Steve Torpey

So I parked the car, went up to the operations center, and the commanding officer, Ted Lefevre, was also in the operations center.

And there were lots of other people there as well, all trying to figure out if our aircraft had just crashed.

And it turned out it was a mistake.

But as I'm standing there at the ops center desk, realizing there's something huge going on right now, and I'm just about to learn what's happening.

And it turned out that Alaska Airlines had misinterpreted one of our helicopter's statements on the radio that said they were making an approach to the water as if they were crashing in the water.

So once that got resolved, then they could start telling me and Captain Lefevre what was happening.

They started briefing us on the fact that we had launched the first helicopter and they were coming back.

The second helicopter had left a few minutes before I got there.

and was currently on scene and i was going to be the third helicopter and it was still a chance that i wouldn't go but i do remember putting my hands in my pockets because i didn't want my captain to see my hands shaking well i imagine the the adrenaline and just looking at the odds and and the situation must have been quite an ordeal to understand digest what's happening

When we learned that the first helicopter had been out there for three hours and was coming home because they couldn't affect the rescue, and the second helicopter was on scene trying, that told me right there that the conditions were something that none of us had really experienced before.

And very unusual, because we're all cut from the same cloth.

We all go through the same training.

We all have similar abilities.

And when you hear that one of...

your station mates, wasn't able to do something.

It makes you pause for a second and go, wow, what is it like out there?

Well, we had never launched all three helicopters at once at night.

And we only had two sets of night vision goggles.

So I had to wait, being the third aircraft, for the first aircraft to come back and give me their goggles.

And I remember getting into the aircraft and just waiting for them to arrive.