The first people at the scene of Monday night’s (11-13-23) crash of an Air Station Sitka helicopter were the crew of the distressed fishing vessel it was sent to assist.
As KCAW’s Robert Woolsey reports, the two brothers aboard the Lydia Marie played a critical role in the rescue of the downed air crew.
Logan Padgett is the captain of the Lydia Marie, a 44-foot wooden troller based in Wrangell. The Lydia Marie began taking on water around 8 p.m. Monday in the rough seas of Frederick Sound when Padgett sent out a mayday, and steered for the protected northern shore of Read Island in Farragut Bay.
The helicopter launched from Air Station Sitka and made the 81-mile trip to Read Island by 10:15. Padgett spoke to the air crew by radio, letting them know that the flooding was under control.
Then something went wrong.
“Well, it was it was dark,” Padgett explained. “So we were just looking at the helicopter lights and there wasn’t really much to see. But we could hear the rotors one second, and then loud crash the next. Then silence.”
Padgett turned on the Lydia Marie’s crab lights. He and his younger brother rowed ashore and met one of the helicopter’s pilots on the beach, near where the aircraft had come to rest, inverted among some trees. He brought the pilot a handheld VHF radio which he used to call for additional help.
Padgett says it did not feel strange that he was now the one coming to the aid of the Coast Guard.
“It’s just people helping people at that point,” he said.
Padgett says he knows nothing about helicopters, or what might have caused the accident. As a mariner, he does know the weather, and it was not a good night.
“I know that visibility was terrible,” he said. “And the gusts of wind were terrible. And it was just really bad flying conditions.”
In all, Padgett says he and his brother spent five or six hours on the beach at Read Island helping the air crew. They brought them sleeping bags from the Lydia Marie, they used their radios to communicate with Petersburg responders, and state troopers. Another helicopter from Air Station Sitka arrived to take the crew to safety. Shortly after daybreak, the cutter Elderberry came to escort the Lydia Marie at eight in the morning.
Asked if he’ll carry any particular memory of the events with him, Padgett said, “It was just kind of all one long, cold night.”
