It was a typical flight in the 1990s. I hopped into the unmarked Cessna 185 of the Alaska Department of Public Safety, equipped with straight floats. Taking off from Hangar Lake in Bethel, I headed north towards the Yukon River beneath overcast August skies. The only cargo for this journey was an outboard boat motor for the Saint Mary’s Post’s Boston Whaler. That morning, I filled both tanks with av gas. With 300 horsepower beneath the red and white cowl, no special technique was needed to break free from the relatively short waterway. It being my morning off, I chose to skip the uniform and wore jeans and a chamois shirt, which were much more suitable for handling a heavy and greasy engine in and out of the seaplane.
My old friend Trooper Dave Aspelund met me on a muddy shore in front of Saint Mary’s. After a tough struggle with the Johnson to get it out of the plane and onto the beach, Dave and I began catching up on family and local events when his portable radio crackled. Saint Mary’s second Trooper requested a one-way “ticket” to haul a prisoner back to Bethel. “No problem,” I replied, as it was part of the job. A few minutes later, the Trooper led a rather large Alaska Native man down the river bank. It turned out that the prisoner had caused chaos in the village the night before but was now sober enough to be transported to the Yukon Kuskokwim Correctional Center in Bethel.
Introducing myself, I asked my new traveling companion his name. “Henry,” he grunted. That was the only word I would hear from my passenger for the remainder of the trip. From my observations, some villagers were reserved – except when speaking to another villager in their native language – while others deeply disliked law enforcement. Village residents were accustomed to traveling by small plane as it was the easiest way to reach Bethel – the hub for 54 villages in the area – and there were no roads across the tundra. Henry climbed into the right rear seat of the Cessna without hesitation and didn’t seem to mind being shackled with his handcuffs to a cable on the floor. He was certainly much more polite than he must have been the night before, with a bloodstream full of home-brew and a semi-automatic rifle in his arms. This should be an easy ride, I thought.
The takeoff run seemed a bit longer than usual, but everything else appeared normal as the 185 soared into the sky from the murky Yukon River with the large EDO 3430 floats. It was during the usual flyover to wave goodbye to my fellow Troopers that the first sign of a problem emerged. “Hey, Mike, is water supposed to be gushing out of the float?” Dave’s pointed question on the police radio prompted another pass, this time much lower.
“It appears there’s a rip, about a foot long, on the bottom of the right float. Must be from the bulldozer.” Bulldozer? I thought I would have noticed one, but before I could ask, Trooper Dave added: “After the military built the airport, they dumped some equipment in the river, including a bulldozer. Maybe you hit some scrap.”
Here was the predicament: We were loaded with fuel, a large passenger, and there was a sizeable, jagged tear in the bottom of a float. The main concern was that the protruding aluminum could dig into the water surface on landing, resulting in a situation similar to an amphibious landing with the wheels down. If the plane flipped, not only would I have to get myself out quickly, but there was also a shackled prisoner in the back to worry about.
The two most crucial things to consider were where to land and how to land. The landing spot needed to be where I could get assistance, and the method needed to prevent us from skidding across the water.
If this incident had occurred later in my flying career with more hours logged, I might have contemplated landing on the grass next to the Bethel Airport’s short runway. Even on a hard surface, the 185 would most likely have remained upright, and emergency crews could have responded easily, but back then, I was only thinking of liquid runways.
Options for water landings included the lake I’d taken off from that morning, but the shoreline was swampy, and it was a long and bumpy road – not ideal for rescuers. The river landing area in front of town was rough with a fast current, perhaps an even worse choice. The focus narrowed to a small pond at the approach end of the main runway at the Bethel airport, which featured a gravel ramp. Named H-Marker Lake, its small size made it best suited for Cub-type seaplanes. I did the calculations in my head, and it could work, but only if the approach and landing were precise. Since the weather was good with visual flight rules (VFR), I had ample time to circle for both planning and to burn fuel from the right tank.
Fortunately, the 185 had a high-tech feature for those times – an in-panel “telephone” that used the federal government’s system of HF repeaters strategically placed on mountaintops across much of Alaska. Even though it was a Saturday and the only maintenance shop on the airfield was closed, I made the call. Luckily, the owner, Rob, answered. My question was straightforward: “Do you have a flatbed trailer?” It turned out that Rob had an empty, extra-wide snow machine trailer in his hangar and offered to tow it to the lake. Since this was before cellphones, we agreed to communicate on an aircraft frequency for the rest of this adventure.
Flying in a large pattern for over an hour at full power and full rich, I burned fuel to lighten the right side of the plane as much as possible. Henry remained silent, gazing over the tundra as a smell of alcohol, fish, woodsmoke and sweat drifted from the back to the front of the cabin. The Bethel tower operator provided plenty of space to maneuver over the approach zone to prepare for landing on the pond, so several turns were made over the small patch of water. The smooth line on the shore gave me a good indication of the wind, which was confirmed by the airport’s automatic weather report to be about 10 knots from the north – the most favorable direction one could hope for, as it lined me up for the ramp.
Quickly responding to my radio call, Rob had parked his truck with the trailer by the ramp. Our aerial circuits had given us plenty of time to devise a wild plan, and now I needed to drag the mechanic into it. Since the ramp was steep and the rip was in the center of the float, there would be a problem if I simply made a normal water landing and hoped to taxi onto it. If it didn’t flip, the plane would likely sink to the right side once the power was cut. “Rob, could you back the trailer into the water so I can drive onto it?”
Lowering the wide trailer into the murky water so that only the truck end of the deck was visible, Rob didn’t question my transmission or the concept, as he must have understood what I was planning. Smartly, he then abandoned the truck for safer ground above the lake to join the crowd that had now gathered and was most likely placing bets on the outcome of this little airshow. Enough time had been wasted on planning; it was time to land.
“Buckle in, brace for impact, and be ready to get out of the right door,” I shouted to my passenger as I unlocked his handcuffs, freeing him from crouching over the seat. Next, I directed him to the seat behind me to further lighten the right side. With a poker face, Henry nodded and slid behind me as the prelanding checklist was completed.
Like any short lake landing, the aim is to touch down as close to the shore as possible, but this one had to be a little different – instead of immediately cutting the power and lowering the flaps and stopping quickly, I needed to keep on the step. The trick was that the step could only be on the left float, as the right float needed to be kept out of the water. Landings on the short and narrow tundra village strips had provided some additional experience in crosswind landings, so I had a decent feel for keeping a wing low on landing, but this would take it to another level, especially since there was no crosswind.
With permission from the Bethel tower, I made a low approach next to the main runway to line up for the lake, and after a final prelanding check, I prepared for what was similar to a smooth water approach. As I guided the Skywagon over the tundra, the pond looked small, really, really small. I set the nose slightly above the horizon, dipped the left wing, and gently added power as needed for a smooth touchdown. It felt like I was moving in slow motion as the last bump in the brown tundra disappeared beneath my float. I reduced the power. As the left float made contact, a little throttle was added back to not only stay on the left float’s step but also to keep the right float from touching the water. All my focus was on the trailer – the timing had to be perfect. If I cut the power too soon, the right float would drop and catch the water surface. If the power wasn’t pulled back soon enough, we might end up overrunning the trailer and crashing into the parking area.
I’m not a genius seaplane pilot, not even close, but that was my lucky day. My water-run must have looked strange from the shore, with the right float doing a “wheelie” and the engine roaring.
Fortunately, I cut the power at precisely the right moment, allowing the floats to slide onto the trailer just as the right float dropped, resulting in a sudden stop like from the arresting gear on an aircraft carrier. After all systems were shut off, mechanic Rob, accompanied by a Bethel Trooper, jumped onto the trailer and tied the floats down.
“That worked out well,” Rob said.
“Why didn’t you use the big lake?” The non-pilot, uninformed Trooper wasn’t impressed with my landing.
Shrugging off both comments, I led my prisoner to the waiting Trooper truck for his short road trip to the jail facility. After helping him into his seat, Henry finally spoke: “Trooper, when I get out of jail, I don’t want to ride back to the village with you!”
Henry must have assumed that was the standard water landing procedure for me, unaware of our little emergency. I didn’t correct him, as now he had something to talk about with other villagers during his extended stay in the correctional facility.
A lesson from this story is that seaplane pilots can reduce the risk of a similar incident by thoroughly inspecting the operational area they will be using. In this case, a flyover to preview the beaching area wouldn’t have helped, as the Yukon is full of milky silt, which does a great job of hiding what lies beneath the surface. However, asking the right questions of the locals – in this case, Trooper Dave – would have made me choose a better beaching area to avoid damage to the floats and a potential disaster. Of course, then Henry would have had a less exciting day in the bush and a more mundane stay in jail.
