The Big Sky
The rescue of five fishermen from the disabled fishing boat Robert Powell off of Cape Cod, Massachusetts on December 12, 1982 illustrates how air traffic controllers can get involved in some unusual situations while doing their routine jobs. We were seated in a room two hundred miles away from the emergency, but were deeply involved with the rescue. It’s not uncommon for controllers to play important roles in search and rescue efforts, both off shore and on land.
To set the stage, in 1982 the Boston Center “owned” the airspace above the Gulf of Maine, and south to a point 100 miles southeast of Nantucket Island. The First Coast Guard District, headquartered in Boston, managed offshore rescues with air assets (Sikorsky HH-3 helicopters and HU-25 Guardian jets) stationed at the-then Otis Air National Guard Base at Falmouth MA, on Cape Cod.
Although this happened well before 1991’s “The Perfect Storm”, conditions were very similar. The 124-foot trawler Robert Powell was taking on water 90 miles east of Cape Cod, during an early winter Nor’easter. The Coast Guard was in a tough spot; their aircraft were grounded due to icing conditions, and all their ships under way were too distant from the trawler to be of any assistance. A pair of fishing boats seemed to be nearby, but poor visibility in snow and 30-foot seas presented major obstacles to finding the stricken ship. Communications between the Robert Powell and the Coast Guard were sporadic due to the distance between radio transmitters and receivers. Using all available means to assist, the Coast Guard rescue coordinator contacted a Boston Center manager, soliciting any airborne help that we could muster.
I was a junior manual controller at the “Nantucket” sector, above the ocean surface where the Robert Powell saga was unfolding. My job was to communicate and coordinate items with other controllers, and to assist the radar controller with his/her tasks. We got the call for help from our supervisor, and quickly realized that among the dozen or so aircraft in our airspace, we were controlling a U.S. Navy P-3 Orion maritime patrol plane, perfect for the job of searching for the Robert Powell. We solicited help from the crew, who offered an hour’s delay before they had to continue to NAS Brunswick Maine due to fuel concerns. We passed the last known position of the Robert Powell to the Navy crew, and cleared them to descend into a low altitude airspace block to begin their search.
Communications between the P-3 and the Center were initially poor. The distance between the low flying P-3 and our radio antennas ashore precluded normal radio reception. The P-3 would pop up and relay a message, then descend again to continue its search. With the help of some high flying aircraft, we soon worked out a radio relay procedure, using an alternate frequency for the search aircraft that allowed the P-3 to remain at low altitudes. Our routine ATC work would occur on one set of frequencies, the P-3 and relay aircraft would use the other set at our sector. At least three airliners (Pan Am, TWA, and Air Canada) and (if I remember correctly) an Air Force C-141 or KC-135 assisted with these relayed messages; they in effect became our long-range transmitters and receivers.
When we got a message, a supervisor would telephone the item to the Coast Guard coordinator, who’d relay to the fishing ships in the area of the Powell. When we received information from the Coast Guard, we’d pass it to the high flying jet, who’d relay the information to the P-3 well below. It was a cumbersome way of communicating, but all concerned never had a common frequency band to work on. The airliners and Center used VHF and UHF, the Coast Guard, the P-3 and other military planes had those plus HF radios aboard, and the fishing boats had HF and other bands maritime bands that only the Coast Guard had. In the control room, we all were sitting on the edge of our seats, awaiting the next relayed message, or brainstorming for more ways to help. Of course, we had to stay focused on our first priority of air traffic control, too. We took our routine breaks from duties during this multi-hour long event, and hoped that upon returning we could jump back into the same position so we could follow the search’s progress. In all, about ten controllers and managers were involved in the event that day.
Almost an hour passed before the P-3 sighted the Robert Powell, with an orange life raft alongside it. The patrol plane needed to turn back to Brunswick, too. A PIREP from the crew cited appalling weather; one quarter to one sixteenth of a mile visibility in snow, fog, and freezing drizzle, plus moderate turbulence. We enlisted the help of an Air Force C-130 to continue with the rescue; the crew was returning from Europe to an East Coast base. The crews of the P-3 and the C-130 passed information between each other as we listened in. The P-3 crew was concerned about finding the drifting ship again due to the high winds and poor visibility. Both aircraft couldn’t safely join up to fly together due to the weather conditions, so it was decided that the P-3 would drop a sonobouy near the ship, and the C-130 would home in on it! That done, the P-3 went home; the C-130 quickly found the Robert Powell and reported the crew was now entering the life raft. It also relayed that a fishing boat was within a mile of the disabled vessel.
Another hour or so passed, and more position reports and messages were relayed between the Center, various aircraft, and the Coast Guard. An Air National Guard C-130 was lined up to take over for that Air Force C-130, now low on fuel itself. Shortly after this change took place, the second C-130 relayed that the Robert Powell’s crew had been successfully rescued by one of the nearby fishing boats! Our group finally breathed a collective sigh of relief. Four and a half hours after we got involved, our hybrid command, communications, and control duties ended. The Coast Guard later cited the Air Force C-130’s position report of the life raft, as relayed through the Center, to be the key to success. It allowed one of the nearby fishing boats to pinpoint the position of the raft and rescue the five mariners within it.
Far from being “business as usual”, I learned a few lessons that day. One was that a military aircraft and its crew offered a wide range of assistance options during a search and rescue mission, and those professional crewmembers were eager to help. Secondly, the solution to the issue of poor radio communications led to an effective procedure that I used repeatedly during my career… using other aircraft to provide radio relays. By far the best knowledge that I gained that day though, was that controllers should expect the unexpected, and be ready to deal with the unusual.
Ken