Steve Torpey

The only person that can see that is the flight mechanic.

So it took another level of communication between Fred and I to get the helicopter over the place that we needed in order to get the basket where it needed to be.

Yeah, that was an interesting realization.

I'm flying from Sitka to the location of the people in the water.

The second aircraft was flying from the location where the people are in the water back to the air station.

We are basically on the same flight path.

In Alaska, you get very comfortable being the only aircraft out there.

So when that alert in our aircraft went off that said there's another aircraft close by, it caught all of our attention and all of us went, what?

And then we realized it's the other aircraft, our own aircraft coming the opposite direction.

And I could see clearly their aircraft passing down my right side.

And that's when Dave Durham, the commander of that aircraft, started telling me what he just experienced.

Which wasn't good.

No, his voice was as shook up as I've ever heard.

He was one of my mentors.

He was one of the senior members of the air station.

and hearing how exhausted and tired and how concerned he was about me i'll never forget i mean he basically said it's pretty bad out there he said just be careful he knew what i was about to experience because he just did and he had to make one of the most difficult decisions anybody has to make as did the first aircraft is that they were going to run out of gas if they stayed any longer so they had to come home

And they had to leave knowing there's still people in the water.

Well, that was kind of the other odd realization.

120 miles due west is where the people were.

And that takes an hour because we fly 120 miles an hour, essentially.