Grandpa's Mountain Rescue

This is the story about when Grandpa was our family hero. If you look closely at the background of this picture, you can see a rescue helicopter in blowing snow. Grandpa (24 years old at the time) is in the foreground. On the ground behind him are two litter baskets with survivors from a plane crash.

In February of 1960, a family from Alaska crashed their airplane on a snow field at the top of an isolated 12,000 foot mountain near Ely, Nevada. The pilot of a Civil Air Patrol search plane finally spotted the wreckage at the end of the third day of searching. He saw that someone was outside the plane and still alive so he dropped a small bundle of food and hurried back to the airport to organize a rescue team. But it was late in the day and getting dark, so they had to wait until the next morning to send a helicopter to rescue the family.

They decided to send someone up the mountain on foot to do what could be done for the survivors. John Barainca was a Civil Air Patrol member, had extensive mountaineering experience, and owned equipment for a winter climb, so he was the logical person to go. He and one other man put emergency supplies, sleeping bags, and food and water in back packs and started up the mountain. They hiked through deep snow on snowshoes and climbed up rock faces in the dark at temperatures well below 0. When at last they reached the top of the mountain, it was 2 o’clock in the morning. They could see the wreckage on the snow, but didn’t know if they would find everyone alive or dead.
They were happy to find the whole family injured, but alive.

Two grandparents were in the front seat of the airplane. They both had facial cuts from the windshield and compressed discs in their backs from the impact. They couldn’t be moved. A mother and two children in the back seat were cut and bruised but not as badly injured. Crashing on the deep snow, instead of on the rocks, had saved their lives. Because they were from Alaska, they were used to planning for survival and had brought extra food and water and had on warm clothes. However, they had already spent two freezing nights on the mountain in an airplane torn open by the crash, and would not have lasted many more days. The two climbers checked to see what first aid the family needed and gave them food and hot drinks they had brought. Then they wrapped themselves in their sleeping bags to wait out the rest of the night.

At dawn, they heard the sound of a spotter plane, then the thumping of helicopter rotors. A large helicopter had been sent from Hill Air Force Base in Utah. In blowing snow, they helped the rescue team load the stretchers on the helicopter and watched it drop down into the valley to carry the family to a hospital in Ely. The helicopter couldn’t carry the weight of the extra people at that altitude, so they had to leave part of their crew and the two climbers on the mountain with a promise to come back for them. The helicopter returned later in the day. When the men climbed in, it struggled to lift off, but made it and descended down a canyon. At that time, this rescue at 12,000 feet was the highest ever made by that type of helicopter.

One of the boys in the wrecked airplane had an exciting tale to tell his friends. He had spent his sixth birthday stranded on the top of a mountain in the middle of winter and had been given an unexpected ride in a helicopter.