Down Draft

Down Draft

The call had come in as we were leaving Kingman for Laughlin on my day off. We turned around and rushed home. I grabbed an embroidered shirt — we had several 5.11 short-sleeve button-downs with name, title, and department patch embroidered on them for investigations — grabbed my “baby Glock” (Glock 26), handcuff case, and spare mag, and headed for the door, saying goodbye to the family on the way out.

As I reached Stockton Hill Road, I could see the emergency lights of other vehicles headed for Grand Canyon West.

A helicopter bringing tourists out for the sunset tour had caught a downdraft as it was coming in and suddenly dropped 75 feet into the portion of the canyon it was passing over. The pilot had done his best to save it, but the landing was hard enough to rupture the plastic fuel tank, dumping aviation fuel onto the hot engine and igniting the fumes. Images showed the helicopter in flames, and survivors horribly burned as they escaped.

One of my detectives and two officers with EMS history boarded helicopters with EMS staff and flew into the canyon. We established a command center in the firehouse. Air ambulance crews flew in and began stabilizing the victims. As the crew worked with the horribly injured, the winds picked up, becoming too dangerous even for the air ambulances to risk flying out of the canyon. The decision was made to stabilize survivors in place.

As it got dark, the command post was advised that one of the victims was critical and would not survive unless evacuated. I recommended contacting Nellis Air Base and requesting assistance. Nellis deployed a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter with a pilot recovery/rescue team. The Black Hawk was able to evacuate the critically injured patient.

We also discovered the tour group had come from the U.K. I notified the British Consulate in Los Angeles, and they sent an emissary out 48 hours later to go over the facts of the case. In the end, there were only two survivors out of the seven people on board.

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