Steve Torpey

He is the CO, the commanding officer of the air station.

Very unusual that we would have to call in the commanding officer to come fly, but we were out of pilots.

So it was the captain and myself.

So in Alaska, the two seats matter.

The person in the right seat does the hoisting because that's the hoist is on the right side of the helicopter.

The person in the left seat does the navigation.

Navigation is where Alaska

demands the most of pilots.

It is very difficult to navigate in Alaska.

You cannot be wrong.

If you're wrong, you'll hit a mountain and you'll die.

So the left seat is very important.

And typically the more experienced pilot would sit in the left seat because it's assumed that the person in the right seat would be perfectly capable of hoisting under any normal circumstances.

But this case was different.

I knew it right away.

And I was walking out to the aircraft.

I

I remember seeing the captain get into the right seat.

And the right seat is where he traditionally had flown.

He's new to the air station and didn't have a lot of experience in that aircraft.