Mike Corey (Host)

There's so much rain, snow, and sea spray hitting the windshield that it's rendering them useless.

It's about 12.25 a.m., 40 minutes since Lefevre and his team took off from Sitka Air Station in the third helicopter.

They're over fair weather ground, trying to home in on the EPIRB signal, but it's slow going.

After overshooting the signal, pilot Steve Torpey is now trying to fly towards it through a brutal crosswind.

Each gust shoves their 7-ton Jayhawk helicopter sideways like a child's toy.

Torpy's also having trouble keeping the helicopter's nose from pitching down.

Each time it does, they lose altitude, which sets off an alarm warning that they're getting too close to the ocean's surface.

Torpy yanks on the Collective, a lever that controls the helicopter's altitude.

until the alarm stops.

Meanwhile, with his other hand, he grabs a stick called a cyclic, which he uses to steer.

He jerks the cyclic hard to one side as another gust tries to blow the Jayhawk off course.

The altitude alarm blares again, and Torpy snaps.

Captain, sorry, I just... It's okay, Steve.

Yeah, I can watch our altimeter and let you know if we're getting too low.

Lefevre switches off the alarm and thinks.

Torpy is one of his best pilots, but they're not even over the survivors yet.

And Torpy's already what the military calls task-saturated.

They need to figure out a way to make his life easier.

Then he remembers something another pilot once told him, a trick for flying in conditions like these.

How do you feel about trying something that's not in the training manual?