WEBVTT - 2. The Search 0:00:02.640 --> 0:00:06.160 The True Gash Mountains ring Elmendorf Air Force Base. They 0:00:06.200 --> 0:00:09.400 begin at Anchorage and run for hundreds of miles, getting steeper, 0:00:09.680 --> 0:00:13.800 higher and glaciated. Between here and Juno. Search planes are 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:16.720 flying near the coast and old glaciers on the hopes 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:19.640 of the plane detoured from the flight path to sightsea. 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:22.480 The weather has been so bad that small planes have 0:00:22.520 --> 0:00:25.400 been limited in the areas they can search. Most of 0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:27.360 the searching has been done by the bigger air Force 0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:31.240 planes flying in twenty thousand feet very equipped with electronic 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:33.760 locator that may be able to pick up the beeps 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:37.600 from the locator beacon in the missing plane. One pilot 0:00:37.720 --> 0:00:40.000 was asked how the weather was in the search area. 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:45.279 Crowds are overcast, from about three thousand in areas up 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:48.599 to forty five hundred in other areas. Had terrible turbulence 0:00:48.680 --> 0:00:52.120 in some spots just absolutely turned the airplane upside down 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:56.280 to quite smooth another. So it's very unpredictable. Present plane 0:00:56.400 --> 0:01:01.520 leave Major Starker. The aircraft in question left anchorage or 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:04.120 twenty four hours ago. Have you heard anything at all 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:07.360 from it? No, we have not. We've had aircraft searching 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:09.800 during the last twenty four hours, and we failed to 0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:13.479 come up with any positive sightings or reports. At this time, 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:16.800 the flight plan was over five miles if you narrowed 0:01:16.880 --> 0:01:20.520 down at all. No, not yet. The aircraft hadn't reported 0:01:20.560 --> 0:01:23.880 into any station along the way. The last transmission was 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:28.200 shortly after taking off from Anchorage International. You don't feel 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:30.679 that your search effort so far has cut down the 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:34.640 areas you have left to search? No, not yet. Probably 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:38.480 what we've done through the night is an electronics search, 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:44.720 and they had a son emergency locator beacon onboard the aircraft, 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:50.920 and it hasn't as yet made any transmissions. Weather in 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:54.640 the search area has been bad, just continuing to be 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:57.800 bad and maybe a problem for the next couple of days. 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:07.640 From my Heart Media, this is Missing in Alaska, The 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:10.680 story of two congressmen who vanished in nineteen seventy two 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:13.400 and my quest to figure out what happened to them. 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:25.560 I'm your host, John Wallzac. Dawn broke on October seventeenth, 0:02:25.680 --> 0:02:29.160 nineteen seventy two, with much of southeast Alaska engulfed in 0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:33.080 a swirling tempest of snow and fog. Dozens of planes 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:35.840 and boats stood ready to search for Congressman Hilbogs and 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:39.200 Nick Baggage, who had vanished the day before somewhere between 0:02:39.240 --> 0:02:43.080 Anchorage and Juno. If only the weather would clear. Terry 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:45.640 Holiday was a pilot based in the small town of 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:48.480 Cordova on Prince William Sound, and the next day when 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:52.840 the search began, we didn't. I was the first responder 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:56.880 from the Cordova side, and I only got halfway across 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:59.040 the sound before I run into a wall of snow 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:01.960 and I just kept working in my way or drittier 0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:05.120 as a state trooper with me. You know. It was 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:09.240 in a beaver and floats and which give me an 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:13.000 optional landing about it anywhere. But it was snow and 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:17.079 really hard. The water was white covered with with snow 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:20.840 on top of the salt water was not nice, as 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:23.639 snow hampered much of the search effort. Attention turned to 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:26.639 hundreds of tips that flowed in from the public, including 0:03:26.720 --> 0:03:31.280 one in particular which intrigued Air Force officials. Overnight in 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:34.960 the tiny town of Nevada City, California, thousands of miles 0:03:34.960 --> 0:03:37.760 to the south, a man named Roy Harris had picked 0:03:37.800 --> 0:03:41.080 up a frantic transmission on his ham radio, just playing 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:46.200 column for May Day, and they were over water, but 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:49.240 they were close to land. He was trying to get 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:53.800 as close to land as he could. Evidently engine problems 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:57.400 or something. Was that my understanding what was repeated to 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:01.520 me from that's former Nevada City Police Chief James Moon, 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:04.080 who took reports from several local men who heard a 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:07.440 garbled transmission of a pilot begging for help. They notified 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:10.440 the of what they heard of the plane going down. 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:15.920 Said they were close some islander or landing him and 0:04:16.080 --> 0:04:19.880 they were going down, and they kind of give a 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:23.640 description of where I thought they were. And I notified 0:04:23.760 --> 0:04:29.480 the Shakramonal psoration and they came. I shut up a 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:32.240 beating between them and the HAM operators, and they took 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:37.920 a report. The last time, new Woman Moon spoke with 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:41.880 Al Miller, a HAM operator and retired painting contractor, who 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:46.320 heard the pilot say frantically, this is Alaska mobile needing assistance. 0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:49.919 The pilot told Miller he was twelve miles southwest of Juneo, 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:53.559 battling seventy mile hour headwinds and had only eight minutes 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:57.039 of gas left. He said he was flying Assessment three ten, 0:04:57.400 --> 0:04:59.880 the same model as the missing plane, and that he 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:02.560 had landed earlier in the day at a remote airstrip 0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:05.520 to ride out bad weather before taking off once more 0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:09.680 for Juno. The pilot broadcasts tail number, but the transmission 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:13.680 was garbled. Miller heard in a one and a two. 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:16.640 Then oh my god, we're going to hit the rocks. 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:19.440 I'm out of gas. I'm heading down. This is it. 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:27.800 A few minutes later, the pilot told Miller that the 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:31.520 plane had crashed near Juno. Then one final transmission in 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:36.440 morse code, we need help. Everyone was injured but alive. 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:41.040 In addition to Harrison Miller, at least three and possibly 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:44.360 four other men heard the transmission. But were they telling 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:47.720 the truth? Chief Moon believed them, so too did Air 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:50.400 Force Major George Eldridge, who spoke with one of them 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:52.880 by phone. The Air Force decided to fly them to 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:57.200 Alaska after interviewing them in person. Major Henry Stocker, the 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:01.280 search commander, spoke to the press saying that transmission was real, 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:04.560 but that the person who broadcast it was likely a hoaxer, 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:08.839 a quote sadistic person. For years, I tried to find 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:12.240 the Ham operators to have died, and I can't locate 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:19.440 the other. Four national accounts of the mysterious transmission mainly 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:23.880 quoted Al Miller, the retired painting contractor, past that there's 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:26.320 not much to go on. I filed a Freedom of 0:06:26.360 --> 0:06:29.279 information after requests with the Air Force, but didn't find 0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:32.680 many new details. But late last year I got some help. 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:36.880 Tracy Liloquist, a Nevada City librarian, dug up an article 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:40.200 that ran in the local paper, The Union, in nineteen two, 0:06:40.520 --> 0:06:44.080 which quoted Roy Harris, another of the Ham operators, that 0:06:44.200 --> 0:06:48.320 allowed me to compare Harrison Miller's contemporaneous accounts to look 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:53.200 for inconsistencies. I only found two. First, Miller heard the 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:55.760 pilot say he had only eight minutes of gas left, 0:06:56.040 --> 0:07:00.560 Harris heard fourteen. As for the garbled tail number, Miller 0:07:00.640 --> 0:07:04.760 heard n A one and A two, Harris heard n 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:09.279 C twelve. Otherwise, their stories line up. In the Union article, 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:12.240 Harris was also quoted as saying that the operators had 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:14.560 beamed in on the signal and that it was coming 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:18.160 from the direction of Juno. To me, though, what's most 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:21.400 interesting is what Miller heard of the tail number. Remember 0:07:21.480 --> 0:07:24.080 this was the night the congressman vanished, before their tail 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:27.600 number had been widely shared. Again, Miller heard what sounded 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:31.400 like N A one A two. The tail number of 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:35.680 the missing plane was N one eight one to H 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:47.240 seventy two hours after the plane vanished, searchers finally caught 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:50.840 a break in southern Alaska. Today, the search continued for 0:07:51.040 --> 0:07:54.480 House Democratic leader Hail Bogs and three other men. Weather 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:58.000 conditions in the area were greatly improved. The four men 0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:00.440 were in a light plane which disappeared on Monday on 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:03.760 a flight from Anchorage to Juneo. The search now centers 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:09.400 around port Portage Pass, southeast of Anchorage. The sky turned 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:13.040 blue around Anchorage, Alaska, and suddenly it was possible to 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:17.240 see what storm and fog could so treacherously masked the 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:22.120 Portage Pass. Now the rescue teams could effectively scan the 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:25.240 most likely area of the accident from the air of 0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:39.720 the weather clares up there anywhere along the Alpine troops 0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:44.400 began reconnaissance missions into the ice and snowbound areas and 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:48.120 onto the ice of the Portage Glacier itself. At the 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:53.360 Air Forces Rescue Coordination Center, which has saved lives in 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:56.920 a ten year period. Already, every effort that might help 0:08:57.040 --> 0:09:00.400 find and save the four missing men was orchis s trading. 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:05.120 We're looking for fires either survival fires, camp fires or 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:10.400 emergency signal fiers, anything that may indicate where the aircraft is. Uh. 0:09:10.520 --> 0:09:13.520 They are coming back now. It is now a daylight 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:17.520 and they have returned, and they have nothing to record 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:21.640 as yet. Congressman Boggs's tragedy was an old story to Alaska's. 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:27.640 This was the rescue mission just this year. The Air 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:30.719 Force was well aware that intense attention was focused on 0:09:31.040 --> 0:09:36.079 its rescue operations. The most involved spectator of all was 0:09:36.360 --> 0:09:40.080 Mrs Hale Boggs, who drove out to the Portage Glacier 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:43.800 to see for herself the dreadful force of nature which 0:09:43.840 --> 0:09:48.120 seemed to have claimed her husband. The chances seemed slim, 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:52.120 but Mrs Boggs said she still believed her husband would 0:09:52.200 --> 0:10:18.319 be found. Shortly before Lindy Boggs flew to Anchorage, she 0:10:18.440 --> 0:10:21.960 had received a call from President Next Time, Mrs Box, 0:10:23.080 --> 0:10:34.160 the wife of the Majority leader. Hello, Mrs Box, I 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:36.240 know this is a very hard time for you and 0:10:36.320 --> 0:10:38.440 your family, but I wanted you to know that Mrs 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:41.000 Lex and I are thinking about your and we're just 0:10:41.160 --> 0:10:44.040 braying that out in that snow. They're gonna they're gonna 0:10:44.120 --> 0:10:50.480 find him. Work around up there yeah. Well, we were, 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:53.760 as you know, doing everything we can. The government said 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:55.680 not the week that we can do it. But there 0:10:55.880 --> 0:11:01.679 every search plane is on and uh. But but you 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:04.800 just keep your faith. Okay, you get my best to 0:11:04.920 --> 0:11:11.080 you those wonderful children. Thank you, grandchildren two okay, okay, 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:21.200 thank you. Nixon also called Peggy Beggett. Hello, Mrs Bigitch. 0:11:21.640 --> 0:11:24.640 She is the wife of the congressman from Alaska who 0:11:24.800 --> 0:11:36.400 is missing. Hello. I wanted you to know I talked 0:11:36.440 --> 0:11:40.000 to Mrs Box earlier today that Mrs Nixon and I 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:43.120 were are thinking of you and just talking for the 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:48.079 best on your trip. That's uh. It was a terrible 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:49.839 shop to all of us to read about it. And 0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:53.400 would you to your six children to that that we 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:57.719 called from us. I know it's a tough time for you, 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:07.360 but you know, just keep the faith. The best in Alaska. 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:10.640 A reporter asked Major Stalker, the search commander, if he 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:14.840 had enough manpower and aircraft. We have more than enough 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:17.679 to do the mission. We have ten h C one 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:23.040 thirties various configurations. They're all search qualified aircraft. We have 0:12:23.240 --> 0:12:25.800 enough cruise. We have the C A P with an 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:30.000 abundance resource of light aircraft. We have helicopters, we have 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:33.559 post guard. We even have a post guard cutter available 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:36.360 to us. We have the forces necessary to do the mission. 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:39.920 The search initially focused on Portage Pass, a narrow gap 0:12:40.040 --> 0:12:44.960 through towering, snow covered mountains just fifty miles southeast of Anchorage. Okay, 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:47.880 I mean a little portage Pass. I can't tell you. 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:51.520 I can't tell you how many airplane crashes we've had 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:53.800 in Portage Pass. I can't tell you how many friends 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:57.120 I've lost in Portage Pass. Definitely it looks very benign. 0:12:57.720 --> 0:12:59.640 But what happens is, you know, you fly to the 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:02.600 end of turning an arm out of Anchorage and then 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:06.520 you're gonna pop over Portage Pass into the Sound, and 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:09.280 that thing gets sucked in with fog and it's just 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:13.439 like flying into the black hole. Teresa Gerson, who we 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:16.000 heard from an episode one, has been a flight attendant 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:19.839 for nearly thirty years. In nine she was a young 0:13:19.960 --> 0:13:23.240 volunteer for the Civil Air Patrol. So in our state 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:28.880 of extreme weather conditions, extreme weather conditions, which is something 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:32.800 I need to talk about, is that in leaving Anchorage 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:37.080 to fly to Juno, you fly past the largest ice 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:43.400 field and and what happens is that the wind just 0:13:44.720 --> 0:13:48.840 roars down the glacier when we say, oh my goodness, 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:54.240 it's gustin on the hill today. Most places that would 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:57.839 be a hurricane or something. Here it's just a big wind. 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:02.800 So with no in the knowing the route from Anchorage 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:06.760 to June one, flying past this huge glacier with which 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:11.480 makes its own weather, you can only imagine what they 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:14.520 might have run into. The missing plane was supposed to 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:18.520 follow a specific route V three one seven, which would 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:21.840 have taken it through Portage Pass, over Prince william Sound 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:25.720 and onto Juno. It's hard to fully grasp the vast 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:29.440 beauty of Prince Williams Sound and the Fiords, mountains, glaciers 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:32.160 and islands that fill it in surround it without looking 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:34.840 at a map. So maybe pause for a minute and 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:37.320 pull it up on your phone, and while you're at it, 0:14:37.440 --> 0:14:41.320 also look up Portage Pass. On the morning of October six, 0:14:41.840 --> 0:14:44.480 Donald Mellish, who had hosted a fundraiser for the congressman 0:14:44.520 --> 0:14:47.480 the night before, was driving with his two sons on 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:50.360 his way to the Kenai Peninsula to go canoeing when 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:53.080 he spotted a dark veil on the horizon. As we 0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:57.760 had then we dry right sorge that portage pass, and 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:02.680 I could disturble ends along this ang along the water. 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:08.280 They're cotinely, there's terrible winds, and they're just a boiling 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:12.360 black mass in this sportage pass. And I thought to myself, already, 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:16.760 tell you know, they probably didn't fly that day, but 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:19.720 they did. And anyway, I still remember that because I 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:22.360 had to get out for the far every f R 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:25.240 check by loads and make sure I didn't blow the 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:28.280 can off the top of the bar, just falling that 0:15:28.400 --> 0:15:32.800 hard that morning. Only twenty minutes before the congressman took off, 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:36.000 an Air Force helicopter had abandoned an attempt to cut 0:15:36.080 --> 0:15:41.840 through the pass after encountering severe turbulence. In November, curious 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:44.480 to see the pass for myself, I flew to Anchorage 0:15:44.520 --> 0:15:47.360 and chartered a small plane. At the time, I only 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:57.400 had my crappy phone to record some audio from the air. 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:01.640 On a clear sunny day, the passing surrounding mountains are stunning, 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:14.000 so I see it wow, emerging from the past. I 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:17.360 looked below and spotted the tiny town of Whittier, nestled 0:16:17.400 --> 0:16:20.880 between mountains and sea. A day later, wanting to see 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:23.560 the pass from the ground too. I parted a trailhead 0:16:23.600 --> 0:16:27.680 near Whittier and hiked into the mountains alone. Today is 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:36.560 November six, and I'm standing right Portage Pass in Alaska, 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:42.720 about fifty miles southeast of Anchorage. I had all the 0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:45.960 way up here and saw footsteps in the snow part 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:48.760 of the way, and now I don't see anything. I 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:50.520 don't think anybody has been up here in a little while. 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:55.880 It's twenty one degrees and I haven't seen anybody since 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:59.960 I got here. The passes book ended on one side 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:03.000 by mountains and a massive glacier, and on the other 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:06.440 by Prince William Sound. Between the sound and the past 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:11.720 sits Whittier, population two five, A town accustomed to raging storms. 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:16.920 Whittier has fierce weather, and I really mean fierce, and 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:21.680 snow so hard that I've several times I've seen the 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:25.000 geese had to land because they couldn't get through the 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:29.560 pass either. They were sitting on every light post, every 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:37.560 every place, tree, how cars, everything else, and the snowflakes 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:41.960 will be as big as my hands, sometimes just waffling down. 0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:46.080 Dorothea Taylor, a retired teacher, lived in Whittier for several 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:49.119 years In the nineteen six seas and seventies, and the 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:53.160 mounds are high on each all around. Then they're glaciated. Well, 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:58.280 that win comes pitching in there from either side. That 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:02.200 will come bow like crazy from the ocean side for 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:05.720 a long time, and then uh, it will get just 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:09.160 as much forth coming through the path and it keeps 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:12.960 doing that trying to equal wife. That's pressure. So yeah, 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:16.159 they have big storms, they have big snows, they have 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:19.840 lots of rain. But when it's a beautiful day, that 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:23.560 is the most beautiful place you ever saw. At ninety 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:27.840 four years old, Taylor is a fearless woman. In At 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:31.199 the age of eighty six, she garnered international attention when 0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:34.080 she saved her husband from a rampaging moose, hitting it 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:37.520 with a shovel until it ran off. In nineteen seventy two, 0:18:37.920 --> 0:18:40.560 right after the congressman disappeared, she led a group of 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:43.119 her students into the surrounding mountains to look for the 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:46.520 missing plane. We regressed appropriately and we went out and 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:49.720 then started taking up the mountain and we had then 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:54.280 acts and lunch, whatever you need, and then we got 0:18:54.359 --> 0:18:57.480 fogged in up there. Yes, we were up there for 0:18:57.760 --> 0:19:01.440 probably an hour just sitting in place. I said, don't 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:05.840 anybody moved, Just stay right where you are and we'll 0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:09.359 just talk and that. But we will move until the 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:13.600 fog starts to go. About an hour later, it started 0:19:13.640 --> 0:19:16.560 to move out, but it was so thick you couldn't 0:19:16.560 --> 0:19:20.520 see anything there for that hour we were we were 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:23.200 quite a ways up. It was very steep up there, 0:19:24.560 --> 0:19:28.359 and uh, the kids did very well, and we looked 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:31.640 and then they cleared up and we could use our 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:35.840 binoculars and and they're pretty good at looking for things 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:39.560 when they live out in the bush like that, but 0:19:39.920 --> 0:19:43.600 we never did see anything. As Taylor and our students 0:19:43.600 --> 0:19:47.040 start supportage path on foot, Angus Lynn, a reporter who 0:19:47.080 --> 0:19:49.399 had flown in from New Orleans, was high above in 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:52.919 a military plane. I hooked up with the Alaskan Air Command. 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:54.840 They said, yeah, we can take you up tomorrow morn. 0:19:55.320 --> 0:19:58.479 I said, great, So I got on. Asked the captaine, 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:00.159 I said, how long are we going to be up? 0:20:00.200 --> 0:20:02.639 He says, well, we got enough fuel for eight hours? 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:07.320 And I'm thinking, oh, ship eight hours an airplane. We 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:10.240 weren't up eight, but we were up maybe six and 0:20:10.280 --> 0:20:12.920 a half or something like. That's a long flight, you know. 0:20:13.240 --> 0:20:17.040 And uh, he said don't worry. There's plenty of there's 0:20:17.080 --> 0:20:20.040 plenty of barth bags on board. Because what it is, 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:23.720 it's a it's a visual search. So you'd be you'd 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:27.200 fly up. I mean you're literally doing this. You're flying 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:29.800 up the side of a mountain and down the side 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:32.680 of a mountain, you know, into a pass, maybe a 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:36.159 glacial pass, and then back up and you just repeat it. 0:20:36.920 --> 0:20:40.680 As I remember, John, they were assigned areas to go search, 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:44.480 and I mean that was all drawn out on maps 0:20:44.600 --> 0:20:47.960 before they took off. Here's where you're searching today. So 0:20:48.520 --> 0:20:50.600 it's not like they just took off on a goose chase, 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:53.080 you know, saying we're gonna go take a look at Hey, 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:55.399 why don't we go over there. It's not like jumping 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:57.639 from fishing spot to fishing spot, you know, when you 0:20:57.840 --> 0:21:01.359 you're in a boat. But Lynde got back to Anchorage. 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:03.960 He went to a library to do some background research. 0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:07.000 I said, look, I'm I'm interested in you know the 0:21:07.160 --> 0:21:10.600 history of this. Uh you know the bush pilots and 0:21:11.240 --> 0:21:14.760 plane wrex and you know private plane b sinces. Okay, 0:21:14.840 --> 0:21:17.680 I can put you something together, I said, Okay. So 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:19.800 when I showed up at the library, there was like 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:22.399 a you know when these fold out tables that the 0:21:22.440 --> 0:21:24.840 guy had set up for me and it was loaded 0:21:25.359 --> 0:21:32.840 with loosely you know, scrap books like this loaded. He said, 0:21:33.480 --> 0:21:36.240 this is for twenty years. He said, this is only 0:21:36.359 --> 0:21:39.920 for twenty years. And I mean I was mind boggled. 0:21:40.119 --> 0:21:43.280 I couldn't have gone through that in a week. That's 0:21:43.320 --> 0:21:47.359 how many planes had disappeared, and how many stories have 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:49.880 been written, and how many search not for a high 0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:54.920 profile figure like uh like Bogs and Beggae, but just 0:21:55.080 --> 0:21:59.160 bush pilots that had disappeared. Unlike lynd Alan Dodds, Frank, 0:21:59.280 --> 0:22:02.080 a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News, was well versed 0:22:02.119 --> 0:22:05.560 in covering aviation disasters. That the one thing you really 0:22:05.640 --> 0:22:07.680 learned as a reporter in Alaska's how to cover a 0:22:07.760 --> 0:22:12.240 plane crash. So not long after I got there, a 0:22:12.400 --> 0:22:16.280 troop plane chartered I think it was a Flying Tiger 0:22:16.400 --> 0:22:19.720 charter carrying troops to Vietnam, crashed at the end of 0:22:19.760 --> 0:22:25.160 the Anchorage, Alaska International Airport runway, and I think forty 0:22:25.280 --> 0:22:28.800 nine people died. We were burnt up in the crash 0:22:29.359 --> 0:22:31.600 because the plane was fully loaded with fuel and caught 0:22:31.680 --> 0:22:33.920 fire when it hit something at the end of the 0:22:34.000 --> 0:22:38.600 runway because it didn't get up in time. So covering 0:22:38.640 --> 0:22:42.240 a plane crash was a big deal in Alaska. And 0:22:43.240 --> 0:22:46.240 and so you when you covered that first crash, were 0:22:46.320 --> 0:22:48.680 you there on the scene right after it went down? 0:22:49.560 --> 0:22:53.000 I not only was I on the scene, I I 0:22:53.119 --> 0:22:56.400 had been out. A bunch of us have been out. 0:22:56.560 --> 0:22:59.959 One of our, my colleagues was sitting in the Captain 0:23:00.080 --> 0:23:03.479 Cook Hotel Crowsness Bar and sort of saw the crash 0:23:04.240 --> 0:23:07.720 from the bar, which is the highest point in Anchorage 0:23:07.720 --> 0:23:10.879 at the time, and so we all scrambled out to 0:23:10.880 --> 0:23:12.879 the airport. I remember going out there was that there 0:23:12.960 --> 0:23:17.600 was a snowstorm, and I was wearing wolfers, which turned 0:23:17.600 --> 0:23:21.399 out to be nuts because I ended up getting minor 0:23:21.520 --> 0:23:28.760 frost bite. And I remember pacing off in my wafers 0:23:28.800 --> 0:23:34.400 and about a foot of snow or more, um how 0:23:34.520 --> 0:23:38.640 far off the runway the plane had gone before it stopped, 0:23:39.320 --> 0:23:42.800 and it was like a half a mile. I was 0:23:42.840 --> 0:23:44.879 putting one ft in front of the other, you know, 0:23:45.040 --> 0:23:48.200 to measure it exactly. And then I remember going into 0:23:48.240 --> 0:23:53.359 the hangar and counting the bodies. There were like once 0:23:53.400 --> 0:23:56.080 of charcoal was shrunk and combat boots on it. Was 0:23:56.119 --> 0:24:05.200 really grim and smells horrible. That experience stayed with Dodds 0:24:05.240 --> 0:24:08.680 Frank for decades, especially as he covered nine eleven for CNN, 0:24:09.040 --> 0:24:11.480 only blocks from the World Trade Center when it collapsed 0:24:12.080 --> 0:24:15.160 in nineteen seventy two. It had been his tenacious reporting 0:24:15.240 --> 0:24:17.680 to help shape the search for Box and Baggetts. Or 0:24:18.000 --> 0:24:21.600 the search the first day was in part based on 0:24:21.720 --> 0:24:25.720 my reporting because I figured I calculated what the flight 0:24:25.800 --> 0:24:29.760 pattern was, but it should have been to Juno and 0:24:31.440 --> 0:24:35.320 called every place on the ground along the way, and 0:24:35.480 --> 0:24:38.600 one of them was a little town called Whittier, Alaska, 0:24:38.720 --> 0:24:41.720 which is on the on the sea, I mean in 0:24:41.840 --> 0:24:45.520 the inland passage. But it's one big building that was 0:24:45.560 --> 0:24:48.480 a secret building during World War Two. So there's a 0:24:48.920 --> 0:24:51.040 in the middle of nowhere in the fiord there is 0:24:51.040 --> 0:24:54.919 a twelve story building that was hidden from Japanese forces. 0:24:55.000 --> 0:24:58.159 I guess to this day about half the population of 0:24:58.200 --> 0:25:00.920 Whittier still lives in a single build holding now called 0:25:00.960 --> 0:25:04.920 the Beggatts Towers. The morning the Congressman vanished, several local 0:25:05.000 --> 0:25:08.160 residents heard a plane flying overhead. According to Dodds Frank, 0:25:08.920 --> 0:25:12.480 if true, that's an important clue. No other flight passed 0:25:12.520 --> 0:25:15.119 over Whittier around that time, it would mean that the 0:25:15.200 --> 0:25:18.680 missing plane made it through Portage Pass Pass Whittier and 0:25:18.760 --> 0:25:25.919 Honor Prince William Sound. The search shifted from the Pass 0:25:26.119 --> 0:25:28.520 to the sound. So I went out in this glass 0:25:29.600 --> 0:25:33.560 those planes, which was an observer plane that used to 0:25:33.640 --> 0:25:35.680 be used during the war, and flo was really low, 0:25:36.760 --> 0:25:41.440 like fifty ft above the water depending on where you're 0:25:41.480 --> 0:25:45.080 looking with the visibility is looking for debris. And what 0:25:45.280 --> 0:25:46.840 was it like for you to be on that plane 0:25:46.920 --> 0:25:52.240 over the sound? It was It was really dramatic, and 0:25:52.320 --> 0:25:55.639 it gave me a real feel for what it is 0:25:55.760 --> 0:26:00.639 like during wartime when you're hunting an enemy from not 0:26:00.840 --> 0:26:04.679 far off the ground and flying as slow as you can, 0:26:04.760 --> 0:26:08.920 but that's still a hundred twenty miles undred, so you 0:26:09.040 --> 0:26:13.960 cover a lot of territory and you can actually see 0:26:14.000 --> 0:26:15.639 all kinds of things. I mean, you can see a 0:26:15.880 --> 0:26:19.159 a soda can floating in the water at that speed 0:26:19.240 --> 0:26:23.359 and height. So it was a pretty thorough search. I 0:26:23.600 --> 0:26:26.320 don't have any doubts that they were. The government did 0:26:26.560 --> 0:26:29.480 everything it could to try to find him. Jim Shook, 0:26:29.640 --> 0:26:32.800 an Alaska state trooper, was also searching the sound by 0:26:32.920 --> 0:26:36.560 air well. We were in the departments woman goose, and 0:26:36.840 --> 0:26:39.879