By BRYAN MARTIN
Mirror Writer
A lone fisherman was on the high seas Aug. 6, 1981 near Prince William Sound during a storm in which 90 mph winds kicked up 15-foot waves. He fought the sea for a couple of days. As day wore into night, he finally lost his steering and began to take on water. The call went out for help.

The F/V Marlene, a 26-foot gillnetter out of Cordova, sent out distress signals the U.S. Coast Guard Communications Station in Kodiak picked up via another vessel, the F/V Keeper.

It was early in the evening when Marlene skipper Skip Holden sent for help. The Rescue Coordination Center alerted helicopter 1471, already in the air on a training mission.

Soon, 1471 was headed out across the Gulf of Alaska. It made a refueling stop in Cordova and then went on to assist Holden.

A C-130 circled above the Marlene to escort the helicopter.

The HH-3F helicopter attempted to lower a hoist to Holden, but after struggling for more than an hour, pilot Lt. Ernest (Pat) Rivas decided it couldn’t be done in the high seas and hurricane-force winds.

Then the unthinkable happened. Suddenly, all communications from the helicopter were severed. The crew of the C-130 started picking up a faint sound from the emergency location transmitter, and realized something disastrous was happening.

The rescue helicopter had gone down. Later, an investigation revealed the copter’s tail rotor contacted water, causing the aircraft to lose control and crash into the water.

On board with Rivas were Lt. Joseph Spoja, co-pilot, AM1 Scott Finfrock and AT3 John Snyder.

None lived, although all escaped the aircraft that had turned on its side. The crew drowned and Holden managed to regain control of his boat and eventually make it back to his home in Cordova.

That was 26 years ago. The Rivas family and other friends and family joined fellow Coast Guardsmen who knew and flew with the lieutenant and his crew, Tuesday at the Golden Anchor for a memorial recognizing the fallen heroes.

Rivas’ widow Linnea Long and her husband, Dick, traveled from Anchorage. Daughter Erin from Sacramento, Calif., son Bryan of Livermore, Calif., and son Patrick, currently in the U.S. Air Force stationed at Beale Air Force Base near Sacramento, were present. Linnea was pregnant with Patrick when her husband went down. Erin was 6 years old and Bryan was 4.

“We learned to live with it,” Linnea said. “By now we have gotten used to it.”

But as retired Base commander Capt. Jimmy Ng said, of course it was hard on the families. Retiree John Whiddon, a Guard helicopter pilot, joined Ng, also a Guard helicopter pilot, at the ceremonies describing their time, eyes watering, with Rivas. Both flew with Rivas and also worked with the rest of the 1471 crew.

The commemoration was officially held to rededicate a painting, “That Others May Live,” by Arden Von Dewitz, which hangs on Base. It shows the downed copter in the rescue, listing the four crewmembers on small brass nameplates below.

Ng flew the helicopter that later found Rivas and Snyder. Later, a Coast Guard helicopter found Finfrock. The body of Spoja was never found.

Ng said Snyder, the 1471 radioman, was newly married and his wife also was pregnant. Finfrock, the flight mechanic, loved to hike, fish and hunt. Spoja had four children and had newly arrived on Base.

“They were doing what we all do. Rescue,” Ng said.

“The event brought the town (Kodiak) to its knees, but there is no town like Kodiak,” Ng said.

Whiddon told of one of the largest maritime rescue missions in Coast Guard history that he and Rivas were a part of. They piloted a helicopter for 10 hours straight, plucking victims from the cruise ship Princess Prinsendam Oct. 4, 1980. More than 500 people were rescued from the 450-foot cruise ship, which floundered near Yakutat.

“Rivas was a hero in every sense of the word. He was brave, quick to laugh, someone you could rely on as a true professional,” Whiddon said.

The search for the lost 1471 crew was one of the largest the Coast Guard ever mounted, lasting 10 days and employing a variety of vessels and aircraft including the Civil Air Patrol, Coast Guard Auxiliary boats and cutters, the National Guard, Exxon tankers and a number of private vessels.

The Coast Guard used aircraft from Kodiak and Sitka air stations, along with the cutters Jellison and Campbell to search the icy waters of Prince William Sound. Aircraft from Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage helped.

On the third day of the search, Ng’s helicopter crew located two bodies on the beach at Montague Island. They were Rivas and Snyder. Snyder was the 1471 radioman.

On the fourth day, the F/V Daryl J. reported it had found the missing HH-3F in the McPherson Range, a narrow passage of Naked Island. It was floating upside down in shallow water. The cutter Sedge arrived in the afternoon but found no trace of the remaining crewmen.

A ground search of Naked Island yielded nothing. Following the weekend on a Monday, search units discovered an inflated life raft, a survival suit in its storage bag and the hood to a wetsuit on the shore of Long Island, 10 miles west of the helicopter’s location. That day, a National Guard helicopter arrived with the cutter Polar Star.

By evening, the National Guard helicopter hoisted the downed HH-3F, water pouring from the aircraft, onto the deck of the Polar Star, which headed for Kodiak.

By Wednesday, despite the intensive search the fate of the remaining crewmen was still in question.

The following morning, a Coast Guard helicopter discovered the body of Finfrock, who had apparently been able to struggle into a wetsuit before his death, on the southeast shore of Naked Island.

The next day, another Coast Guard HH-3F found a right-hand glove in the vicinity of Disk Island. A ground search of Motague Island followed.

By Saturday, the search was suspended, leaving Spoja somewhere in the sea.

Since its formation in 1790, the U.S. Coast Guard has saved more than 1 million lives, a milestone it crossed this year.

In the process, sacrifices are made. 1471 was one of those.

Mirror writer Bryan Martin can be reached via e-mail at bmartin@kodiakdailymirror.com.

Kodiak had three "Class A" mishaps in the 1980s. This was the first. Very nice of the folks up there to remember.

The airframe, 1471 was recovered and rebuilt back at ARSC in Elizabeth City, NC. Pretty strange to see it in Hangar II. It was then transfered to E-City AIRSTA. It flew on the Marine Electric case, and for many more years.

I was stationed at Sitka during this time but was on leave. When I got back I heard about the crash and at the same time we lost one of our AC crew members, Glen Orr to a horrible motor cycle crash in Sitka. Sitka was flying 1472,1469,1480 at the time. This was all happening as I was exiting the service. RIP

If you look back, the CG use to suffer fatal class A accidents on a somewhat regular basis it seemed. We have gotten much better at reducing the number of accidents compared to years ago. I'm sure technology has helped quite a bit but the majority of the accidents weren't caused by a problem with the aircraft. I had heard that the fisherman the 1471 was trying to save was pretty much run out of town by the people of Cordova after this as they felt he did nothing to help the crew after the helo crashed. With no steering in hurricane force winds I'm not sure what he could do.

I'm always amazed at what ARSC can rebuild.


http://www.check-six.com/lib/Coast_Guard_Aviation_Casualties.htm

John Snyder was at the time of the crash, my avionicsman instructor, and he was a great guy. I was on duty with them that night, and Iwas a very new coasty fresh out of AE "A" school, full of **** and vineger. I can honestly say that the effect of that crash on everyone was devastating. When i saw "the guardian" I knew right away where they got the idea for that movie.Sometimes I think about my times in Kodiak and losing John and the rest of the crew, and I wonder how the families are doing, and I remember what a youthful mind handled everyday dangers of flying in such an environment as Kodiak. I really did not know ,even after that day , how inherantly dangerous our job was. Thank God for folks like those on board that helo who risk their lives to save others. I will always remember the short time I knew John and scott, and the lessons learned while in the guard up there. RIP and semper paratus !

I was just getting ready to graduate from A school when this happened. The site of the 1471 on the hanger deck was a formidible site for one who was just going out to learn the art of saving lives. During my carrer I have flown on several cases where I was looking for one of our own, its a tough time. Makes you feel great to be part of a team that does this job.

I was on POLAR STAR when we recovered the 1471. We had been in the ice up north for a couple months, I guess. We were headed home, going to stop in Juneau, I think for I & I. We were almost there when we turned around for the recovery. The big Haglunds cranes onboard were big enough to hoist the downed helo. It was a very, very somber day, I can tell you that.

Late 70's to early 80's CG aviation units had 8 class A mishapes. RIP

I was on the USCGC Sedge, which was the first Coast Guard vessel to reach the scene of the downed HH-3F. I have been researching this event recently and have heard that a National Guard Helicopter hoisted the 1471 on to the Polar Star's deck. This is, to my recollection, not true - a "sky-crane" helicopter was on the scene and attempted to lift the 1471 but could not lift a HH-3F filled with water. The Sedge (WLB-402) was going to attempt to lift it onto the buoy deck but the Polar Star arrived on the scene. The 1471 was towed to the Polar Star and lifted onboard. To see photos visit my flickr photo site, http://www.flickr.com/photos/tom-henneman/ and view the set "Coast Guard Daze."