Sunday, September 23, 2007
Steve's "Otter Of The Week"!......by Karl E. Hayes
This afternoon as I finished hauling the day's "moose hunters" out to "the bush", I headed back to Base at 75' AGL. I love seeing the ground up close, rivers, creeks, moose, swamps, birds, old Trapper Cabins, etc.. The higher you fly, the less you see. Anyways, the "fermented oatmeal" in my "skull" always "burbles" as I fly along, enjoying the scenery "up close", and I remembered an incident from what I figured was the early 1990s that had "stuck in my brain". I always wondered what became of "that Otter". So, tonight, I checked with Karl.................
All information is from Karl Hayes' "masterful" CD entitled:
De Havilland Canada
DHC-3 OTTER
A HISTORY
CONTACT KARL, CD PRICING and ORDERING INFO - De Havilland DHC-3 OTTER - A HISTORY by Karl E. Hayes
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Otter 326
Otter 326 was delivered to the United States Army on 29th April 1959 with serial 58-1710 (tail number 81710). It was assigned to the 18th Aviation Company, Fort Riley, Kansas and deployed to Vietnam with the Company during January 1962. It continued to fly for the 18th Aviation Company until May 1966 when it was returned to the United States for depot level overhaul at the ARADMAC Depot, Corpus Christi, Texas. On completion of this work in July '66, the Otter returned to Vietnam, joining the 2nd Signal Group based at Tan Son Nhut. It flew for the Headquarters Company, 1st Signal Brigade. The Brigade had an aviation detachment which operated eight UH-1 Huey helicopters, four Beavers and, in 1966, two Otters 81710 and 92225, which were used to transport troops and their equipment. 81710 was named 'Handy Capp' and 92225 the 'Red Baron'.
An incident involving 81710 was recorded in October 1966, in the course of a mission flown out of Tan Son Nhut over the southern part of the country. As Terry Love recalls: “As we were returning, we started to lose power. It soon became evident that we would not make it all the way back to Tan Son Nhut, so we started to look for a place to put it down. As we neared Saigon from the south west, there are not a lot of spots to land an Otter but luckily we found one. It was Phu Tho horse racing track in the Cholon District. It had a beautiful grass infield where we put the Otter down safely. We called our support and they flew out from the heliport at Tan Son Nhut with a repair crew. The problem was oil-fouled spark plugs. They were changed and the Otter was ready to go. It was an interesting take off in waist high grass with the propeller making a wonderful grass mowing machine. Anyway, we made it back to Tan Son Nhut in fine shape”.
81710 continued to fly for the Brigade until June 1968, when it was handed over to the 388th Transportation Company, Vung Tau to be prepared for shipment home. It arrived at the Sharpe Army Depot, Stockton, California in December 1968 and was in store there until deleted from the inventory in June '69 and put up for disposal as military surplus. It was imported into Canada in July 1971 and first registered in the name of E.C.Braithwaite & Son Ltd of Campbell River, BC, as CF-QRI on 25th April 1972 by which stage the Otter had been refurbished and converted to a civilian aircraft. On the same day it was registered to Trans Mountain Air Services Ltd of Campbell River and entered service with that company, based at Campbell River on Vancouver Island. This was a forest industry company which used the Otter, two Beavers and some single Cessnas to provide transport for its own needs, flying its personnel to lumber camps.
There was a change of name on 3rd August 1976 to Gulf Air Services Ltd, at which stage the company commenced commercial services for the public, and then another name change to Gulf Air Aviation Ltd on 18th January 1979. All the while the Otter was serving the Pacific Coast from its Campbell River base. It flew for Alert Bay Air Services during the summer of 1978, a company which Gulf Air had taken over that year, and then back to Gulf Air Aviation Ltd, which became part of Air BC Ltd, to whom the Otter was registered as C-FQRI on 9th December 1980. The Otter was badly damaged when a fire erupted as it started up at Port Hardy on 22nd January 1982. At that stage, the Otter was still painted in Gulf Air colours. The wings were taken off and it was trucked to Kimba Air Services at Calgary for repair. It emerged from the Kimba hangar in Calgary during May 1982, looking pristine in full Air BC colour scheme and re-entered service based out of Port Hardy the following month.
QRI continued to fly for Air BC until it was sold to Harbour Air Ltd of Vancouver in March 1985. Air BC titles were removed from the aircraft on 21st March at Vancouver, but the Otter would fly for its new owners in basic Air BC colour scheme until repainted in full Harbour Air scheme some months later. It was registered to Harbour Air in April 1985. An incident was recorded on 26th September 1987 while taking off from Vancouver on floats. Shortly after take off, the engine started running rough and then stopped. A forced landing was carried out, but there was no damage and the Otter was soon in service again.
The Otter continued flying for Harbour Air until an accident on 8th May 1991 at Cameron Lake, near Port Alberni on Vancouver Island. To quote from the accident report: “The pilot of the single Otter with ten passengers on board was on a VFR flight from Vancouver to Tofino. He made several attempts to proceed west across Vancouver Island via preferred VFR routes. However, low ceilings prevented him from continuing westbound through the mountain passes. The flight was continued south toward Cameron Lake between two mountains. However, due to wind conditions and terrain proximity, the pilot decided to turn around. He entered a steep downwind left turn nearing the completion of which the aircraft settled into the trees. Except for the wings, which separated on contact with the trees, the aircraft remained largely intact. Four passengers were seriously injured. The aircraft was substantially damaged.”
The Otter was on charter to a film company from Los Angeles, and was carrying a film crew to Tofino for the day, to scout locations for a movie to be called, somewhat aptly, “Season of Fear”. According to a newspaper report: “The plane narrowly missed several tall tree snags and slid sideways along the mountain, shearing off its wings and tail, before coming to a precarious rest on the side of a fifty degree slope, at the 427 metre level of the mountainside”. As luck would have it, a 442 (Rescue) Squadron Labrador helicopter was in the area on a training detail from its base at Comox. It picked up the ELT signal from the downed Otter, and the occupants of the Otter were rescued within twenty minutes of the crash, much to their amazement. Due to their injuries, five of the survivors were airlifted from the site by stretcher and then taken to hospital in Comox. The Labrador then returned to the site, and managed to land on a flat part of the mountain five minutes walk from the crash site. The other six survivors managed to walk to the landing site and were also taken by the Labrador to Comox.
That accident brought to an end nearly twenty years service for QRI along the Pacific Coast. The wreck was taken first to Harbour Air's Vancouver base, and subsequently to Kenmore Air Harbor, Seattle, where it was noted in March 1993. It was purchased from the insurers by James B. Hayton and was trucked to his facility at Sedro Woolley, Washington, to the north of Seattle. The registration C-FQRI was cancelled on 22nd April 1993 “on export to the United States”. Mr Hayton's company, North Sound Aviation Inc, repairs and rebuilds DHC aircraft and the wrecked Otter was dumped in the long grass beside his hangar, alongside many more wrecked Beavers and Otters, awaiting eventual rebuild. It was still there ten years later.
- by Karl E. Hayes
---------------------------------------------------------------------
"Yup", that is the Otter incident I remembered. I wonder if she will ever "return to the skies........?"
CONTACT KARL, CD PRICING and ORDERING INFO - De Havilland DHC-3 OTTER - A HISTORY by Karl E. Hayes
All information is from Karl Hayes' "masterful" CD entitled:
De Havilland Canada
DHC-3 OTTER
A HISTORY
CONTACT KARL, CD PRICING and ORDERING INFO - De Havilland DHC-3 OTTER - A HISTORY by Karl E. Hayes
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Otter 326
Otter 326 was delivered to the United States Army on 29th April 1959 with serial 58-1710 (tail number 81710). It was assigned to the 18th Aviation Company, Fort Riley, Kansas and deployed to Vietnam with the Company during January 1962. It continued to fly for the 18th Aviation Company until May 1966 when it was returned to the United States for depot level overhaul at the ARADMAC Depot, Corpus Christi, Texas. On completion of this work in July '66, the Otter returned to Vietnam, joining the 2nd Signal Group based at Tan Son Nhut. It flew for the Headquarters Company, 1st Signal Brigade. The Brigade had an aviation detachment which operated eight UH-1 Huey helicopters, four Beavers and, in 1966, two Otters 81710 and 92225, which were used to transport troops and their equipment. 81710 was named 'Handy Capp' and 92225 the 'Red Baron'.
An incident involving 81710 was recorded in October 1966, in the course of a mission flown out of Tan Son Nhut over the southern part of the country. As Terry Love recalls: “As we were returning, we started to lose power. It soon became evident that we would not make it all the way back to Tan Son Nhut, so we started to look for a place to put it down. As we neared Saigon from the south west, there are not a lot of spots to land an Otter but luckily we found one. It was Phu Tho horse racing track in the Cholon District. It had a beautiful grass infield where we put the Otter down safely. We called our support and they flew out from the heliport at Tan Son Nhut with a repair crew. The problem was oil-fouled spark plugs. They were changed and the Otter was ready to go. It was an interesting take off in waist high grass with the propeller making a wonderful grass mowing machine. Anyway, we made it back to Tan Son Nhut in fine shape”.
81710 continued to fly for the Brigade until June 1968, when it was handed over to the 388th Transportation Company, Vung Tau to be prepared for shipment home. It arrived at the Sharpe Army Depot, Stockton, California in December 1968 and was in store there until deleted from the inventory in June '69 and put up for disposal as military surplus. It was imported into Canada in July 1971 and first registered in the name of E.C.Braithwaite & Son Ltd of Campbell River, BC, as CF-QRI on 25th April 1972 by which stage the Otter had been refurbished and converted to a civilian aircraft. On the same day it was registered to Trans Mountain Air Services Ltd of Campbell River and entered service with that company, based at Campbell River on Vancouver Island. This was a forest industry company which used the Otter, two Beavers and some single Cessnas to provide transport for its own needs, flying its personnel to lumber camps.
There was a change of name on 3rd August 1976 to Gulf Air Services Ltd, at which stage the company commenced commercial services for the public, and then another name change to Gulf Air Aviation Ltd on 18th January 1979. All the while the Otter was serving the Pacific Coast from its Campbell River base. It flew for Alert Bay Air Services during the summer of 1978, a company which Gulf Air had taken over that year, and then back to Gulf Air Aviation Ltd, which became part of Air BC Ltd, to whom the Otter was registered as C-FQRI on 9th December 1980. The Otter was badly damaged when a fire erupted as it started up at Port Hardy on 22nd January 1982. At that stage, the Otter was still painted in Gulf Air colours. The wings were taken off and it was trucked to Kimba Air Services at Calgary for repair. It emerged from the Kimba hangar in Calgary during May 1982, looking pristine in full Air BC colour scheme and re-entered service based out of Port Hardy the following month.
QRI continued to fly for Air BC until it was sold to Harbour Air Ltd of Vancouver in March 1985. Air BC titles were removed from the aircraft on 21st March at Vancouver, but the Otter would fly for its new owners in basic Air BC colour scheme until repainted in full Harbour Air scheme some months later. It was registered to Harbour Air in April 1985. An incident was recorded on 26th September 1987 while taking off from Vancouver on floats. Shortly after take off, the engine started running rough and then stopped. A forced landing was carried out, but there was no damage and the Otter was soon in service again.
The Otter continued flying for Harbour Air until an accident on 8th May 1991 at Cameron Lake, near Port Alberni on Vancouver Island. To quote from the accident report: “The pilot of the single Otter with ten passengers on board was on a VFR flight from Vancouver to Tofino. He made several attempts to proceed west across Vancouver Island via preferred VFR routes. However, low ceilings prevented him from continuing westbound through the mountain passes. The flight was continued south toward Cameron Lake between two mountains. However, due to wind conditions and terrain proximity, the pilot decided to turn around. He entered a steep downwind left turn nearing the completion of which the aircraft settled into the trees. Except for the wings, which separated on contact with the trees, the aircraft remained largely intact. Four passengers were seriously injured. The aircraft was substantially damaged.”
The Otter was on charter to a film company from Los Angeles, and was carrying a film crew to Tofino for the day, to scout locations for a movie to be called, somewhat aptly, “Season of Fear”. According to a newspaper report: “The plane narrowly missed several tall tree snags and slid sideways along the mountain, shearing off its wings and tail, before coming to a precarious rest on the side of a fifty degree slope, at the 427 metre level of the mountainside”. As luck would have it, a 442 (Rescue) Squadron Labrador helicopter was in the area on a training detail from its base at Comox. It picked up the ELT signal from the downed Otter, and the occupants of the Otter were rescued within twenty minutes of the crash, much to their amazement. Due to their injuries, five of the survivors were airlifted from the site by stretcher and then taken to hospital in Comox. The Labrador then returned to the site, and managed to land on a flat part of the mountain five minutes walk from the crash site. The other six survivors managed to walk to the landing site and were also taken by the Labrador to Comox.
That accident brought to an end nearly twenty years service for QRI along the Pacific Coast. The wreck was taken first to Harbour Air's Vancouver base, and subsequently to Kenmore Air Harbor, Seattle, where it was noted in March 1993. It was purchased from the insurers by James B. Hayton and was trucked to his facility at Sedro Woolley, Washington, to the north of Seattle. The registration C-FQRI was cancelled on 22nd April 1993 “on export to the United States”. Mr Hayton's company, North Sound Aviation Inc, repairs and rebuilds DHC aircraft and the wrecked Otter was dumped in the long grass beside his hangar, alongside many more wrecked Beavers and Otters, awaiting eventual rebuild. It was still there ten years later.
- by Karl E. Hayes
---------------------------------------------------------------------
"Yup", that is the Otter incident I remembered. I wonder if she will ever "return to the skies........?"
CONTACT KARL, CD PRICING and ORDERING INFO - De Havilland DHC-3 OTTER - A HISTORY by Karl E. Hayes
