Bonus: A Day on the North Slope

The pilot’s account of a previous Arctic crash.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
From My Heart Media. This is Missing in Alaska, the
story of two congressmen who vanished in nineteen seventy two
and my quest to figure out what happened to them.
I'm your host, John Wallzac. Welcome to our first bonus episode.

(00:27):
As you can tell, I spent a ton of time
on this project, and there are many things we just
can't fit in the core show, but we want you
to hear some of them to get a deeper sense
of the story and the players involved. This episode begins
with a phone call. Hello, Hey, I speak to Barbara,

(00:50):
please speaking. That's Barbara Conti, who dated Don John's, the
Missing Pilot in the early nineteen seventies. A few years ago,
her son us heard about my research and emailed me.
He told me that his mom had something fascinating an
unpublished article written by Don John's called A Day on
the North Slope. In it, Don details of plane crash

(01:13):
he survived in Alaska in early nineteen seventy two and
the brutal conditions he encountered as he trudged through the
bush looking for help. When Don vanished. Barbara gave the
article to her sister, who wanted to read it, but
the stead guard is. My sister was murdered at the
same time, and I don't remember the day. I was

(01:35):
completely lost. You know. Her husband killed her. Then he
committed suicide, and her poor kids were fifteen and sixteen.
He had taken her down, put her in the trunk
of her car, and when he got home from school,
they still something dripping from the trunk. So they ran
in and got to eat, and opening up, I saw

(01:56):
their mother was there, head blown up. So they they
are still traumatized by Barbara's sister was murdered on October,
only one week after Dawn disappeared. After the murder, Barbara
found this article A day on the North Slope, laying
in her sister's den. Here it is voiced by Chandler Maze.

(02:22):
To the southeast, Alaska's Brooks Range is silhouetted in pink
Am February. I'm planning a three flight to Fairbanks in
my for a load of supplies. I fly support for
an oil exploration camp. The thermometer is negative fifty four
degrees fahrenheit pre flight the aircraft. It has been heated

(02:43):
all night with a flameless cattle at a heater full
oil drained sumps. Everything brittle and vulnerable to breakage. Be careful,
ever so careful, I remind myself. Depressed starter a feeble
click click from the starter, solenoid battery frozen. I try
hand propping it. After yanking five minutes, I give that up. Finally,

(03:06):
locate a hundred pound caterpillar battery and a pair of
jumper cables. The engine starts. Disconnect the caterpillar battery. Let
the aircraft idle five minutes while they return battery to caterpillar.
Hurry back to the aircraft. Whack the skis to break
them loose, mount the cockpit, forward on the throttle. Things
don't sound all that healthy, What does it? Negative fifty
four degrees fahrenheit. The aircraft rumbles down the side of

(03:29):
the hill, airborne and climbing slowly. Cockpit fills with frost.
Left wing Super Heavy had parked on a hill last night.
As a result, fuel flowed to the downhill tank, just
the happy bullshit of an arctic day. Ice crystals filled
the cabin, wind shield frosted. I fly by instruments. In
a couple of minutes, condensation from my breath diminishes with

(03:52):
the warming by the cockpit heater. Soon I'll be up
in an inversion layer and warm. Suddenly the propeller over speeds.
The g D non congealing cooler has frozen and thereby
prevented oil from coursing through the engine's enters, a condition
I've experienced many times. Mother throttle back to permit the
oil cooler to warm up, slow the air speed in

(04:13):
order to keep prop within sight of the red line,
remedies that have worked in the past. I could do
a doctorate on non congealing oil coolers that congeal. However,
airmen are vein buggers ad forever occupied with digging up excuses. Basically,
I fucked up by letting the engine idle too long.
Oil under too little pressure got mushy, clogged the oil

(04:34):
cooler and its supply lines. In short order, oil remaining
in the engine core overheated and thinned to the viscosity
of water. In turn, the propeller governor, which boosts normal
oil pressure, couldn't make two with water like oil, so
it copped out on its job. Yes, the prop oversped
because an arctic wise pilot screwed up. Should have put

(04:54):
more masking tape over the cooler glance at the oil
temperature j C far above the red line means engine
oil is red hot. A furtive look at the oil
pressure gage zero. The engine's butters and begins to knock.
What does an old pro do when he encounters a
tight situation? Ship his pants pray? Tell what else? Unfortunately

(05:15):
it's a diversion, all too quickly completed. If impending catastrophe
is kept too long in a Vivians, one is better
off with another diversion. I am already flying low and slow,
too little of everything for a turn back towards camp.
Ahead into the left, I see the enactivic river. In
the real world it would be called a frozen creek.
I make the mile or so to the river. Went boom,
the engine blows blow, it does fire and smoke up

(05:38):
through the oil filter access door, oil spreading out the
front errand takes now what best shot? Already fired as
it is, it will take a week of warm wind
to dry the seats. I point the nose down and
look ahead for a landing place. Thank god, this horizon
skis A moment later, goddamn river bed is all rocks
and ice ridges. A bum day to die happy fiasco.

(05:59):
D J. There is no question about landing. It is
reduced to a simple puzzle. Will I walk away with
my one as intact? Two airplanes bladdered? I slow airspeed more,
but you won't fly. The combined result of no power
and a hefty load of ice brought in yesterday from
port barrow jerk on first notch of flaps, almost immediately,
I'm forced to grab another notch over one embankment across

(06:22):
the serpentine leg of the frozen river, flashing perpendicular in
front of me, Now very low and aiming to center
punch the three ft high embankment and the river's far side.
Third and last notch of flaps up like a balloon
on a false gust, A short stretch of rocks, strown gravel,
bar thud, hit, bounce, sliding, fuel off, switch off stop.

(06:44):
I can hear the snap, crackle and pop of a
well done engine, Smoke gushing into the cockpit. One good sign.
The fire blew itself out. I fumble with the seatbelt,
opened the door, jump out, balls, gotta be bum karma.
Plane undamaged, except lept Ski has a grapefruit size hole
gouged in it. The tire above the hole is punctured.

(07:04):
I reach in the air intake to touch the engine.
My hand drags out a jagged chunk of metal about
the size of campbell soup can. It is part of
the crank case. What do you think you are? A
d J A junk collector, and put it back it is.

(07:44):
I'm at a latitude sire north or thereabouts, maybe seven
eight miles from a tiny camp in which there are
four other men, who, by the way, pay this birdman
to be their lifeline. I'm sixty miles or so north
of a small Eskimo settlements, or more to the other
nearest white man. It is more than fifty degrees below,
So stay and pray to the east, burn the aircraft,

(08:06):
or walk out on with blue insulated survival suits actually
an adopted snowmobiles cover all. Tighten the laces on my
muckluck's pull on a face mask, march man A thought.
Many years have I spent flying the Arctic. Unfortunately, I've
been a walking only twice, but both times in these
blue cover alls. The first time after a double engine

(08:27):
failure in the sky van a hundred fifty miles south
of here in October, nearly lost a frost bitten foot
to a surgeon's blade. Baby, better change your lifestyle. Maybe
it is the blue cover alls. I decided to trash them.
If I get out trudging north down the Enactivic River,
I break through a lightly bridged crevice and stick my
right muck cluck into the slowly flowing black water beneath

(08:49):
screw You will take my stroll on the bank ahead
and on the right side of the river. About five
miles is I'm certain Rooftop Ridge not much of a mountain,
maybe feet, But in this flat, frightening, forlorn, fricking frozen desert,
it passes. I know our camp is opposite Rooftop Ridge,
on the west side of the Inactivic River, just a

(09:10):
hair from the river. Muck luck before muck luck before
muck luck. Christ, what a bummer. In any event, it
could be worse, Yeah, asshole, it could be a lot better,
Like you could have been at twelve thou feet over
the Brooks Range cockpit, all cozy and a hundred miles
closer to town by now, not to mention four thousand
dollars less worse off. How would a stoic's philosophy of

(09:31):
never look back fit out here? Personally, I'll hang onto
my regrets. At nine, the distinctive sound of our nod
Well snow tractor fractures the Arctic morning. At first, the
sound appears from the west. There was a west wind
of three to four knots. I removed my face mask
to uncover my ears. Now the sound seems from the north.
As suddenly as it started, the sound of the reving

(09:51):
engine stops. I strained my ears, but all I can
hear off on the river three quarters of a mile
to my right is the bank pop crack of river ice.
I recognize this as the sound of overflow, the Arctic
phenomena whereby a river freezes to the bottom of the
river bed in some constricted spot, causing a reservoir of
deep water to swell upstream. When the pressure gets strong enough,

(10:13):
it splinters four to six feet of surface ice, flooding
it with gushing water from beneath. Sometimes the new water
is three ft thick. The new surface water itself quickly freezes,
but while doing so it makes a lot of ice fog.
It is exceedingly dangerous to attempt a landing or try
to walk on overflow. Overflow conditions happen most readily when
temperatures take a sudden dive or when cold persists. This morning,

(10:36):
the river begins to fog due to open water flooding
the surface. Sure as hell isn't getting any warmer. I
decided to continue north parallel to the river, about a
half mile from the river bank. Thank the Virgin for
abundant warm clothes this time. Following my nineteen seventy crash,
I damn near died of cold and exhaustion. For leg gear,
I am wearing long John's under a pair of brown
checkered street trousers. Over it all my blue insulated snowmobile

(10:59):
cover rawls. For the torso. I wear a head turtleneck undershirt.
My head makes luxurious skis. Remember Austrian ski sweater down
vest and my new orange down ski PARKA. Damn it, dude,
ever consider becoming a ski bum and really saying screw
airplanes forever. On my feet, I'm wearing Canadian Army Arctic
muck Luck's with natural rubber souls with canvas uppers, no

(11:20):
cold fracturing, quote rubber eyes plastics. Like last time. The
whole works is called footpacks the best going. My feet
are loose and warm, but they will still freeze if
I sywash for the night. What a funny word. It
means going native in the open, a poor man's bivouac,
kick a trench in the crust, and try to keep breathing.

(11:42):
The idea causes a sharp pain in the ass on
my head. I'm wearing my customized stocking cap slash face mask,
purchased and hacked up only day before yesterday in Fairbanks.
What a blast that was. I looked all over town
for a lightweight, long stocking cap with mouth and eye holes.
No luck. Finally I purchased a stock model, grabbed a

(12:02):
pair of scissors, sniffed holes in the correct locations, and
watch my brainchild unravel in my hands. In desperation, I
fetched a needle and thread and spent half an hour
making stop stitches. I am glad such a fine job
had been done. D J. Maybe you would make someone
a good wife. Go slow, better extract your ass from
this predicament before considering marriage. Speaking of ass, I forthright

(12:24):
reached two conclusions. One, my sexuality had been dealt a
stunning blow when I shipped my trousers two hours ago.
To my ass and chin are the only parts of me,
that are cold, outrageous coincidence on my hands. I have
jumbo leather mittens with woolen liners ten a m. Where
in the hell am I? In answer? The enactivic river
looses a volley of snaps like a popcorn machine. Two

(12:47):
hours you've been walking, that is eight to ten miles.
I stopped to listen again. Where did the nod Well
tractor sound go? Just like these dudes to shut the
engine off? No consideration for pilots. Ahead on the right
river bank about three miles is rooftop ridge. I think
if it was five miles away before, and you've just
walked eight miles and it is still three miles away,

(13:08):
you're arithmetic bears watching with the mere utterance of bear
comes to reality. There was a goddamn grizzly ahead into
the right j C. This is all I need. A
feeble minded bear that doesn't have sense enough to hibernate.
He should run from me and I from him. But
I'm ass whole deep in snow and can't run, and
he is obviously a muck if he's out here in midwinter.
To be on the safe side, to take a y

(13:29):
detour when about two hundred yards on his down wind side,
an old hunting trick. I see that he is a
large wind exposed rock. Nonetheless, I'm fresh out of faith
number one. I'm gravely concerned over the remains of a
four thousand dollar engine now worth about a hundred dollars
Arctic depreciation, just to rattle my cage. I am lost,
or nearly so frightened on the ViRGE of panic. Like

(13:52):
it will be dark again in five hours. Then what
behind me? I can see my lonely trail at meander
south from where I stand strong with little zigs and zags,
where I've walked with head down. It disappears over the horizon.
The breeze is stiffening, ice fog obscures more of the river.
The whole scene looks like a science fiction nightmare. I
make up my mind to walk another hour in the

(14:13):
northerly direction that will put me three hours back to
the aircraft. Of a storm comes up. If a really
big blow starts, I've got big problems. There is not
a tree, bush or stump within a hundred miles. The
only chance would be to make a hasty retreat toward
the aircraft and hope to make it even if I
got back to the aircraft, it would be a gruesome
ordeal to survive. I've seen storms last a week with

(14:34):
winds over fifty knots and fifty below. Bullshit. When will

(15:05):
they start looking for me? I imagine in two to
three days. There isn't that many in our breed that
will venture a search on the north slope. Maybe a
few of the old pros from the interior airways, like
Bob Jacobs, or a couple of the fellows hired by
the oil companies like Jack Spurgeon of Aalieska pipeline who
found me last time. Definitely not C A P or
f A A. Last time I crashed, I damn near

(15:26):
died before anybody considered looking. All around me are teeny
rolling hills tops shrouded in fog. The effect is to
make pip squeak mounds appear as mountains. Of course, there
are no mountains on the north slope, all of which
makes me less and less sure of where I am.
It isn't the first time I thought I was in Siberia.
I can still see rooftop ridge, but in the bleak
Arctic morning, it looks fuzzy too far away Where are

(15:49):
all the good donarracts this morning. Douniacs are old Eskimo spirits.
They may be good donats or bad don acts. Doniracts
may dwell in specific large mountains, rivers, trees, et cetera.
I hastened my march only to work up a sweat
across my shoulders in the back of my neck. I
opened the front of my parka and coveralls. The faster
pack still makes me sweat. Sweat is a goddamn no

(16:11):
no in the Arctic. It leads to deep chills and
freeze dried corpses. If consistent, it would make a good
walking Instead, I fall through the crust and scrape my
shins once in about every twenty yards. The anticipation of
falling through is innervating. Reminds me of waiting for a
jack in the box. My muck lucks make a crisp
thump creek sounds like walking on a wrinkled drum. The

(16:32):
wind bites my eyes, they water, the water freezes into
instant icicles. Every five minutes, I take a glove off
and flick the accumulated ice from my eyelashes. Otherwise, all
the mirages are blurry. Who needs blurry mirages. At a
time like this, if I look down my nose inside
the face mask, I can see icicles hanging a half
inch from my nostrils. Great day for a hike. From

(16:54):
time to time, my chin freezes. I dig in a
pocket and come up with a knitted earbands, more romantically,
a Norwegian jockstrap. This goes around my lower face. That
cures the chin problem. I am afraid, not soon enough.
My chin is numb and feels brittle. My windward ear,
the left prick is near frostbite. Fifteen years ago, both

(17:15):
ears were severely frost bitten. They have always been more
vulnerable to freezing. Since is it only negative degrees fahrenheit?
The only sign of life is an occasional limbing trail.
Imagine those little mothers out here and a fox track.
All tracks are blown in which means a week or
so old. Not a bird, not another living thing save
one lonesome aviator flapping his wings in a vacuum, an endless,

(17:39):
worthless pearl. This the fat cat conservationists of California want
to save any ecological accident, even oil spill, would be
a step forward, no doubt about it. I'm lost visibility
is getting hazier. My ass is in a sling. If
I don't find camp. In fact, if I don't get
back to camp, some prick somewhere will notify the f
a A. Tis little better than not being found at all.

(18:02):
Not that they would come looking, No, they would get
lost and blame the airplane manufacturer. But they would lounge
around and wait for someone to find me, then slap
a big violation against me. For assuredly, as Allah did
his own thing, I've violated some law. The f a
A operates under the philosophy that the only legal airplane
is a parked airplane. So when accidents do happen, never

(18:24):
mind the missing wing or faulty engineering, there is a
violated rule. Thus the f a A motto, if the
pilot hadn't taken off, the accident wouldn't have happened. Listen,
all I hear is the incessant bang from the distant
river ice. My right foot is beginning to blister. Good
time to pee. Pause for a philosophy break. Granted, passing
water is not one of life's biggia's until you've taken

(18:46):
a frightened frozen tool, apply attention to it, and attempt
to coax it over three inches of clothing. Follow me through,
remove clubs on jam frozen park a zipper, unsnapped down vests,
unzip frozen cover rolls, and pull up sweater. From here
it is by brail unzipped trousers with right hand, fish

(19:06):
for the little gym, pry open long john fly and
underwear pouch Eureka with horse and hand. I began uncoiling
quicker than you can blink an eye. I had the
entire two inches pulled taut over the edge. I can
just discern his frosted label made in Japan. Anyway, great
white pilot tankled. I resolved to hike to the nearest knoll,

(19:27):
maybe a mile west of the river. From that vantage
point I may see better referencing rooftop ridge with a
primitive fix on the sun. I turned ninety degrees left
from my otherwise straight north running footprints, and begin to
walk west. It takes balls to change course in life.
Sometimes it is the only way it is. I am frightened,
perhaps from the forced landing. More I think from the

(19:50):
familiarity with the unrelenting Arctic. Less than a year ago,
a scant forty miles from where I stand, I collected
the frozen body of my good friend George Curtis. George
and I had known each other for to five years.
He was the Arctic's most experienced geophysical supervisor. The night
before he was killed, George and I raft about the
Arctic and its catastrophic assault on things living. The conversation

(20:10):
ended with George, what the hell are you still doing here?
Don't you know life goes on outside while you freeze?
George reminded me, and you you made it big ones.
We fell asleep inside by side bunks. The next morning,
I bade George so long and jumped into my plane.
Later that day, the helicopter in which he was writing
augured into Mother Earth in a white out. The following day,

(20:32):
I circled the wreck while another chopper landed and confirmed
the worst. The day after, I took George Curtis on
his last airplane ride. Such as the Arctic so goddamn beautiful.
It hurts sometimes so brutal, with such finality. At others
I used to love it. To be one of its
unique experts was a pride I couldn't verbilize. Ecstasy comes

(20:54):
less frequently these days, but when it does I think
it worth the weight? I am very near or my
friend and Jules Thibodeaux, the most illustrious pilot of the
North bit the dust of Kayak Mountain Christmas sixty or
sixty eight. My mind rebels. To get my head straight,
I start reviewing great books of courage I've read. Foremost
is The Long Walk, where the mind of man overcame

(21:16):
unbelievable hardship in Siberia. Next, I remember Papillon and his
years of travail and utter isolation. If I should be
totally lost out here, I resolved to use these examples
for inspiration. It is now eleven o'clock. Is the whole
world flat white? Or do they still make trees and grass?
When I get to the top of the knoll, I'll
sit and rest half an hour and listen carefully for

(21:36):
any sounds that might come drifting out of white space.
At the end of half an hour, I'll retrace my
steps to the aircraft. All reasoning points to the probability
that I've walked past the camp and am too far north.
I have walked over fifteen miles before being forced down.
But reasonable certainties are not enough on which to bet
your life and getting lost is an absolutely certain route
to disaster in the Arctic. I am plotting due west

(21:58):
according to the sun, which is a whole ten degrees
above the southern horizon. My zombie like shadow is at zenith.
The Arctic day is half gone. Civilized parts of the
world are contemplating spring. We're just emerging from deep winter.
Not long ago, an acquaintance asked me to teach him
to fly on the north slope. Teach luck, Show a
man how to do the common sense number, Demonstrate a

(22:19):
will to survive, Drill him on how to fly lot
with confidence. Instruct him on how to fly by the
seat of his pants on instruments. Tell him about darwin
Survival of the Fittest the blind. Teach the blind. He
must have been shooting me. I glanced to the south
j C smoke. I start walking. Before walking five minutes,
I suddenly catch sight of the camp, not at the smoke,

(22:41):
but off to the west. Is ecstatic the correct word?
As it turned out, the smoke isn't smoke, but sunlight
making a mirage on the ridge. Remind you of the
bear that wasn't. Had it not been for the mirage,
I would not have found the camp. Whatever the camp
isn't an illusion. It is only about two miles away.
As suspected, I had walked past the camp on the try,
more or less by accident, I've stumbled back to it.

(23:03):
The final two miles is at a bouncy clip. It
is new. I've walked eighteen to twenty miles. As I'm
marching the camp, Don Callahan, the party chief, exclaims, what
the hell, don't give me any bullshit. Just take a picture.
Before I pulled his face mask off. Part of my
chin comes off with a mask. I am a believer
mirages are good. Don acts. Okay, so this article obviously

(23:29):
shows a few things. First, Don had a sarcastic, sometimes
profane sense of humor. Second, even though I've harped on
his seventeen thousand hours of flight time and extensive experience
piloting planes and interior Alaska, he sometimes made mistakes. This
was one, as he himself admitted. Another occurred six years prior,

(23:51):
in October nineteen sixty six, when he embarked on a NonStop,
fifty hour record breaking flight from Miami to Fairbanks and
a small plane, a Piper Cherokee. He didn't get far
Shortly after takeoff, he was forced to crash land on
a four lane highway right outside Miami. The f a
A quickly discovered that he had overloaded the plane by

(24:14):
seven hundred pounds and temporarily revoked his license. If he
had made it, his ex wife Willie told me he
would be the hero. Because he didn't make it, he
was the villain. You can reach us by phone at
one eight three three m I A tips that's one

(24:34):
eight three three six four two eight four seven seven
again one eight three three six four two eight four
seven seven, or you can reach us via email at
tips at i heeart media dot com. That's tips, T
I P s at i heeart Media dot com. Ben

(24:56):
Bowen is our executive producer. Paul Deckan is our supervising producer,
Chris Brown is our assistant producer, Seth Nicholas Johnson is
our producer. Sam T. Garden is our research assistant. And
I'm your host and executive producer, John Wallzac. You can
find me on Twitter at at John Wallzac j O
n W A L c z A K special thanks

(25:19):
to Chris and Barbara County, and thank you to Chandler
Mays who voiced Don John's Missing in Alaska is a
co production of I Heart Media and Greenfork Media.