs were bouncing because we had jumped on, there was about a 30 mph cross wind blowing and we couldn’t see how high we were. We Held on tight and were relieved to step off easily at the bottom.
Dick recovered and was out of the hospital in a few days. His back wasn’t broken, just some compressed disks, I think. The only problem was he couldn't rotate his left wrist. The National Guard sent him in for surgery to fix it. The Doctor said to him, "You must be some fantastic aviator, the National guard is paying a fortune for you to have this surgery". He continued to fly helicopters for the Washington National Guard including the search and recovery missions after the eruption of Mount Saint Helens in May 1980.
N9043F on the helipad at the old Naches Ranger Station on Chinook Pass. Now known as the Chinook pass work center. I'm the one on the left. Sam was on the timber crew and was filling in for another crew member the day the photo was taken. The Dog is Sam's three legged Norwegen Elk Hound Inger. She went to the woods marking timber with him every day.
Shoe Lake where we got out to hike to the fire and also where Dick filled the water bucket.
Hooking up the Bucket in the horse pasture at the old Tieton Ranger Station earlier in the summer of 73. I was the chase truck driver that day. The helitack crew had four members. The one on their day off would drive the chase truck, which belonged to Olympic Helicopters, if there was a need for it. The army Huey in the background was working on another project that day.
Poor old 43Fox
The CH-34 Sikorsky. They said it was painted desert camouflage and had a few bullet holes in it when Olympic first bought it from the Israeli army.
The Army MAST (Military Aid to Safety and Traffic) Huey from the Yakima Firing Center picking up an injured logger at Little Bald Lookout on The Naches Ranger District earlier in August. They picked me up at the ranger station one time to guide them up into the upper Rattle Snake drainage to pick up an injured hunter that fell off his horse. There was no place to land so a crew member jumped out from about a 10 foot hover with an axe and chopped down some small trees so they could land. I rode the horse out.
The NTSB report https://www.ntsb.gov/_layouts/ntsb.avia ... 5123&key=0
It is mostly accurate except he didn't depart from Packwood. They tore the engine down and told us later it had gone to flight idle on its own for some reason. Thus the engine sounding to us like it went to idle just before it settled into the trees.
