And even now, Lieutenant Commander Andrew Slaznik got chills every time he walked with a swagger out to the flight line and his own MH-65 Dolphin, because few weeks went by that he didn’t have an opportunity to pluck someone from the jaws of death.
4
Dressed in his orange dry suit, Lieutenant Commander Slaznik logged in to the Aviation Logistics Management Information System across from the watch captain’s desk to check maintenance records. The air station had three MH-65s, but it was a rare moment when at least one wasn’t undergoing some kind of maintenance. The Coast Guard seemed to operate under the “have three to make one” rule when it came to helicopters. In this case, two birds were operational, so Slaznik flipped a coin and signed out 6521. He made a second call to the OPS boss, who’d already touched bases with JHOC and been informed there was also a forty-seven-foot response boat out of Neah Bay near the mouth of the strait, responding to the mayday. Copilot Lieutenant Becky Crumb was already outside doing the preflight and starting the helo. She was quick and efficient, which was good, because now that he knew surface assets were on the way, Slaznik’s competitive nature kicked into high gear. He knew the boat crews in Neah Bay, and they were every bit as competitive. Not a bad thing, really. The guy in the water didn’t much care who got there first.
Eighteen minutes from the JDO’s call, the two pilots walked through a steady rain and climbed into their orange bird — sometimes called “Tupperwolf” or “Plastic Fantastic” by other, less discerning pilots — and began their instrument checks. Slaznik preferred to sit in the left seat and run the radios while he flew, but Crumb was new and not yet hoist-qualified, so Slaznik took the right side. The flight mech and rescue swimmer got themselves situated in the back. Eight minutes after that, Slaznik flipped down his ANVIZ 9 night-vision goggles and called Whidbey Island Approach to request clearance to take off to the west, advising them he had Information Bravo.
With flight clearance given, he added throttle and pulled up the collective to bring the Dolphin into a hover. The seventy-mile-per-hour rotor wash drove the rain into the ever-present goose crap on the runway, throwing it into the upwash and spattering green slime across the windscreen.
“That is so nasty,” Lieutenant Crumb muttered, before depressing the microphone and transmitting to the JHOC.
“Rescue 6521 departing Air Station Port Angeles with four souls on board. ETA Pillar Point fourteen minutes…”
Lieutenant Commander Slaznik checked with the rest of his crew, who each gave him a thumbs-up. 6521’s tail came up slightly and she shuddered, like a racehorse in the gates. “Gauges in the green,” Slaznik said, performing one final scan of his instruments an instant before he eased the cyclic forward to scoot down the runway. “This looks, smells, and feels like a helicopter. We’re on the go.”
In the rearmost seat of Rescue 6521, mounted almost flush to the deck, Rescue Swimmer Lance Kitchen checked his gear for the second time since boarding the aircraft. He was five-feet-ten, 172 pounds. At twenty-four, and a recent graduate of the monumentally strenuous thirteen-week Coast Guard Rescue Swimmer School in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, he was in the best shape of his life. The darkness was nothing to him now. Dangling on a spinning cable above an angry sea was second nature. Black water and big waves called his name. What he feared was failure — more specifically, any failure brought about because of something he missed.
Unlike the other members of the SAR crew, Petty Officer 2nd Class Kitchen’s gear reflected the fact that he planned to get in the water. A scuba mask and snorkel were affixed to the top of his windsurfing helmet, along with a strobe that would allow the pilots to keep him in sight in heavy seas. His black Triton swimmer vest harness contained, among other things, a regulator and small pony bottle of air, a Benchmade automatic knife, a 405 personal locator beacon, and a waterproof Icom radio with an earpiece. An EMT paramedic, he’d leave the bulk of his trauma gear on the chopper to utilize once he got the guy in the basket and hoisted him up. Heavy rubber jet fins hung from a clip on his high-visibility orange DUI dry suit. He’d slip them on when they got to the scene, just before he attached himself to the hoist.
With the gear and mind-set checks complete, Kitchen sat back in his seat and looked at the Seiko dive watch on his wrist. Eleven minutes out. One man in the water. Simple. He could do this.
Tilda Pederson, the captain of Ocean Treasure, was on the bridge when she heard Orion’s initial mayday broadcast on 22 Alpha, the communications channel with Seattle VTS. The luxury cruise ship was returning from a twenty-five-day round-trip cruise to Hawaii. She was making twenty-four knots in order to pick up her pilot near Port Angeles and make her berthing time of 0700.
She put a pair of blue marine binoculars to her eyes and looked at the orange glow on the water ahead. “Man overboard,” she repeated, half to herself.
“Captain,” Alberto said. “The radar shows what appear to be multiple small craft suddenly in the water.”
Pederson lowered the binoculars. “Small craft? How many?”
“At least thirty by my count. They completely surround the Orion. I would guess she’s losing containers overboard.”
“A fair assessment.” Pederson studied the multiple blips on the radar. They looked like a swarm of silver dots around the much larger vessel. An orange glow now filled the horizon ahead. Pederson’s binoculars went back up to her eyes. “Alberto,” she said, “keep a weather eye for floating containers, but bring us up to best speed. That ship is on fire.”
Fourteen miles to the east of Ocean Treasure, Slaznik and Crumb flipped up their NVGs at the sudden brightness in front of their helicopter.
“Holy shit!” Kitchen said, surveying the conflagration in the water ahead.
“Man overboard my ass,” the flight mech said, nose pressed to the helicopter’s window as they made a tight circle over the carnage. The bulbous bow of the container ship pointed upward while the stern was completely submerged, like an enormous whale slipping backward into the water. The ship itself was on fire, but if that weren’t bad enough, floating oil and diesel surrounded the rear portion in a wall of flames.
JHOC comms center squawked over the radio. “Rescue 6521, we’re getting reports of a vessel fire off Pillar Point…”
Slaznik swung wide, flying slowly around the burning ship, assessing the situation.
Crumb craned her neck as they went around. “I count eleven souls up on the forepeak,” she said.
“At least three in the water,” the flight mech said. “Thirty yards off the bow. I don’t think they’re in Gumby suits.”
Slaznik brought the Dolphin around for another pass, burning a few more pounds of fuel to give him more hover time, while he briefed JHOC and requested more assets.
Slaznik keyed the intercom. “The 47 is still twenty-two minutes out. Lots of fire down there, Kitchen. How do you feel about going down in flames?”
The swimmer strained at his harness, wanting to get out of the helicopter. “Looks good around the bow, boss,” he said. “I say we kick out our crew raft to give the survivors something to hang on to while I get started.”
Lieutenant Crumb’s voice came over the intercom. “That ship’s going down fast. Two more just did a Peter Pan off the bow.”
The helicopter was finally light enough to hover within regs, so Slaznik reduced power, utilizing the wind as he descended toward the waves. Rain pelted the windscreen. The gale roared in as the flight mechanic slid open the side door. The RAT OUT — radar altimeter alarm — sounded at forty feet above the water. Twelve-to-sixteen-foot waves and unpredictable winds kept him hovering there. The radios were blowing up with chatter from JHOC, Whidbey Island, and an assortment of responding surface vessels.