THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 12, 1996 TAG: 9609120326
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 165 lines
Buffeted by tropical storm-force winds, a Navy helicopter rescued 11 crewmen from a sinking Dominican freighter off the east coast of Puerto Rico during the height of Hurricane Hortense.
The six Navy men who performed the rescue Tuesday night, including the commanding officer of the helicopter squadron from Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in Cuba, said by telephone Wednesday that it was the most difficult, scary and lucky night of their lives.
There were no serious injuries.
``What made this work,'' said Cmdr. Bill Wilcox, skipper of Fleet Composite Squadron 3, ``was crew coordination and the fact that each one of these guys came up with some great ideas to get us through.''
The ordeal - from when the Navy men first became airborne to when the ship's survivors climbed onto a storm-tossed beach and hacked through junglelike terrain to safety - lasted more than seven hours.
Two of the rescue swimmers, one of whom had to drag two crew members who couldn't swim to shore, fought 12-foot seas. Other challenges facing the crew included a broken hoist line, a ship about to capsize, rescue rafts sliced to pieces, low fuel, radar that didn't work, heavy rain, little or no visibility, and nearly no place to land.
``A lot of people thought we were nuts to be out there,'' Wilcox said.
Wilcox and his co-pilot, Lt. Jason Welch, 27, took off with four other crew members aboard their H-3 Sea King after receiving a call from the Coast Guard that a sailboat was floundering in the storm.
That was about 5:15 p.m., when the winds were 15 mph, gusting only to 30, Wilcox said. The storm was expected at that time to continue westward and not turn north as it did, dumping up to 20 inches of rain on Puerto Rico.
With the pilots were the following: Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael Belt, 23, the crew chief; Petty Officer 2nd Class Matthew Flowers, 27, and Petty Officer 3rd Class Jeffrey Smith, 24, both rescue swimmers; and Petty Officer 2nd Class David Spees, 32, a hospital corpsman.
The search for the sailboat turned up nothing after four trips up and down the beach, Wilcox said.
``It was getting dark and we decided to return when we got a call that a freighter whose engine had just quit was taking on water about four to five miles offshore.''
The freighter later was identified as the 70-foot-long Isabella, from the Dominican Republic.
When the helicopter arrived at the scene it made a couple of passes overhead until the ship's crew came on deck. Wilcox said he intended to put Smith, one of the rescue swimmers, on the hoist and lower him into the water next to the ship. He would then have the ship's crew jump into the water and be hoisted aboard.
The helicopter couldn't retrieve the men from the deck because a large antenna was in the way and the deck was swaying violently, Wilcox said.
``At that point we're hovering, and Smith is on the wire,'' Wilcox said. ``The ship took a huge roll, and he ended up swinging into the deck.''
Smith released himself from the hoist and found himself aboard the ship. Meanwhile, the hoist cable wrapped around a cleat and ripped off.
``This isn't what we planned,'' Wilcox said.
The helicopter rigged another hoist cable while Smith talked to the crew.
The second swimmer, Flowers, got on the hoist and rode it into the water. The plan was for Smith to send one crew member at a time into the water, with Flowers putting him onto the hoist.
``Flowers decided he could get close enough to the ship and be released from the hook,'' Wilcox said.
The first crew member got into the sea, but the helicopter began having difficulty maintaining a stable hovering position.
``By then the winds blew the ship away and it was getting real hard to control (the helicopter),'' Wilcox said.
Wilcox and Welch kept passing controls back and forth, depending on who had the best view of the ship and the men in the water.
The new hoist rig was much lighter that the original. It kept being blown into the air until Spees, the corpsman, wrapped a plastic hospital IV bag around it to give it weight. That allowed Flowers to grab hold.
``We got the Dominican on the hook, with a rescue strap under his arms,'' Wilcox said.
However, Flowers' location became a concern.
``He was out of sight,'' Wilcox said.
Flowers fired two emergency flares at the helicopter to pinpoint his position.
``The hardest part for me,'' said Belt, the crew chief, ``was to see my best friends out there, one popping off flares to signal a distress. We in the aircraft didn't know if he was . . . going under.''
Flowers said he had lost sight of the ship and the helicopter.
``The ship had drifted 50 to 100 yards away from me, with the aircraft 100 yards to the other side of the ship,'' Flowers said. ``I didn't know if they could see me.''
Both Flowers and the crew member eventually were brought aboard.
``We realized conditions were so bad that we'd never get them all off,'' Wilcox said. ``By then the ship had drifted to within 1,000 yards of shore.''
The helicopter crew dropped survival rafts, but Smith, who remained aboard the freighter, never saw them. Apparently they drifted to the bow and were shredded around an anchor chain.
With Smith talking on a portable radio to the helicopter crew, the decision was made to have the crew jump overboard and swim to shore. The ship was dragging its keel on the bottom and about to capsize, Wilcox said.
Smith sent the four best swimmers into the water first, then a second group of four.
The helicopter used its searchlight to lead the way to land.
The last two men couldn't swim.
Smith grabbed one around the chest and the other at the collar and began pulling them toward the beach.
``It was very difficult,'' Smith said. ``About 25 yards from shore the undertow would get you. The rip tides were so bad.''
Said Wilcox: ``He literally dragged the last two ashore.''
Once the 11 people were safely on land, the helicopter began its own race for survival, co-pilot Welch said.
Winds were nearly 60 mph, and fuel was getting critically low. Navigation aids such as Doppler radar had stopped working.
Another helicopter launch was attempted, Wilcox said, so that a road could be found for Smith and the others on the beach to travel to and be picked up. But the weather had worsened.
Using lights on shore, ``We picked our way along the coast,'' Wilcox said.
``Then all the lights went out. We couldn't tell for sure if we were over land or water.
``Then, suddenly, the lights came on again. Lt. Welsh said he could see the airport and we were setting up for an approach when the lights went out again.''
As the crew tried to get its bearings, not knowing if it could land, much less where, the lights at the civilian airport reappeared and stayed on long enough for them to set down.
They taxied off the runway, shut down the engines and tied the helicopter to the ground. By then they were in radio contact with the base and local police, who had begun a land search for the ship survivors and Smith.
``We actually found them about midnight after cutting through jungle, basically,'' Wilcox said.
The survivors, expecting to spend the night in the open, had begun making thatched covers from palm trees, Smith said.
``They all patted me on the back, talking to me,'' Smith said. ``I don't know what they said because they don't speak English.''
They were taken by police to a local hospital for observation and released. The helicopter crew spent the night at the civilian airport and returned to the base Wednesday morning.
``Each one of these guys at different points came up with great ideas about things to do,'' Wilcox said. ``For example, for Petty Officer Spees coming up with the idea of putting his IV bag on the rescue hoist. Petty Officer Belt came up with the idea of using our lamp to shine the light to shore to lead Petty Officer Smith and the 10 Dominicans to shore.
``Throughout the evolution every individual contributed and worked together as a team. That was the key to it. They kept their cool under pressure and did a super job.'' ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS
The crew, from left: Lt. Jason Welch, 27, a co-pilot; Petty Officer
2nd Class Michael Belt, 23, the crew chief; Petty Officer 2nd Class
Matthew Flowers, 27, a rescue swimmer; Petty Officer 3rd Class
Jeffrey Smith, 24, a rescue swimmer; Petty Officer 2nd Class David
Spees, 32, a hospital corpsman; and Cmdr. Bill Wilcox, skipper of
Fleet Composite Squadron 3. They rescued 11 crew members from a
sinking freighter off the coast of Puerto Rico on Tuesday, during
Hurricane Hortense.
Color map\VP
[Crewman rescued]
KEYWORDS: U.S. COAST GUARD RESCUE AT SEA HURRICANE HORTENSE by CNB