35 Miles from Shore (11 page)

In March of 1970, three months into his second Caribbean cruise, John Barber was promoted to CH-46 crew chief. His helicopter was EM-13; each crew chief was assigned a specific helicopter.

John took his new position seriously. The crew chief was an integral part of the crew. It was his job to ready the helicopter before each flight. After a quick break on the
Guadalcanal
, John prepared the helicopter for an afternoon of flying. He began with a walk-around inspection of EM-13. He then stepped inside and fired up the auxiliary power plant to check the fuel and hydraulics. He looked out through a thick haze toward Vieques Island. EM-13 and three other CH-46s were scheduled to fly shuttle flights to Vieques, bringing troops back from Camp Garcia to the ship. The
Guadalcanal
was planning to leave for San Juan on Monday. It would take several days of what the pilots referred to as “troop back-loading” to get all the marines back on ship. John called for fuel and waited for pilots Art Nash and Bill Murphy to show up on the flight deck.
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Less than thirty miles from where the
USS Guadalcanal
was anchored, Lt. Commander James Rylee was at home at the Naval station at Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico, fighting a cold and hoping the phone wouldn't ring. Jim was the Operations Officer of VC-8 Fleet Composite squadron, a combined fixed- and rotor-wing unit. Jim was a quiet, reserved man, who sported a haircut as closely
shaved as fine sandpaper. He was forty-two and nearing the end of a twenty-five-year naval career. Some of the younger guys in the squadron referred to him as the “old man.”

Jim was a naval aviator with over 5,000 hours of flight time in both rotor wing and fixed wing aircraft. He also served a six-year stint as an airship (blimp) pilot. None of the aircraft he flew were particularly known for their speed. The faster of the two helicopters he flew at Roosevelt Roads had a top speed of just 120 knots. Back in his blimp days he cruised around at the leisurely pace of 35 knots, about 43 mph.

Jim's flying duties at Roosevelt Roads included the transporting of people and supplies and drone recovery. Drone recovery was his primary job. The turbine-powered drones were launched from beneath a P2V-5 Neptune. This unique aircraft had two inboard reciprocal engines and two outboard turbine-powered engines. The P2V was the precursor to the popular P3 Orion. The radio-controlled drones were used as target practice by fighter pilots. Whenever a drone was successfully shot down, the pilot would make the radio call “boola boola.” Each time one of the drones was shot down, the squadron responsible for the hit was given a plaque by the Ryan Company, which made the drones known as
Firebees
. The drones were hit about 20% of the time. Those that weren't shot down would continue to fly until their fuel was exhausted. A parachute would deploy and the drone would fall harmlessly into the sea, where it would be recovered by helicopter. The helicopter would hover a few feet above the water while a crewman snagged the drone with a long hook. After attaching a long cable, they would transport the 2,500-pound drone back to the air station, with the drone dangling beneath the helicopter. The red drones were easy to spot, especially if the parachute hadn't deflated. It wasn't the most exciting job in the world, but it did sharpen the hovering skills of the pilots.

Jim lived on base in a hurricane-proof home made of concrete. He was married and had three boys aged fifteen, twelve, and eleven. Jim was a family man who preferred time with his wife Donna and three boys over hobnobbing with the other officers on base. He didn't drink or smoke. His hobby was coin collecting. Jim knew his time in the Navy was coming to an end. Roosy Roads was the ideal place to close out a career. Located on the southeastern coast of Puerto Rico, the picturesque naval base was known by the enlisted men as the “Country Club of the Navy.”
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On the opposite side of the island of Puerto Rico, at the Isla Grande airport in San Juan, pilots for the Coast Guard Air Detachment unit were several hours into a twenty-four-hour shift. Every four days the pilots were required to be on standby for a twenty-four-hour period. There were always at least five officers on duty: two fixed-wing pilots; two helicopter pilots; and a duty officer, who ran the rescue desk and coordinated the other aircraft. Pilots on twenty-four-hour duty normally remained at the airport for the entire period of their duty.

The primary Coast Guard unit in the Caribbean was Commander Greater Antilles Section (COMGANTS), located in Old San Juan across the harbor from the Isla Grande airport. COMGANTS was the rescue coordination center (RCC) for all rescues conducted in the Caribbean. The Air Detachment unit at Isla Grande consisted of three amphibious HU-16 Albatross fixed-wing aircraft and two HH-52A helicopters.

When the pilots weren't training or out on a mission, they performed other administrative duties known as collateral duty. This could be anything from maintaining training records to setting up work schedules for the enlisted men. The two helicopter pilots on airport standby were aircraft commander Lt. junior grade (j.g.)
William Shields and co-pilot Lt. (j.g.) Carmond “Fitz” Fitzgerald. Both pilots had started their day at 7:00
A.M.
Bill Shields, a five-year veteran of the Coast Guard, spent most of his day filling out administrative paperwork.
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Carmond Fitzgerald, the on-call co-pilot, spent his day studying his training syllabus. Carmond was working toward first pilot status on the HH-52A, a transition position halfway between aircraft commander and co-pilot.
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Both pilots kept a close eye on the weather outside. They knew from experience that their chances of being called out on a rescue increased as the weather deteriorated.

As ALM 980
NEARED
G
UAVA INTERSECTION, A POINT
some 211 miles north of St. Maarten, a time check showed that they were a full twenty minutes behind flight plan. The fuel totalizer indicated 8,600 pounds of fuel remaining. Balsey estimated that they would land at St. Maarten with approximately 6,000 pounds of fuel—still within legal limits. Balsey tuned in the St. Maarten tower frequency on the number two radio and called for a weather update. He was given weather of 1,000 broken, 5,000 overcast, and visibility of 2 to 3 miles in rain showers. He was also told that the rain showers were moving westward. The weather was marginal for shooting an NDB approach but well within the legal limits. Balsey called Wilfred into the cockpit and told him that the new ETA (estimated time of arrival) for St. Maarten was 15:00 (3:00
P.M.
). Earlier in the flight, the passengers had been given an ETA of 14:42. The ETA had been written on a form along with other information about the flight, such as the cruising altitude and speed, and then handed to the passengers to read and pass on. This time Wilfred announced the new arrival time over the PA system.

Hugh Hart, who no longer had a reason to be in the cockpit now that Balsey and Harry were able to navigate by normal means, decided to step in back to stretch. He poured himself an orange juice then sat down on the aft-facing flight attendant jump seat next to the cockpit door.

The three flight attendants were busy making a final pass through the cabin. Once those tasks were completed, Margareth walked through the cabin and handed out individually wrapped pieces of candy before taking her seat in the aft jump seat. With the flight running late, Margareth glanced at her watch and tried to estimate if she would still have enough time to run to the duty-free store once they landed. She had bought a few items for her wedding in New York, but she was still hoping to get some champagne in St. Maarten. She smiled as she held the watch out in front of her. The watch actually belonged to her fiancé Robby. She had forgotten hers and Robby, who had driven her to the airport, offered her his watch, which had been a birthday gift from Margareth only a week earlier. Her thoughts undoubtedly turned to her upcoming wedding and the myriad tasks still before her.
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After securing the forward galley, Wilfred and Tobias took their seats. Wilfred sat down next to Hugh in the jump seat closest to the main cabin door. Tobias sat in a passenger seat next to the forward right overwing exit.

A few minutes passed when Hugh felt the aircraft bank to the right. The turn was unexpected, so Hugh stuck his head into the cockpit to find out what was going on. Balsey told him that they were diverting to San Juan because the weather at St. Maarten had deteriorated and was now below landing minimums. Hugh stepped inside the cockpit and closed the door behind him. He started to fill out some preliminary paperwork for the return trip to New York. He knew that the diversion to San Juan would put them behind schedule. There
wouldn't be much time on the ground at St. Maarten once they got there. He remained standing and used the folded jump seat as a makeshift table to write on. The new clearance was direct to San Juan, maintain FL 210 (21,000 feet).

Two minutes later at 14:47, the San Juan Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC), which had radar control of the aircraft, advised ALM 980 that the St. Maarten control tower operator wanted to speak to them on the tower frequency. The following is the recorded transcript of that radio call (Balsey is the one making the call):
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Balsey was now faced with a difficult decision. A little over five minutes had elapsed since he had first begun his diversion to San Juan. In that time, they had not only burned additional fuel, they had also increased the distance between themselves and St. Maarten. Every minute they proceeded toward San Juan the farther away from St. Maarten they traveled. The NDB approach to runway 9 required a ceiling of 600 feet and a visibility of 2 nm (visibility is the only required approach criterion). The weather provided by the Juliana
tower operator of ceilings of 1,000 broken, 5000 overcast, visibility 4 to 5 nautical miles, was well above minimums. But the tower operator's comments about continuous rain showers were reason for concern, especially since minutes earlier the airport had been reported to be below minimums. (Wind direction and speed were not given or requested in this initial radio call. The winds, however, would play an important role in what was to take place later.)

An NDB approach is a non-precision approach, meaning no vertical guidance is provided. All the pilot has to guide him to the runway is a needle that always points to the station, which may or may not be located on the airport. The St. Maarten NDB was located south of the runway. The approach was a full fifteen degrees offset from the runway centerline. Airline pilots rarely fly NDB approaches, except in training. Some airlines today don't even allow their pilots to accept NDB approaches because of their lack of precision. Balsey, however, was a flight instructor. He had spent most of the previous summer in Augusta, Georgia training pilots and had seen more NDB approaches in one month than most pilots see in their entire career. Shooting an NDB approach in marginal weather was not a major concern for him.

There were, however, other factors to consider. Diverting to San Juan would mean an extra hour of flying time on a route that was already pushing eight hours. The crew's duty time would also be increased by several hours as they waited for the weather to clear. Then there is the hassle factor involved with any diversion: dispatch has to be called; the plane has to be refueled; a decision has to be made as to whether to leave the passengers on the plane or let them deplane, in which case the passengers have to be rounded up again when it's time to depart. Landing in St. Maarten was definitely the better of the two choices from an operational standpoint.

To what extent Balsey included Harry and Hugh in on his decision is unclear. In May 1970, the concept of Crew Resource
Management or CRM had not yet been developed.
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Certainly Hugh and Harry would have had opinions on the matter. In fairness to them, though, neither crewmember was likely to disagree with Balsey. Hugh was not a pilot and was unfamiliar with the performance capabilities of the DC-9. Harry had flown only once in the previous three months, and he was flying with an FAA designated flight examiner, who also happened to be the former chief pilot. It would have been difficult for any pilot in Harry's position to challenge the captain on what amounted to a judgment call.