Aviation History - January 2016

january 2016 AH 45

OPPOSITE: (ABOVE) NATIONAL ARCHIVES; (BELOW) U.S. AIR FORCE; ABOVE: U.S. COAST GUARD; RIGHT: MAURIZIO FOLINI

The unofficial world altitude record for helicop-

ters is exactly 42,500 feet, set in March 2002 by cinema pilot

Fred North in an altitude-optimized Aérospatiale AS-350B2.

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turbulence and helicopter aerodynamics confuse the issue.

The record for a mountain rescue, performed in May 2013 by

Italian pilot Maurizio Folini in an AS-350B3 on Lhotse, near

Mt. Everest, stands at 23,590 feet.

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Canadian armless double-amputee climber, a Sherpa on the

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Client? Yes, unlike most other aerial saves, Himalayan res-

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A typical rescue mission costs $2,500 an hour and can con-

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For further reading, contributing editor Stephan Wilkinson suggests:

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II, by Gregory A. Freeman; *]ZVQVO+WTL"<PM+Z]Q[M;PQX

Prinsendam and the Greatest Sea Rescue of All Time, by H.

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Greatest Rescue in Coast Guard History, by Kalee Thompson.

Mountain

High

M

V Prinsendam (above)

was a Dutch liner that

specialized in Pacific

cruises for the wealthy

elderly. The ship was not a

floating housing project like

today’s Caribbean cruisers

but a relatively intimate 427-

foot luxury yacht. Yet all its

pretensions couldn’t keep a

fuel line from bursting and

spraying fuel onto one of the

ship’s four 4,000-hp diesel

engines. It happened at mid-

night on October 4, 1980,

in the Gulf of Alaska, one of

the most inhospitable bodies

of water in the world. Within

hours the fire was out of

control, and a combination of

airways and natural chimneys

quickly spread superheated

flames and choking smoke

throughout the ship.

PRINSENDAM AFIRE

So began the largest

peacetime air-sea rescue

the world has yet seen: 320

passengers and 200 crew,

most of the passengers over

65, some of them in wheel-

chairs and walkers, were cast

adrift in the middle of the

night in lifeboats on a frigid,

angry sea. The weather was

wor sening as a typhoon

moved into the area, land

was 150 miles away, the

nearest U.S. Coast Guard

cutter 10 hours distant. It

was up to the Coast Guard

to coordinate a long-distance

rescue that involved a fleet of

Coast Guard, U.S. Air Force

and Royal Canadian Air Force

helicopters and C-130s, Air

Force parajumpers, three

Coast Guard cutters, the

supertanker Williamsburgh

and a host of support vessels.

One Coast Guard helo

dropped a firefighter and

a powerful pump onto

Prinsendam’s deck to help

a skeleton crew that had

stayed aboard, but the effort

failed. When Williamsburgh

hove to near the sinking

Prinsendam, the supertanker

became the focus of the res-

cue effort. Barely a hundred

feet shorter than a nuclear

carrier, Williamsburgh had

two large helipads and room

for Prinsendam’s entire com-

plement, but few could climb

the rope ladders to its deck.

Throughout the day, hurrying

to get everybody aboard

before dark, helicopters

transferred survivors from

lifeboats to Williamsburgh,

flying in strong winds and, at

times, 25-foot seas.

By nightfall, the rescue was

declared over...but it wasn’t.

“Where are my PJs [para-

jumpers]?” the commander

of USAF operations cabled

the Coast Guard. They were

aboard a single forgotten

lifeboat, which was finally

located at 2:30 the next

morning and its 22 occupants

transferred to the cutter

Boutwell. Not a man, woman

or child had been lost.

because it's there Maurizio Folini heads for the

Himalayan peaks in his AS-350B3 to rescue a climber.